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Author here. My publisher is one of the "big five" (not Hachette), and although my books are not affected by this dispute directly, it could be only a matter o
by jawns 12y ago
Author here. My publisher is one of the "big five" (not Hachette), and although my books are not affected by this dispute directly, it could be only a matter of time before they are.
The problem, as I see it, is that Amazon has so much of the market share not only for e-books but for regular books that they can dictate terms that are highly favorable to them.
While you could argue that those terms also benefit the reader -- for now -- the fact is that ultimately, consumers aren't served when one monolithic company gets to effectively call the shots. It may not be a monopoly in the legal sense, but in practice, it has many of the same negative effects.
- allworknoplay 12y agoYou're entirely correct. The difference between their historical analogy and the present case is that the present dispute has nothing to do with the technology (e-books have already been pretty universally embraced), it has to do with who benefits from its use. They're using the domain "readersunited" to imply that it's readers who benefit, which is only true in a very zero-sum way because Amazon is keeping all the power to cut author/published margins so hard in the future, and not at all true in the typical sense that a new technology can cut costs and introduce benefits for everyone.
- fallinghawks 12y agoI have not followed this at all, so pardon my ignorance, but I'm wondering how this affects what the authors get paid. I assume a lower book price means less goes to the author; I understand that lower book prices generally lead to more sales and higher net. Do authors actually end up pocketing more in the latter scenario?