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Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg
Some authors.
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...falls under the category of "authors". I never said "all authors".
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Most Hachette authors aren't affected because they weren't going to make any more money than their advance anyway.
Indie authors are benefiting from reduced competition, as are some of the authors (those who have earned out their advances) of other publishers.
A bookseller does not need a contract with a publisher to sell a book. A bookseller does not need a contract with a publisher to let people reserve a book before the release date.
Such contracts are vehicles for high-volume retailers to demand lower-than-normal quantity wholesale prices. Putting aside the considerations unique to literature, there is no moral benefit in giving in to the sweetheart deal demands of an Amazon or WalMart.
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But the bookseller does need a contract in order to entertain reasonable suspicion that they will be able to get enough copies at wholesale prices to make it worth their while to sell.
There is no moral benefit? Why did there need to be? It is business, plain and simple. People buying things to sell them. People wanting to get good prices for bulk orders. People having the right to refuse if they feel it doesn't make economic sense to sell.
There are no considerations unique to literature. Literature is owed nothing. It happens because people feel it is worth buying.
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What source are you referring to?
The idea that Amazon has a sufficiently high enough share of book sales as to have leverage over producers is so obvious that I doubt there is any identifiable source.
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Distributors always have leverage over producers, since they act as a middleman. It would be scary to live in a world that is illogical to the point where this
isn't so.
And regardless, how does that translate to Amazon being evil, which is not a concept inherent in the nature of having leverage in business deals? There is only one source for that -- publishers.