May
10th
2017
Fisking an Anti-Amazon Article From the New Republic · 8:50pm May 10th, 2017
Oh boy. I woke up this morning to see this article on the front page of r/books, and you know … I’ve never fisked anything … but this piece couldn’t be ignored. For those not in the know, a “fisking” is when someone replies point by point to the salient points of an article, offering a piece by piece rebuttal. I’ll let you read the original article first, so you can get it in your mind, but it’s just part of the continuing—You know what? You be the judge. Read the article, then check this rebuttal.
The quoted article bits are both quoted and italicized. My responses are the normal text.
So, let’s get started.
Actually, you've got to jump to Unusual Things to read this. It's a butt-load of formatting to replicate.
Yea, I ain't surprised, really. With the release of eBooks and digital stores "Classical" publishers have to change or fall behind due to advances in technology.
I'm more surprised it took this long.
Honestly, the more interesting question in my mind is how long before big corporations get cut out entirely. Music is rapidly moving to sites like Soundcloud, and I'd expect books to follow a similar model in the future as well.
Using yourself as an example, you might be better served using a combination of writing sites like this one to gain attention and funding sites like Patreon to get income than trying to deal with Amazon at all, possibly using some kind of "pay what you feel is appropriate" model for the books since there are plenty of people who will pay significantly more than the "normal" retail for something if they feel the creator deserves the extra money.
Just finished reading the main article. I needed a good laugh, even if it was a somewhat bitter one.
Now on to read the article's well-earned fisking...
Thank you. At least I had something to laugh about.
I think I'm going to ask a certain german Publsiehr next month when we meet again at NordCon how he thinnks about that. If I remember to do so that is...(I'll most likely just help him set up shop and then vanish to play BattleTech.)