08-29-2014, 03:16 PM | #661 |
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08-29-2014, 03:55 PM | #662 | |
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08-29-2014, 03:59 PM | #663 | |
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Just so long as you have a rationale. I really appreciate all the hard work you put into validating sources and coming up with sound logic for everything you say. (There's nothing I hate more than when people resort to pointless namecalling without any explanation. Sure sign that the conversation is dead.) |
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08-29-2014, 08:15 PM | #664 | ||
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If you do, and I agree that's what it says, I'll be glad to retract it. As for the phrase "Chinese history masterpiece", I take it you are not going to read that kind of book. Then you shouldn't care how much it costs. Problem solved. (True, it's not solved, for me, if the publisher goes bankrupt due to overpricing, or underpricing, or mistreatment of authors. However, so far, the publishers seem to be managing the transition to digital reading without much product quality deterioration -- and, from a balance sheet standpoint, better than Amazon.) Quote:
The alternative to big publishers is not necessarily cheaper. Here is an academic title, and its almost-big publisher popularization, as an example: Deterrence and Crime Prevention: Reconsidering the Prospect of Sanction by David M. Kennedy (Routledge, 2008, $39.46 for Kindle edition, recently available as rental) Don't Shoot: One Man, a Street Fellowship, and the End of Violence in Inner-City America by David M. Kennedy (Bloomsbury, 2011, $9.48 for Kindle edition; would be more if newer) I haven't read the first one above, but the Bloomsbury title is quite good. And if Amazon is squeezing Bloomsbury, I hope Amazon loses. Last edited by SteveEisenberg; 08-30-2014 at 07:43 AM. |
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08-30-2014, 05:16 AM | #665 | |
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08-30-2014, 05:48 AM | #666 | |
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except that I would add that PWalker's description, for me, applies only to fiction. In the case of nonfiction, which is the majority of what I buy, I only buy hardcover (although occasionally I will buy both the hardcover and ebook versions). |
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08-30-2014, 05:51 AM | #667 | |
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08-30-2014, 05:57 AM | #668 | |
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That only a few have decided to take on the challenge of self-publishing and self-marketing is a good indicator that they, too, do not see a very profitable upside to their book. |
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08-30-2014, 09:42 AM | #669 |
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Amazon is in the unique position of being both - a major publisher (purely based on size) and a major book retailer. And they have the same right and self interest as any other business to keep their secrets.
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08-30-2014, 10:49 AM | #670 | ||
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The fact that no one provides the kind of information people would need to speculate intelligently means that if they are going to speculate at all, it will continue to be the sort of mostly useless speculation to which we are now treated. |
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08-31-2014, 11:04 AM | #671 |
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It could be that Amazon follows the same publishing model as some of the big Romance publishers and the publishers of various shared universe series, i.e. the writer isn't really all that important. I would be interested to see what the top sellers are for those books that Amazon publishes. I can think of a number of potential authors who could potentially do well. I also wonder how many books published by Amazon follow the self published model rather than the full service published model.
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08-31-2014, 12:59 PM | #672 | |
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08-31-2014, 05:39 PM | #673 |
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I have frequently thought: What if a book only has 10,000 readers, or 5,000, or even just 1,000 readers who alone in the world want/need that particular book? Who will publish it? No traditional publisher would touch it. And that is why, to that particular author, Amazon is needed and Hachette is not.
Very interesting article I just came across about this conflict: http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/30/few...8TechCrunch%29 |
08-31-2014, 06:28 PM | #674 |
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Something else that comes to mind, if the big publishers are so afraid of Amazon and fear it as a monopoly, the best thing they could do is buy out Nook from B&N and sell their books exclusively there. It would help prevent Amazon from having a monopoly, and give them leverage in the ebook online market.
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08-31-2014, 06:50 PM | #675 | ||
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2. In 2006, before the Kindle and Nook, the average book published in the US sold 500 copies. As implied by my link, even some major publisher books sell under 1,000 copies. Of course, the publisher was hoping to sell more. But except with a name brand author, you can't know, in advance, that sales will be substantial. This goes for indie just as for Hachette. Now, there are some specialized academic titles -- says, ones addressed to experts in an particular area of mathematics -- that couldn't possibly be bestsellers. Still, there are thousands of substantial college and university libraries, and the hope is at least that most of them will want the book. But, often, they don't. Publishing is, by its nature, risky. The most important social function of publishers, other than manuscript improvement, is to take some of that risk away from authors by paying an advance for a book that may not sell. 3. There is one genre of book where your link is truly applicable: Poetry. That's because, AFAIK, poets turn in finished work. For most other types of books, the importance of the publisher to the reader is the editing. Your link author seems to think that the author turns over a finished manuscript. But often the publisher buys a book on the basis of a proposal and a first chapter, helping the author to craft the remainder. Or the author turns in a manuscript that he or she thinks is almost perfect, but is far from it. This is from one of the comments in your link: Quote:
Of course, some manuscripts only need moderate editing and/or are written by authors who can afford to pay for substantial editing. These will work, from a reader standpoint, fine with self-publishing. There is a place for multiple publishing models. Last edited by SteveEisenberg; 08-31-2014 at 07:09 PM. |
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