4 ms·

In fairness, I don't think $100k buys you the opinion of the NYT. I give the paper a little bit more credit than that. Besides, it's been airing this blow-by-bl

In fairness, I don't think $100k buys you the opinion of the NYT. I give the paper a little bit more credit than that. Besides, it's been airing this blow-by-blow for months now, long before that ad buy. To the extent the NYT is inclined to take Hachette's side of the fight, that's largely because its staff and editors are much closer to Hachette, geographically, professionally, and socially. It's still not a great reason, of course, but it's not pay-for-play.

Turing_Machine 12y ago
There's also the fluff piece the NYT ran on Preston a couple of days ago about poor little Preston, channeling Thoreau and fighting the evil 'Zon from his "writing shack" (that just happens to be located on 300 acres of land that also features a luxury home and is located in a Maine community where a "cottage" goes for $1.5 million). If Amazon is dishonest for invoking Orwell, it pales in comparison to the David and Goliath spin that the Times has been putting on this story, where David consists of millionaire celeb authors like Preston, James Patterson, et al and mega-billion conglomerates like Lagadere (Hachette), Bertelsmann, CBS, and Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp. You're right that this is largely New York "literary" snobbery at work. I just wish they wouldn't use the "poor little author" spin. Note that Amazon has made three separate offers to mitigate the effect of this dispute on authors. Hachette has rejected all three, and has offered none of its own. It's pretty clear who's really "hurting authors" here. Actually that's been clear for quite a long time, given that Amazon pays authors who deal with them direct 70% of retail and doesn't require that the author sign up for the life of the copyright, while Hachette and their ilk typically pay 12%-15% of retail and do require the authors to sign over their rights for the life of the copyright.
- jonnathanson 12y ago
  Yeah, like I said, I'm not very sympathetic to Hachette's position. Especially with the revelation that a large part of its ebook margins come not just from cost savings over print, but from disproportionately higher cuts of what could be authors' royalties. This certainly isn't a case of David vs. Goliath. This is a case of an elderly, infirm Goliath having its lunch eaten by a younger, hungrier, smarter Goliath. The reason I'm not completely sympathetic to Amazon, either, is that, as a writer, I'm not in favor of any Goliath's controlling the market. Trading one master for another is progress of a sort, and it's necessary progress. But time will tell if Amazon's new world order is indeed better for writers. Many writers are being held hostage in this battle, especially those in Hachette's fold. It's one thing for folks like Patterson and Preston to take up Hachette's call to arms from their ivory towers, but the vast majority of writers are struggling to get by. Even the majority of successfully published writers. For every James Patterson, making tens of millions of dollars a year, you have thousands of midlisters who are lucky to make $50k. You even have "bestsellers" who are struggling to get by. (Indeed, the concept of "bestseller" differs remarkably from genre to genre, and category to category. Let us not assume that anyone who's earned the title "NYT Bestselling Author" is making James Patterson scratch.) As a group, authors have never held a lot of influence over their own fates. That just seems to be the way the market forces work. I can tell you that a lot of writers would rather take their chances in a crowded field with a 70% cut than in a beauty contest with a 10-15% cut. At the same time, they're scared about the prospect of monopoly over distribution. For them, this is sort of like a choice between the devil they know and the devil they don't.

Turing_Machine 12y ago

There's also the fluff piece the NYT ran on Preston a couple of days ago about poor little Preston, channeling Thoreau and fighting the evil 'Zon from his "writing shack" (that just happens to be located on 300 acres of land that also features a luxury home and is located in a Maine community where a "cottage" goes for $1.5 million). If Amazon is dishonest for invoking Orwell, it pales in comparison to the David and Goliath spin that the Times has been putting on this story, where David consists of millionaire celeb authors like Preston, James Patterson, et al and mega-billion conglomerates like Lagadere (Hachette), Bertelsmann, CBS, and Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp. You're right that this is largely New York "literary" snobbery at work. I just wish they wouldn't use the "poor little author" spin. Note that Amazon has made three separate offers to mitigate the effect of this dispute on authors. Hachette has rejected all three, and has offered none of its own. It's pretty clear who's really "hurting authors" here. Actually that's been clear for quite a long time, given that Amazon pays authors who deal with them direct 70% of retail and doesn't require that the author sign up for the life of the copyright, while Hachette and their ilk typically pay 12%-15% of retail and do require the authors to sign over their rights for the life of the copyright.

jonnathanson 12y ago
Yeah, like I said, I'm not very sympathetic to Hachette's position. Especially with the revelation that a large part of its ebook margins come not just from cost savings over print, but from disproportionately higher cuts of what could be authors' royalties. This certainly isn't a case of David vs. Goliath. This is a case of an elderly, infirm Goliath having its lunch eaten by a younger, hungrier, smarter Goliath. The reason I'm not completely sympathetic to Amazon, either, is that, as a writer, I'm not in favor of any Goliath's controlling the market. Trading one master for another is progress of a sort, and it's necessary progress. But time will tell if Amazon's new world order is indeed better for writers. Many writers are being held hostage in this battle, especially those in Hachette's fold. It's one thing for folks like Patterson and Preston to take up Hachette's call to arms from their ivory towers, but the vast majority of writers are struggling to get by. Even the majority of successfully published writers. For every James Patterson, making tens of millions of dollars a year, you have thousands of midlisters who are lucky to make $50k. You even have "bestsellers" who are struggling to get by. (Indeed, the concept of "bestseller" differs remarkably from genre to genre, and category to category. Let us not assume that anyone who's earned the title "NYT Bestselling Author" is making James Patterson scratch.) As a group, authors have never held a lot of influence over their own fates. That just seems to be the way the market forces work. I can tell you that a lot of writers would rather take their chances in a crowded field with a 70% cut than in a beauty contest with a 10-15% cut. At the same time, they're scared about the prospect of monopoly over distribution. For them, this is sort of like a choice between the devil they know and the devil they don't.