New Story Drops Tomorrow! Plus, Amazon Stuff! · 4:22pm Jul 30th, 2014
Yep, the title here pretty much sums it up. Tomorrow I'll be dropping a one-shot I wrote while I was on my vacation, a Discord-centered story called "Why Me?"
What's that, you say? Discord?
Yeah, you read that right. I wrote a Discord story, and had an absolute blast doing it. It's short, sweet, and utterly mad. If metaphor that isn't metaphor isn't your thing, this story will make your eyeballs bleed. Then again, any story from Discord's perspective that doesn't abuse the narrative format isn't doing its job.
Anyway, look for that tomorrow. I was going to hold it until Friday, but I figured I'd give Thursday some love. Let Thursday be a day of joy like Friday is!
So, about that Amazon stuff.
For those of you who following publishing battles (ie, almost no one), Amazon's been fighting a sales battle with Hachette, a publisher that's made use of everything in its pockets, including Stephen Colbert, to try and accuse Amazon of being a big bully that's trying to force Hachette to lower its prices on E-books. Mean, mean, Amazon. Getting in the way of a publishers money. Why, according to Hachette with their #CutDowntheAmazon hashtag, Amazon is just full of evil, corporate greed, trying to make as many oodles of money (what exactly is an oodle, anyway?) as they can at poor Hachette's expense.
If you're buying any of this, ask me about this bridge in Brooklyn I have a lease to.
Meanwhile, Amazon, for the most part, has been silent about all of these accusations. Up until yesterday, at which point they made a small post concerning this whole thing on their Kindle blog. You can find it here, but here are a few of the highlights:
—Amazon wants a 30% sales cut for being the e-book retailer. 30%, as they point out, is actually the number that they were forced to take during the illegal collusion of publishers and Apple that happened a few years ago (of which Hachette was a part), meaning that Amazon is taking the cut that Hachette illegally forced on them in the first place.
—Amazon would like to see that remaining 70% be split evenly between the author and publisher, but is very aware that this is not happening. The author is getting a very small space of the pie, and Hachette is taking most of it. They agree that they have no say in it, but point out that they would like to see the author actually get paid.
—Hachette is trying to fix e-books in a range on the upward end of $14.99 to $19.99, which is completely ridiculous. Not only does that mean that the e-book is costing more than the paperback (and there's plenty of "what?" with that observation), but Amazon's sales research has shown that you actually sell a lot less once you move past the $9.99 price point. Enough that if you sell the same book at $19.99 and $9.99, the $9.99 version sells so many more copies that even that lower price point, it makes more money. Hachette knows this, but either doesn't comprehend it or actually does want the e-book market to fail. This is the equivalent of a record company charging $20 for the CD and $35 for the MP3 download.
All in all, I think that they've made some good points. I think I know where I'm going to toss my vote on this one. On one side, the publisher who was part of a collusion to illegally fix prices and jack the e-book market completely up, on the other the company that made e-books a big thing in the first place (while the publishers booed). Yeah, I know where I sit here.
Anyway, just an update on that for those interested. Be on the lookout for that new story tomorrow!
Nice to see the update to a new story, and figures that this corporate idiot is so set in the past they will do everything to change it. More and more, it comes across that corporate nature means you can fully believe they are a complete waste of oxygen, carbon, and other assorted minerals and be right 11 of 10 ten times.
Now I'm eager to see Amazon open their own publishing house division, and act as a publisher themselves. (Good for them, too -- then they don't have to pay 30% to anybody.)
Though... business is business.
I bet if Amazon did open their own publishing house, their desire to see profits evenly split with authors would mysteriously evaporate under the pressure of 'we could make a lot more money if we paid authors less'.
Thanks for the perspective! I'll be linking to this blog.
2329012
Amazon does have a publishing imprint! Rather than going forward "knowing" how the current revolution in publishing is going to shake out, they are experimenting with all sorts of different models.
2329012
Well, Amazon technically is a publishing house. Just one with an open invitation that puts the responsibility for most things like advertising and editing on the writer, not the publisher. Technically, they're my publisher, as well as the publisher for a lot of other people, and they still offer that 70% cut as long as you're selling with them.
Now, yes, they do take a 70% cut and give you a 30% cut if you're selling elsewhere, but that's technically more open than the rest of the industry (where you sell with one publisher and one publisher only).
If they took a sharp turn to evil I'd be worried, but right now they seem more concerned with giving the author his dues.
2329064
But that's e-books only, right? Amazon doesn't print anything, do they?
2329068
They do, actually. They run a service called Createspace that they use to both sell paperback copies of books on their site and to act as a book publisher for small print presses. If I went through all the legwork, I could have physical editions of One Drink and Dead Silver out there. Right now there's not enough sales to make it worth it, though.
2329068
Well, self-publishing is a gray area, but Amazon does own Create Space which enables people to create and sell physical books (and CDs and DVDs) which are then linked to Amazon's sales site.
My wife is in an interesting situation where she has a book that sold the e-rights but not the physical rights, so she created an on-demand edition for people that wanted a hard copy. They're linked together even though the sales are completely separate.
The important thing to note about this is that Amazon is just fine with this arrangement. They're not trying to force things into a rigid model; they're going with whatever people want. That's enlightened thinking, IMHO.
Staying quiet while being railed on never bodes well for the accused in terms of reputation, but we shall see how this turns out. Maybe Hatchette might change once they see a lack of sales from their e-products.
Can't wait to read the new... Discord... Story... wait-a-minute...
2329235
Don't worry, you can read it again.
And staying silent in the face of accusation can mean many things. Sometimes it means that the accusations have struck home, but other times it's just a sign that the accused doesn't believe that the argument is even worth getting into.
2329240
From the two prior experiences I have seen so far, I have my doubts.
First one was when Hasbro took down the Mane6 "Fighting is Magic" project. Everyone kinda knew it would eventually come to this, especially after it got featured in the EVO contest. But for them not to say anything for a while brought about a lot of negative feelings.
Another incident was about Digital EXtremes of Warframe fame having some sort of dealing with Perfect World Entertainment, a foreign company known negatively for ruining several budding MMOs. To say the people panicked would be putting it lightly.
2329102
Aye, and I can appreciate that.