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Here are rough translations of a dozen lines from the interview:
1) Amazon’s publishing arm is a “publishing program that stands out for its idiocy.”
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If Amazon makes money from it, if authors make money from it, then how is it idiocy? No, if it was really idiocy, he wouldn't be concerned about it. It would be a self-correcting problem that would go away all on its own.
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2) Moreover: “Nothing that Amazon publishes is worth reading.”
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Those much-maligned readers just might disagree. The scorn heaped on people for reading the "wrong" books is pretty heavy. Why trust readers at all, while we are at it. Perhaps people should be assigned books, like they are in school, and then they can write a report on it. Then when their reports are graded, they can be told what book they will be allowed to read next.
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3) If what Amazon is doing in Germany is anything like what’s happening in the U.S., Amazon will “operate the most irrelevant publishing company that you can imagine. No even moderately well-known author will get involved with Amazon Publishing, because bookstores will not carry these books. Amazon is not interested in print, only digital. This publishing concept is a dead end.”
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While I don't think that print will vanish, digital is certainly not a dead end. I wonder how he managed to say that with a straight face. Getting into the dwindling bookstores just might not be an overwhelming concern.
If Amazon was operating the "most irrelevant publishing company that you can imagine," this article would never have been written. There exist small publishing companies that many of us have never heard of. Surely Amazon is more relevant than they are, this Amazon is surely not the "most irrelevant publishing company that you can imagine." He's scared of Amazon, and people aren't scared of the irrelevant.
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6) Asked if he would advise young writers to apply for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, he said, “No, I would advise him to get on a soapbox in Manhattan or Munich and read from his novel. He would achieve a better audience there than with Amazon.”
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Most unlikely.
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12) In sum: “My advice is: if you have a choice between the plague and Amazon, pick the plague!”
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Of course, he has no interest in what is best for authors, only what is best for himself. This is a classic take of the fox advising the chickens on henhouse defenses.