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Personally I love the idea of authors earning more for their efforts, I think that's great, but there are so many unintended (by consumers, anyway) costs of Ama
by cnunciato 17y ago
Personally I love the idea of authors earning more for their efforts, I think that's great, but there are so many unintended (by consumers, anyway) costs of Amazon using its reach for this kind of thing -- publishers get squeezed, so they produce fewer books, bookstores get squeezed, so more of them close up shop, commerce flows ever more directly to Amazon, choice gets limited... I just don't like it. I buy a ton of stuff from Amazon, but I'm starting to think maybe that's such a great thing anymore, in the long run.
- iron_ball 17y agoYour comment was gray when I saw it, so I restored it to >0, but I disagree. This move makes it easier for authors to get their product into readers' hands, gives them a better cut than the publishing industry generally did, and provides better value for the user. Amazon can't cause "less choice," because for one thing, they have effectively unlimited inventory; and for another, if there's an untapped demand, a competitor will arise. Sure, nobody else can publish to Kindle, but the next few generations of smartphones, netbooks, and possibly tablets are very likely to make that a nonissue.
- petercooper 17y agoSure, nobody else can publish to Kindle That's not true, is it? I'm sure I've seen publishers like Pragmatic Programmers selling Kindle stuff that doesn't go through Amazon. I don't have a Kindle though, so I'm not going to state this with 100% confidence ;-)
- throw_away 17y agothis is true. pp's technical books actually look better on the kindle than amazon's.
- shawndumas 17y agoThey do indeed. I have a number of titles in epub format from them.