Amazon's wish list

View this email in your browser The dispute between Amazon and the publisher Hachette is getting nastier. The companies are sparring over how to split the proceeds from book sales. George Packer reported earlier this year that large publishers currently give Amazon between 5% and 7% of gross sales. Amazon wants a bigger cut, particularly from ebook sales, and Hachette appears to want the status quo. Last week Amazon escalated the argument by delaying shipment or refusing to sell Hachette books to customers. When the dispute first surfaced on May 9, both parties seemed to want as little publicity as possible, but last night Amazon issued a statement saying it is simply negotiating with a supplier as any retailer would. Hachette says Amazon isn't just any retailer: it controls about a third of the US book market (Tyler Cowen quipped that Amazon's statement was an attempt "to justify its role as a private antitrust authority"). Amazon, however, counters with the fact that Hachette isn't just any publisher: it's part of the multi-billion dollar French media conglomerate Lagardère. Amazon's statement made sure to link to a post from Martin Shepard, who runs The Permanent Press, a small publisher. Shepard thinks that it's Amazon doing the trust busting by taking on one of just five publishers who together control 85% of the books sold in the US. "When one of the large publishing cartels complains they are being treated unfairly by Amazon," he says, "it's probably good for most all of the smaller, independent presses". PJ Voight thinks the fight is bad for Amazon: "It seems so bizarre and shortsighted for Amazon to remind everyone of its enormous power, and to demonstrate that it's willing to use it to hurt authors and publishers until they comply". To The Wire's Polly Mosendz, the controversy is a byproduct of the low prices customers have come to expect from Amazon: "How do you think Amazon manages to maintain such good deals and customer perks? They are master negotiators", she says. If the price is low and the shipping is fast, book buyers en masse won't care how the negotiations play out. Jack Shafer isn't the mass market, but he does care. He's done: By essentially banishing many Hachette titles from its stock, Amazon, which ordinarily puts its customers first, has put them last, telling them they can't buy certain titles from it for any price... Amazon doesn't owe me access to Hachette titles, and I don't owe Amazon my business. In other words, despite what it says, when Amazon negotiates with suppliers, it isn't doing it for customers. The imbroglio doesn't look like it's going to end anytime soon. Amazon suggests that anyone looking for Hachette titles simply shop somewhere else. That's unlikely to appease Hachette: to many in the publishing business, if a book isn't sold on Amazon, it might as well not exist. – Ben Walsh On to today's links: Finally... Apple buys Beats for $3 billion - WSJ EU Mess "Europe's elite needs to recall what the project is really about" - Paul Krugman Retro "Among academics, it has become fashionable to argue the virtues of the strange, incoherent Habsburg state" - Foreign Policy Your Daily Outrage "Reforming the IMF would be a more effective response to global inequality than protesting against someone who has sought to lessen that inequality" -  Dan Crawford Taxmageddon Ken Rogoff favors a one-off wealth tax - Guardian Technically Speaking Square issues debt: unsecured cash advances repaid with a percentage of future revenues - Wired  The Fed Narayana Kocherlakota's case for price level targeting - Carola Binder Primary Sources Christine Lagarde on "inclusive capitalism" (and also Marx) - IMF  Tech Apple's laptop, tablet, and cell phone prototypes from the 1980s - The Verge Interesting Piketty, reparations, and the power of compound interest - Squarely Rooted Click here to sign up for the email. unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences    Tweet Share Read Later