Can eBook Sellers Control the Market?
By Jerry D. Simmons | April 26th, 2010 | No Comments » (Click to add yours!)
It would be a momentous leap from where we are today to a point where Apple and Amazon or any other online seller of digital content might possibly be in control of the bookselling market. Certainly anything is possible, but in this case not likely. Amazon has been working toward vertical integration from some time. They want to control all content by turning themselves into a publisher who can distribute and sell products to consumers without the need for outside assistance of any kind. That scenario is not only possible but could happen at some point but creating a dominant position capable of controlling the publishing market is a stretch.
Apple on the other hand doesn’t seem interested in controlling the publishing market, they simply want to be the best at what they do and create products that consumers want to buy. Producing electronic devices that consumer’s want places Apple in a position of supplying both the device as well as the content that goes into it, such as music for the iPod and eBooks for the iPad. The big publishers in New York are still in control and even though they are at the mercy of booksellers who distribute and sell their products they ultimately control the flow of content which in turn the booksellers must have to be profitable. It is doubtful that Amazon or Apple if they wanted could duplicate the process that book publishers have mastered over eighty years.
Tags: Book Distribution, Book Marketing, Book Publishing, Book Sales, Booksellers, eBook, Hybrid Publishing Model
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