Quote:
Originally Posted by pwalker8
To a great extent hasn't that been Amazon's model since the beginning? They push a lot of the work of an ebook store (maintaining the catalog and publicity) back onto the publishers and authors. One of the reasons that the search function is so bad on Amazon is that many authors try to game the system. Of course, to a great extent, the publicity and finding an audience is what a good publisher brings to the table.
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I can't speak for the trads, but no. For quite a while in the early years, they actively helped indie authors--putting their titles on sale and taking the sale amount from THEIR cut. For many years they allowed blatant self-promoting on their forums unless authors were extremely rude. Even after they curtailed the blatant stuff they allowed links to author books in sig lines. When I first published Sage, many eons ago, I had it at 99 cents--Amazon marked it down to 75 or 79 cents and added it to a sale list. Other books of mine that I had at various prices, they'd put on sale and on lists. They don't do that anymore. They do put some authors in lists, but those are usually side deals now where yes, the author is doing some promo and/or agreeing to a certain price (and the discount comes from the author).
When the audio stuff first started, Amazon offered certain authors stipends to turn their book into audio. The payout was larger for the author/actors as well. Those terms have changed.
Just recently, before Christmas (end of Oct/early Nov), several of my PRINT books had been marked down by as much as a dollar by Amazon. They had been that way since I published them via Createspace over the years. About half of my titles no longer have that discount. This was, again, an Amazon discount, but it obviously made my print books look more attractive with a list of 9.99 marked down to 8.99, etc.
They do different things. Lately, those things have not favored indies.