MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - 12% of ebooks are self-published; most are rubbish, claims editor

fjtorres · 06-18-2013, 01:29 PM

Actually, the problem (to the extent there *might* be a problem at all) is limited to the middle ground. The "extremes" have it easy:

If you are determined to only buy trad-pub'ed books all ebookstores let you filter books by price. That right there keeps the rabble at bay.

Or, you can look at the publisher tag. For most genres, from SF to LitFic, there are only a handful of brands you need to remember. (For SF, BAEN, TOR, DelRey, Orbit, Angry Robot, etc, are reputable trad-pub brands. Hydra isn't.) Under the Price Fix, "Price set by publisher" was a dead giveaway. In another year or two the BPHs will start negotiating new contracts and they'll be free to (non-collusively) bring back Agency so that tag will be useful once more.

Or, if you don't mind dealing with eeee-vile Amazon, you can use their advanced search feature.

http://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Searc...node=241582011

There you can specify that you want a list of all Kindle editions published by DelRey.

Wham, bam, here ya go: 7269 ebooks from DelRey.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_nr_p_...rnid=618072011

If you want, you can then Sort by "New and Popular" or Price or Publication date or by customer Reviews...

It is even easier if all you're interested is one specific author or any of the very narrow sub-genre classifications; for the latter, you just go to the list on the left and it will show you only DelRey books tagged that way by DelRey. For example, if you click on ROMANCE on the DeRey list; you'll find they have 19 titles that are new and popular flagged as Romance, which can then by further refined as historical, contemporary, futuristic, etc:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_nr_p_...4640&rnid=1000

The tools are there. And they're not hard to use; after all, Amazon wants to *sell* books. They don't much care as long as *we* are happy and keep coming back.

As a point of fact, Amazon offers *better* tagging tools to BPHs than they do Indies as KDP doesn't yet offer the fine-grained classifications as their inhouse tool for converting publisher feedstock into Kindle ebooks.

Of course, those of us that don't care about a book's provenance are more interested in the blurbs and covers and reviews, but those aspects are covered too.

Really, it's not hard to wade through the infamous "tsunami of crap".

06-18-2013, 01:29 PM	#285
fjtorres Grand Sorcerer Posts: 11,732 Karma: 128354696 Join Date: May 2009 Location: 26 kly from Sgr A* Device: T100TA,PW2,PRS-T1,KT,FireHD 8.9,K2, PB360,BeBook One,Axim51v,TC1000	Actually, the problem (to the extent there might be a problem at all) is limited to the middle ground. The "extremes" have it easy: If you are determined to only buy trad-pub'ed books all ebookstores let you filter books by price. That right there keeps the rabble at bay. Or, you can look at the publisher tag. For most genres, from SF to LitFic, there are only a handful of brands you need to remember. (For SF, BAEN, TOR, DelRey, Orbit, Angry Robot, etc, are reputable trad-pub brands. Hydra isn't.) Under the Price Fix, "Price set by publisher" was a dead giveaway. In another year or two the BPHs will start negotiating new contracts and they'll be free to (non-collusively) bring back Agency so that tag will be useful once more. Or, if you don't mind dealing with eeee-vile Amazon, you can use their advanced search feature. http://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Searc...node=241582011 There you can specify that you want a list of all Kindle editions published by DelRey. Wham, bam, here ya go: 7269 ebooks from DelRey. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_nr_p_...rnid=618072011 If you want, you can then Sort by "New and Popular" or Price or Publication date or by customer Reviews... It is even easier if all you're interested is one specific author or any of the very narrow sub-genre classifications; for the latter, you just go to the list on the left and it will show you only DelRey books tagged that way by DelRey. For example, if you click on ROMANCE on the DeRey list; you'll find they have 19 titles that are new and popular flagged as Romance, which can then by further refined as historical, contemporary, futuristic, etc: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_nr_p_...4640&rnid=1000 The tools are there. And they're not hard to use; after all, Amazon wants to sell books. They don't much care as long as we are happy and keep coming back. As a point of fact, Amazon offers better tagging tools to BPHs than they do Indies as KDP doesn't yet offer the fine-grained classifications as their inhouse tool for converting publisher feedstock into Kindle ebooks. Of course, those of us that don't care about a book's provenance are more interested in the blurbs and covers and reviews, but those aspects are covered too. Really, it's not hard to wade through the infamous "tsunami of crap".