Konrath and Eisler take on Patterson's call for boycott and encapsulate the last week or so:
http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2014/1...son-again.html
Things can get hot there. (Konrath is ex-Hachette. He had to sue to get free.)
Quote:
Writers signed a contract with Hachette because they valued Hachette as a business partner, and one of Hachette's most valuable attributes is its ability to distribute books. When Hachette isn't able to come to terms with the largest bookseller on the planet, and sales are falling as a result, Hachette is failing its authors.
In a previous comment on my blog, former attorney John Ellsworth said:
"Implied in the publishing contract is the requirement of acting in good faith. Right now, it could be argued that publishers appear to be hurting their own authors by representing their own interests (higher profits) ahead of authors' interests (sales platform) by failing to contract with Amazon. This could support a claim for bad faith by author v. publisher, which could result in damages and could result in a breach being declared such that the author can then take steps to acquire what is called "cover" for oneself, which is law talk for mitigation of damages. Mitigation could take the form of self-publishing."
It seems obvious the guilty party here is Hachette. And I hope some Hachette authors hire an attorney and pursue a bad faith claim.
But rather than address that very real issue, Patterson et al keep flapping their gums about the evils of Amazon. They use fear words. Absurd arguments. Propaganda. Nonsensical appeals to emotion. Ineffectively use the media. They avoid the actual problem, and its possible solutions. But their whining isn't working. In fact, many are calling it out as the nonsense it is.
Amazon needs to be stopped? Check out this Washington Post article by David Post which shows otherwise. (It's literally a post in the Post by Post).
Amazon is a monopoly? No, it isn’t, writes Maxwell S. Kennerley, Esquire, on the Litigation & Trial website.
Amazon plays rough? So what? writes Joe Nocera in a New York Times op-ed piece.
Amazon is what's wrong with American capitalism? Actually, it’s what’s right, writes Reihan Salam in Slate.
Is Jeff Bezos really the bad guy in this dispute? Alex Beam of the Boston Globe says no.
The media coverage of Amazon/Hachetter is fairly balanced? Margaret Sullivan, Public Editor of the New York times, thinks not.
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It certainly wasn't.
But then came Foer...