[SmokeAndMirrors]

Eh. In anyone's case (Kobo, B&N, or Amazon) how I feel about this as a concept really depends on what the terms are.

If we're talking about them offering services a publisher might if you pay them a bit of money, but you still have the ability to make all the choices you normally would when submitting your work to their store (whether or not to DRM, whether to sell other places, etc), then I don't mind this. In fact it might be a good thing. It's hard to talk publishers into allowing you to publish DRM-free.

But if this comes with all the standard restrictions most publishers have about your control over your own work, then, well... I can't say I'm that excited. While it's probably no worse, control-wise, than using a standard publisher, it offers no substantial advantage either. Apart from maybe having an easier time getting published.

But if you're going to publish electronically only, then you're not really as dependent upon the publisher's resources as you would be in print, anyway. Why not just publish it yourself, if they're going to try to tie you down to publishing in one place, forcing DRM, etc?

In other words... we'll see how they put this into practice.