{"id":652157,"date":"2013-04-12T11:35:40","date_gmt":"2013-04-12T15:35:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paidcontent.org\/?p=227584"},"modified":"2013-04-12T11:35:40","modified_gmt":"2013-04-12T15:35:40","slug":"amazon-ceo-bezos-in-shareholder-letter-authors-are-our-customers-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/652157","title":{"rendered":"Amazon CEO Bezos in shareholder letter: Authors are our customers, too"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Amazon released its <a href=\"http:\/\/phx.corporate-ir.net\/External.File?item=UGFyZW50SUQ9MTc5ODc3fENoaWxkSUQ9LTF8VHlwZT0z&#38;t=1\">2012 annual report<\/a> (PDF) Friday, and as usual it is accompanied by a <a href=\"http:\/\/phx.corporate-ir.net\/External.File?item=UGFyZW50SUQ9MTc5ODc4fENoaWxkSUQ9LTF8VHlwZT0z&#38;t=1\">letter to shareholders<\/a>\u00a0(PDF) from CEO Jeff Bezos. The letter focuses on the things that Amazon does to &#8220;improve our services, adding benefits and features, before we have to.&#8221; A few tidbits:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"line-height:13px;\">&#8220;Prime Instant Video selection tripled in just over a year to more than 38,000 movies and TV episodes.&#8221; Amazon got streaming exclusives this year on shows like\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/paidcontent.org\/2013\/02\/01\/sorry-netflix-and-hulu-amazon-gets-exclusive-streaming-rights-to-downton-abbey\/\"><em>Downton Abbey<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/paidcontent.org\/2013\/02\/26\/amazon-prime-instant-video-gets-exclusive-on-fxs-justified\/\"><em>Justified<\/em><\/a> and\u00a0<em><a href=\"http:\/\/paidcontent.org\/2013\/02\/11\/amazon-gets-its-first-in-season-streaming-exclusive-with-cbss-under-the-dome\/\">Under the Dome<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(which it will be streaming in-season).<br \/> <\/span><\/li>\n<li>The Kindle Owners&#8217; Lending Library now contains over 300,000 ebooks, nearly all of them self-published, though Bezos notes the company&#8217;s &#8220;investment of millions of dollars to make the entire Harry Potter series available as part of that selection.&#8221; (At the time of that deal, Pottermore CEO Charlie Redmayne <a href=\"http:\/\/paidcontent.org\/2012\/05\/10\/harry-potter-kindle-owners-lending-library\/\">said that the deal was large enough<\/a> that any lost sales were &#8220;more than made up for.&#8221;)<\/li>\n<li>The authors that Amazon Publishing works with are customers, too. Amazon <a href=\"http:\/\/paidcontent.org\/2013\/03\/18\/amazon-publishing-promises-authors-faster-royalty-payments\/\">recently announced<\/a> that it will start paying the authors in its publishing imprints royalties every 60 days (KDP authors are already paid that frequently). &#8220;The industry standard is twice a year, and that has been the standard for a long time. Yet when we interview authors as customers, infrequent payment is a major dissatisfier. Imagine how you\u2019d like it if you were paid twice a year. There isn\u2019t competitive pressure to pay authors more than once every six months, but we\u2019re proactively doing so.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Amazon Web Services is &#8220;a very clear example of internally driven motivation&#8230;we&#8217;ve reduced AWS prices 27 times since launching 7 years ago,&#8221; and with its <a href=\"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/2013\/03\/04\/lookout-below-amazon-offers-free-trial-of-trusted-advisor-monitoring-tool\/\">Trusted Advisor monitoring tool<\/a> &#8220;we are actively telling customers where they&#8217;re paying us more than they need to.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Bezos mentions an &#8220;industry observer&#8221; who, as Peter Kafka at AllThingsD points out, is <a href=\"http:\/\/allthingsd.com\/20130412\/henry-blodget-helps-jeff-bezos-out-with-some-writing\/\">actually Business Insider CEO Henry Blodget<\/a>. Bezos <a href=\"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/2013\/04\/05\/amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos-invests-in-business-insider-leading-5m-financing-round\/\">recently led a $5 million round of investment<\/a> in Business Insider.<\/li>\n<li>Another reminder to investors who fear Amazon&#8217;s &#8220;Our business approach is to sell premium\u00a0hardware at roughly breakeven prices&#8230;.We don&#8217;t need our customers to be on the upgrade treadmill.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As <a href=\"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/2013\/01\/29\/amazon-reports-increased-profits-and-ebook-sales-up-70-in-2012\/\">previously reported<\/a>, Amazon&#8217;s revenues in 2012 were $61.09 billion, up 27 percent from 2011.\u00a0Operating income fell to $676 million, from $862 million in 2011, and the company saw a net loss of $39 million, compared to net income of $631 million in 2011. Amazon is set to release its earnings for the first quarter of 2013 on April 25.<\/p>\n<p> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/stats.wordpress.com\/b.gif?host=gigaom.com&#038;blog=14960843&#038;%23038;post=630709&#038;%23038;subd=gigaom2&#038;%23038;ref=&#038;%23038;feed=1\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/pubads.g.doubleclick.net\/gampad\/jump?iu=\/1008864\/GigaOM_RSS_300x250&#038;sz=300x250&#038;%23038;c=199616\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/pubads.g.doubleclick.net\/gampad\/ad?iu=\/1008864\/GigaOM_RSS_300x250&#038;sz=300x250&#038;%23038;c=199616\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:<\/strong><br \/>Subscriber content. <a href=\"http:\/\/pro.gigaom.com\/?utm_source=media&#038;utm_medium=editorial&#038;utm_campaign=auto3&#038;utm_term=630709+amazon-ceo-bezos-in-shareholder-letter-authors-are-our-customers-too&#038;utm_content=laurahowen38\">Sign up for a free trial<\/a>.<\/p>\n<ul><\/ul>\n<p><img width='1' height='1' src='http:\/\/gigaom.feedsportal.com\/c\/34996\/f\/646446\/s\/2aa7b67b\/mf.gif' border='0'\/><\/p>\n<div class='mf-viral'>\n<table border='0'>\n<tr>\n<td valign='middle'><a href=\"http:\/\/share.feedsportal.com\/share\/twitter\/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fpaidcontent.org%2F2013%2F04%2F12%2Famazon-ceo-bezos-in-shareholder-letter-authors-are-our-customers-too%2F&#038;t=Amazon+CEO+Bezos+in+shareholder+letter%3A+Authors+are+our+customers%2C+too\" ><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/res3.feedsportal.com\/social\/twitter.png\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a>&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/share.feedsportal.com\/share\/facebook\/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fpaidcontent.org%2F2013%2F04%2F12%2Famazon-ceo-bezos-in-shareholder-letter-authors-are-our-customers-too%2F&#038;t=Amazon+CEO+Bezos+in+shareholder+letter%3A+Authors+are+our+customers%2C+too\" ><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/res3.feedsportal.com\/social\/facebook.png\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a>&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/share.feedsportal.com\/share\/linkedin\/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fpaidcontent.org%2F2013%2F04%2F12%2Famazon-ceo-bezos-in-shareholder-letter-authors-are-our-customers-too%2F&#038;t=Amazon+CEO+Bezos+in+shareholder+letter%3A+Authors+are+our+customers%2C+too\" ><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/res3.feedsportal.com\/social\/linkedin.png\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a>&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/share.feedsportal.com\/share\/gplus\/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fpaidcontent.org%2F2013%2F04%2F12%2Famazon-ceo-bezos-in-shareholder-letter-authors-are-our-customers-too%2F&#038;t=Amazon+CEO+Bezos+in+shareholder+letter%3A+Authors+are+our+customers%2C+too\" ><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/res3.feedsportal.com\/social\/googleplus.png\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a>&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/share.feedsportal.com\/share\/email\/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fpaidcontent.org%2F2013%2F04%2F12%2Famazon-ceo-bezos-in-shareholder-letter-authors-are-our-customers-too%2F&#038;t=Amazon+CEO+Bezos+in+shareholder+letter%3A+Authors+are+our+customers%2C+too\" ><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/res3.feedsportal.com\/social\/email.png\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td valign='middle'><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"feedflare\">\n<a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/OmMalik?a=4CemxH4Rld0:q0jvJuLxCiI:yIl2AUoC8zA\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/OmMalik?d=yIl2AUoC8zA\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/OmMalik\/~4\/4CemxH4Rld0\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Amazon released its 2012 annual report (PDF) Friday, and as usual it is accompanied by a letter to shareholders\u00a0(PDF) from CEO Jeff Bezos. The letter focuses on the things that Amazon does to &#8220;improve our services, adding benefits and features, before we have to.&#8221; A few tidbits: &#8220;Prime Instant Video selection tripled in just over [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7418,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-652157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7418"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652157\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}