Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
Some readers' trust and respect is not worth pandering to.
Lost in the whole Amazon-bashing fest going on, I have to wonder if the gripe is about formats or exclusivity. What about authors that sell exclusively off their web sites? What about (and we all know who) publishers that sell exclusively off *their* website?
Life is all about trade-offs and if accessing a particular audience most effectively requires telling others "sorry, no-go", then so be it. Just because a product is available to somebody doesn't mean they *will* buy it. Trying to reach out to *everybody* can just as easily mean reaching out to nobody. Which is why the best marketing campaigns aim for specific demographics instead of trying to carpetbomb the universe.
As some have pointed out above, depending on the writer and the material, going exclusive (whether for a short time or an extended period) may make perfect sense for *them*. They just need to know who they are writing for and where they can be found because no writer is ever going to have universal appeal.  |
I find a great deal to agree with here, but I think there is a real danger for
the consumer, in Amazon's version and intentions for "Exclusivity".
Amazon is a retailer of many author's books, among other things, authors
and publishers are offering individual books for sale to as many outlets as
possible. The authors, and to some extent the publishers, are interested
in the sales of their particular books, Amazon has no real concern for the
sales of a particular book over the others, as long as they can make money
off the sales of the books they sell, in general.
Exclusivity at the manufacturing level is a natural and good thing, no one
should be able to make an exact copy of your product, and sell it as theirs.
Exclusivity at the retail level is bad - very bad in most cases. And the
amount of control over the use of the product, after the sale, that Amazon
places on the product, makes for a very dark potential.
(Utility rates are regulated by the representatives of the people they serve,
just because they are granted a monopoly.)
Luck;
Ken