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Amazon growing a digital repository by stealth?
September 20, 2009 | 8:48 am
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By Paul Biba
That’s what Martyn Daniels, of Brave New World, is thinking. He notes that Amazon now wants all new titles to be put into its "Search Inside the Book" program a few weeks before publication. On its face, he says this seems sensible—but:
Well to Search inside the Book would be asking all publishers to upload the PDF of the title. Not part of the book but the book and probably a full text searchable PDF which they should have at that stage. That is principle is a heartbeat away from an ebook in many flavours and why not let Amazon convert it to a full ebook for free as part of the deal. Obviously the rendition of the digital ebook would be effectively exclusive to Amazon, and others would have to pay to convert it again but Amazon could kill two birds with one stone and get ebooks available on the release date and also get marketing usage of them in advance of publication.
Now we may well be jumping the gun and making two and two equal 5 but it certainly makes a lot of sense to us.
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e-book, e-books, ebook, ebooks, Paul Biba, publishing, TeleRead
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Comments:
So why does this surprise anyone? Amazon is not a friend to either the publishing industry or the reading consumer — never has been and never will be. There is nothing wrong with Amazon’s business approach; I just choose not to help Amazon reach its dominance goals. Think about where we as a people will be should Amazon reach its goals.
What does surprise me, however, is that Amazon has set its sights so low. A sixth of the U.S. economy is in healthcare; if I wanted to dominate a money-making industry, that is the one I would try for. Guess it just goes to prove that Bezos ain’t so smart — he’s trying to dominate a declining industry (publishing) rather than a growing industry (healthcare). Will shareholders rebel? Will Mitch MConnell suggest that we turn administration of the VA medical system over to Amazon? Stay tuned for the continuing saga of “Mighty Jeff Bezos.”
I mentioned this on Twitter, Facebook, and a small publishers’ list when I first heard about it, and the silence was deafening. I’m really surprised that others don’t see this move the way you and I do, Paul: Amazon is trying to out-Google Google.