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Amazon is an old-fashioned monopolist. When dealing with these beasts they are your friend until it is more profitable for them not to be. JK Rowling does not

by epo 15y ago

Amazon is an old-fashioned monopolist. When dealing with these beasts they are your friend until it is more profitable for them not to be. JK Rowling does not require Amazon but Amazon will never produce another JK Rowling because they will not do the marketing and groundwork necessary. Authors are investing in their future when choosing commercial partners. By partnering with Amazon they could be putting all their eggs in one basket, this is not necessarily a bad thing to do but it does require that you watch that basket very carefully.

dlss 15y ago
> implying JK Rowling was produced by a publisher Source? You don't think JK would have produced at the same quality with a different publisher? Or if she had borrowed money, paid her own editor, and self-published?
- epo 15y ago
  She was famously flat broke, I doubt she could have borrowed money or done any of the other things to get traction. What she got from her publisher was marketing, contacts, distribution of review copies ... (it certainly wasn't editing). Big famous authors are not going to go with Amazon, they can self publish (c.f. Zappa, Radiohead). Smaller authors are not going to get effort put into them and are better off buying lottery tickets than relying on Amazon for career development. The people do who do the work Amazon won't do? Publishers.
rmc 15y ago
Amazon will never produce another JK Rowling Yes they can. They don't need a widely popular children book about magic and wizards that gets lots of children excited. All they need are loads of books to sell that people want to buy. Will Amazon shut down their eBook business if JK Rowling doesn't sign up? No. That should tell you how much Amazon need JK Rowling.
- nobody314159 15y ago
  It's EASIER for Amazon produce a JK Rowling. You sign up 10-100-1000 childrens writers, it costs you almost nothing. Then if one of them starts to get any traction through reviews, blogs, slashdotting etc you can very quickly and easily promote the hell out of them by simply putting them on the front page of Amazon.com or pushing suggested books at your customers. Compare that to traditional publisher - it has to pick one author and spend a lot of time and money sending them on signing tours, book shop promotions, getting reviews in the NYT. So they have to spend 90% of it's money on the existing big names to be sure of a return.

by epo 15y ago

dlss 15y ago

> implying JK Rowling was produced by a publisher Source? You don't think JK would have produced at the same quality with a different publisher? Or if she had borrowed money, paid her own editor, and self-published?

epo 15y ago
She was famously flat broke, I doubt she could have borrowed money or done any of the other things to get traction. What she got from her publisher was marketing, contacts, distribution of review copies ... (it certainly wasn't editing). Big famous authors are not going to go with Amazon, they can self publish (c.f. Zappa, Radiohead). Smaller authors are not going to get effort put into them and are better off buying lottery tickets than relying on Amazon for career development. The people do who do the work Amazon won't do? Publishers.

rmc 15y ago

Amazon will never produce another JK Rowling Yes they can. They don't need a widely popular children book about magic and wizards that gets lots of children excited. All they need are loads of books to sell that people want to buy. Will Amazon shut down their eBook business if JK Rowling doesn't sign up? No. That should tell you how much Amazon need JK Rowling.

nobody314159 15y ago
It's EASIER for Amazon produce a JK Rowling. You sign up 10-100-1000 childrens writers, it costs you almost nothing. Then if one of them starts to get any traction through reviews, blogs, slashdotting etc you can very quickly and easily promote the hell out of them by simply putting them on the front page of Amazon.com or pushing suggested books at your customers. Compare that to traditional publisher - it has to pick one author and spend a lot of time and money sending them on signing tours, book shop promotions, getting reviews in the NYT. So they have to spend 90% of it's money on the existing big names to be sure of a return.