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Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg
Web search indicates that the top leadership of Google and Facebook don't get paid, but Jeff Bezos takes an annual salary, plus $1.6 million for security. Here's a modest proposal. Until he starts giving most of his authors advances, Bezos should be paid just like a Kindle Direct Publishing author -- zero profits to Amazon, zero compensation.
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I agree. I think Bezos is being underpaid as it is.
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Maybe you are going to say yes to all the above. But it seems pretty harsh to me, especially in the case of low-wage workers such as retail clerks -- and most authors.
Also, as a reader, I believe that if the author doesn't receive an advance, the book is liable to be lousy -- because the publisher has no investment it needs to recoup by making the book as salable as possible. There surely are lots of Kindle Direct Publishing authors who are as good as Hachette authors, but whose books are not, because Amazon has insufficient incentive to improve titles before presenting them to the public.
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The publisher's incentive is to make money. There is just as much incentive without the advance as there is when they pay peanuts in advances.
There are plenty of KDP authors who are good and their books are good, as their sales show. There are plenty of KDP authors who are lousy writers and it reflects in their books and their sales.
There are plenty of authors, both KDP and Hachette, who are good and their books are good, but languish in obscurity because both KDP and Hachette aren't doing a good job promoting them. And in Hachette's case, sometimes, because the book languishes in the slush pile (a concept that once meant the editors read the book and decided it wasn't any good).