Authors Guild Says DOJ Action – “Will Harm Readers in the Long Run”
From Digital Book World by Richard Curtis:
Paul Aiken, Executive Director of the Authors Guild, has issued an open letter to the chief of litigation in the Department of Justice’s antitrust division, expressing its opposition to the DOJ’s proposed settlement of the price-fixing charges against Apple and several major publishers. We reproduce it in full below.
Richard Curtis
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Feel free to forward or comment. Here it is at our blog: Guild’s Tunney Act Filing to the DOJ
The Guild does not support the DOJ’s proposed e-book settlement. We believe it will allow Amazon to resume its predatory pricing practices, discouraging competition in the e-book marketplace. We thank those who have sent their comments on the settlement to the DOJ. Here is the Guild’s Tunney Act filing:
….
I’m writing to express the Authors Guild’s firm belief that the proposed settlement of the Justice Department’s lawsuit alleging that five publishers and Apple colluded to introduce agency pricing to the e-book market is not in the public interest. The settlement is flawed by an astonishing provision, specifically requiring three large publishers to allow e-book vendors to routinely sell e-books at below cost, so long as the vendors don’t lose money over the publisher’s entire list of e-books over the course of a year.
…by allowing targeted predatory pricing of e-books, would give governmental sanction to a practice long considered destructive to a free and fair market. It was precisely this practice – selling frontlist e-books at below cost to discourage and destroy competition – that helped Amazon capture a commanding 90% of the U.S. e-book market. Agency pricing, which the Justice Department believes was introduced through collusion, has allowed Amazon’s competitors to gain a foothold, driving Amazon’s market share down to 60% in two years….
The proposed settlement will almost certainly backfire and harm readers in the long run….
The Justice Department’s assessment of the literary market offers but a pinhole glimpse of the genuine competitive landscape. Its competitive impact statement fails to discuss the relationship between the print book market and the e-book market, for example, or the critical distinctions between the online book market and the brick-and-mortar market. Most importantly, it fails to mention Amazon’s monopolistic reach and reflexive anticompetitive habits, the dominant features of the current competitive landscape….
There simply is no growing segment of the book market that Amazon doesn’t dominate.
Even more troubling is the competitive impact statement’s failure to discuss how Amazon uses its command of the online book market and its deep pool of capital to undermine competition….
I’m not going to reproduce the entire LENGTHY letter here. You are very highly encouraged to go read the entire thing at either Digital Book World or at The Authors Guild
You are also highly encouraged to make sure you’re up to date on your blood pressure medicine before clicking the links.
The Authors Guild has made previous comment on this suit as discussed here on The Passive Voice blog. Today it’s about their official filing.
As most of you know, PG is enjoying his vacation and is not here to chime in. I think he’d have a lot to say about this one, but then again, I’m sure all of you have something to say as well.
~contributed by guest bloggers William Ockham and Kat Sheridan
, Amazon will pay Passive Guy a small affiliate commission on any of your purchases.
If you read the entire letter (and you must) you will note it’s not so much readers the Guild is defending. It’s pretty much a screed against Amazon.
I’ve got a doctor’s excuse for not reading it.
Not that I have high blood pressure — it’s normally low — but just what I read here is insane enough to know the whole thing is cardiologically dangerous.
Screed, I think, is the right word. It sounds like it is dripping with High Dudgeon, and high dudgeon is a phenomenally useless waste of energy that does no one any good ever.
I don’t know. I have notoriously super low blood pressure. I use Authors’ Guild letters to correct it – best medicine ever!
My first, last, and only post on the AG site:
“My God, I can’t wait until this guild is obsolete. As out of touch, ill-informed, hypocritical, and self-serving as its leadership is, it shouldn’t be too long.”
Liar! I see that post #2…..
Busted! I couldn’t stop myself after I saw that PublishAmerica thing.
And I just posted again. I’m a refried liar.
Perhaps it’s time for the Authors Guild to change their name to the Publishing Conglomerates Guild.
They’d just be acknowledging the truth.
The leter says:
So Amazon turned to aggressive tactics to win market share, reportedly removing the buy buttons from all iUniverse titles during the 2008 AWP conference. Author Solutions, which had acquired iUniverse, saw its sales plummet. It quickly agreed to use BookSurge for its Amazon sales, and Amazon restored access to its millions of customers.
According to Preditors and Editors, Author Solutions is a “to be avoided” vanity press. Isn’t it the job of Author’s Guild to defend authors against companies like that, instead of using them as an example of a poor little injured party????
OK, so maybe I should have gone with my first instincts and gone ahead and had that bourbon for breakfast.
OK, head just exploded. Amazon’s vertical integration of on-demand printing eliminated the ability of iUniverse, PublishAmerica, XLibris and others to offer authors better royalties when selling through Amazon. CreateSpace appears to have thrived ever since.
The day Authors Guild is using known vanity presses to make its point–presses notoriously injurious to authors–is the day they lose ALL credibility. Forever.
I just saw that, too. At least we don’t have to wonder where authors really stand with “their” guild anymore.
PublishAmerica? The very firm that has a class-action suit against it on behalf of the authors it has ripped off?
Wow. Just… wow.
Siding with the jackal against the lion…
As a reader, I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to be harmed by not being able to access *literature* from *authors* too naive to research PublishAmerica before they sign their contract.
I couldn’t believe this when I read it. The more I think about it, the more mad I get. Seriously? PublishAmerica? Are the Authors Guild that desperate to tar Amazon that they will roll out PublishAmerica as a victim? You are going to take their side? Really? Are you serious?
Yeah, that was pretty much my reaction as well. My head pretty much exploded.
Paging Mr. Konrath…
I sense we might have to wait. It’s going to take some time for him to stop shaking on the floor. Maybe when the vomit reflex back up is released, he will reach the keyboard. Given he’d still shaking from rage, it might be tough typing. Still, I’m expecting a lynching.
” that Amazon held 90% of the market for trade e-books prior to the introduction of the agency model in 2010, and that its e-book market share still stands at roughly 60%”
I love that, for all the wrong reasons. Mainly nothing to back it up. It could be total coincidence or maybe it had more to do with:
1. The iPad and the iBookstore was introduced.
2. Nook became more competitive with better e-readers and tablets.
Let me also use their logic without any data to back it up.
Since the Agency Model was introduced the Texas Rangers have gone to the World Series twice. So it must therefore follow that the Agency model is obviously constricting the parity of the American League and must be done away with.
Okay, I just re-read their statement I quoted again and now I am even more confused. Are they saying the Agaency model is responsible for Amazon dropping from 90% to 60% or are they saying that 60% is still too much?
I think they’re probably saying both.
As a Rangers fan, I must take issue with your last sentence, Tom.
I think the Guild just shut off commenting on their post. Too many angry readers making their opinions known?
: /
And the letter is utter madness. Konrath doesn’t need to respond to it. Consumers just need to be allowed to read it.
B.
Nevermind. Looks like the comments are back up again in a different format.
Fortunately, they can’t shut off all the comments in all the places, like here.
The following invalidates everything they are saying:
No, the DOJ, if my memory serves me correctly, never said it was because they colluded to introduce agency pricing. They are charged with colluding to introduce agency pricing with the “favored nation” clause, giving them a monopoly like control over their own book prices, eliminating all competition (not just threatening), and then raising ebook prices they controlled to unreasonable levels, thereby hurting consumers.
Amazon had 90% starting out…wait for it…because they pioneered the first effective ebook reading platform that combined a good ereader with easy of a big supply and built in marketing. As others became competitive, Amazon’s market share dropped, in spite of agency pricing with the favored nation clause, not because of it.
And I predict you’ll see that Amazon won’t recapture 90% again without agency pricing, because that horse has already left the stall. Too many other players have entered the market, thanks to Amazon paving the way for them.
“No, the DOJ, if my memory serves me correctly, never said it was because they colluded to introduce agency pricing. They are charged with colluding to introduce agency pricing with the “favored nation” clause, giving them a monopoly like control over their own book prices, eliminating all competition (not just threatening), and then raising ebook prices they controlled to unreasonable levels, thereby hurting consumers.”
Correct. A littel detail that has repeatedly escaped the attention of the =Author’s= Guild and the Association of =Authors= Representatives. This lawsuit is NOT about agency pricing. And charging Apple+5 with “introducing agency pricing” would be patently absurd, since Amazon had been using agency pricing well before Apple launched iBooks. Hundreds of publishers and tens of thousands of self-publishing writers have been using agency-pricing models across multiple vendors sites for a number of years now.
I’d say that someone should explain this to the AG, except that the lobotomy that org has recently had (it certainly seems) clearly prevents them form being able to absord factual information.
The Author’s guild members must be published by an American publisher. I just assumed that excluded vanity publishers. If they accept people who are published by these vanity houses, then I guess they need to represent them.
I would think that the best way to show your displeasure is to withdraw your membership.
Man, I would have never, under any circumstances, joined the AG in the first place.
I never joined because it always seemed to me (whenever I considered joining) that the AG wasn’t focused on and had no interest in professional career writers. As a full-time commercial novelist, I never saw anything in the AG aimed at me. So I have belonged to NINC and SFWA for about 20 years each, but never joined to the AG.
Whenever I explored the AG’s site or their m’ship materials or looked at their activities, it always seemed to be an org aimed at a celebrity publishing a memoir, and an academic publishing a single volume of poetry, and a conservationist publishing a few wilderness guides via a specialty press. I know a wealthy socialite who’s an AG member who wrote a cookbook 15 years ago. And so on. That always struck me as the sort of m’ship the AG served. It never seemed to me an org aimed at the interests of career writers doing this book after book over the long haul of a full-time professional writing career.
Now it turns that the AG is actually a lobbyist for major publishing corporations. Who knew?
Laura Resnick:
Succintly stated. As a member of the Founding 25 of NINC and as a former Board member, I feel my needs continue to be served by their author advocacy. As for the AG, their self-serving behavior is profoundly disappointing to this veteran commercial fiction writer.
Laura Taylor
I thought these guys were supposed to represent authors, not publishers. Another great reason never to join.
“Its approach to destroying competition is sophisticated, data-driven, and endlessly creative.”
Yet surprisingly legal.
In other words: “Publishers are too stupid to compete with that and stupid people should be allowed a mulligan or ten.”
Jeez. These letters get more and more whiny, don’t they?
“Yet surprisingly legal.”
Oh, you NITPICKER, you.
Oh, come ON, folks! Where is your compassion for the AG?
I think this statement makes it quite clear that the Authors Guild is the victim of a tragic lobotomy mishap.
Surely they deserve our pity rather than our disagreement with their ludicrously unethical and inept screed (in which they have cast a vanity press which is being sued by writers as a noble underdog in need of the AG’s support, and the DoJ as a villain for prosecuting alleged antitrust violations by large conglomerates).
People, where is your sensitivity to this org which has obviously suffered devastating (and perhaps irreparable) damage to its ability to think or speak rationally?
You’re right. From now on, let us shake our heads and say, “Poor, poor pitiful guild” when discussing the Authors Guild. They need all the sympathy they can get, because I’m pretty sure judges don’t give two cents for whether the AG likes Amazon or not. They only want to hear about the legalities of the case.
Practice saying “Poor, poor pitiful guild” for when the judges rule. The guild will need it.
You’re right. I shall now search out and donate to a charity that helps victims of severe head trauma. That way I can be sure my money will mostly go to AG members.
I just reread the letter and have more questions. I saw this statement near the top
“The proposed settlement will almost certainly backfire and harm readers in the long run.”
I read the whole letter and nowhere did the Mr Aiken tie any of his complaints against Amazon back to how it would hurt the readers. Did I miss something?
In the same paragraph:
“The Justice Department has made clear that it intends to irreversibly reshape the literary market.”
If I am keeping up aren’t the settlement conditions only for 2 years? At the end of those two years can’t the publishers go back to the Agency Model as it stands now (minus the collusion and the favored nation clause)? Isn’t Random House allowed to continue with their Agency Agreement as is since they were not named in the suit?
Maybe Random House can use this to their advantage to poach authors. Sign with us. Amazon can’t discount our books!!
You didn’t miss it, Tom. I couldn’t find any tie back to reader injury, either. It’s like he got so lost in his diatribe against Amazon that he forgot his original point. Or just used “readers” as a word to hook them in. Like a bait and switch tactic.
You know, given the sheer drooling idiocy of the AG’s statements to date on this matter, topped off by this latest screed which advocates for a vanity press that’s being sued by the writers it has cheated…
You’d really think there’d come a point when Apple+5 would go to the AG and say, “Stop helping us. Please. No, really. STOP.”
I’m starting to think AG is putting these out just so Konrath and friends don’t have time to write actual books
You know, they should have sent this out as a paper letter. At least that way the backlash would be delayed or lessened. The Internet is the jungle and fluffy little multicolored house parrots don’t do well with the Gorillas (e-stores) and the poo flinging monkeys (authors). They obviously just wanted more poo. How brain damaged of them.
I read the comments. Looks like one person, at least, supports the letter’s writer.
“Now, now guys. The AG plays a valid role in today’s publishing environment. Sure in this post they accidentally used a poor example of an company under fire (I’m sure they aren’t really that bad. They’re just a vanity press after all and hardly a real publisher.)
Mr. Aikiene is just trying to get across that Amazon is trying to hurt readers and writers. I mean cheap pricing, free shipping and a huge selection make Amazon a huge monopoly and, you know what, that’s just not fair on publishers and authors. I mean I hear that Amazon is offering 70% royalties all the way upto $9.99. That’s like $8 per sale. How will publishers be able to exist like that? I got 7% on my last deal and it’s just not fair. I mean I know that my publisher has a lot of costs (rent in New York city, lots of staffs, marketing costs and returns, etc.), but they give back to me tenfold: I got a ad in the local paper and a few copies of my book. They sold really well on e-bay!
I guess what i’m saying is that, like the letter says, we need to give publishers their rights back (through the law if necessary). The government needs to do something about this today. Amazon and B&N and, oh yeah, Kobo (that store is trying to steal publishers international rights!) need to be regulated. I’m an author and I fully support the AG’s lobbying of the DoJ. I think the AG should join the suit too. They could advise legal council on what writers and readers want.
… this whole thing makes me too angry. I’m going to my local booksto… Oh, whoops, it closed down yesterday. Ah well, guess i’m off to Amazon. I wish there was a B&N in town, but Walmart out them out of business and they only sell James Patterson… not my favorite author if you know what I mean.”
Or not.
Surely the title of the post should read – The Authors Guild “Will Harm Readers in the Long Run”.
The spin about the “buy button removal campaign” is particularly nonsensical. Amazon and the publishers failed to reach an agreement, at which point Amazon no longer had the books to sell. What were they supposed to do? Keep a non-working buy button?
[...] time going through it all. I’ve dealt with most of these arguments already (and anyway, the commenters on The Passive Voice have done a pretty good job of dissecting the numerous fallacies, and there are a few zingers over [...]
I finally got a chance to respond to the Authors Guild’s letter. I focus mostly on their granting of victimhood to people like PublishAmerica and their links with iUniverse via their Back In Print program, which pushes writers towards a company with awful service records and terrible royalty rates: http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2012/07/02/the-authors-guild-doesnt-serve-writers/