Reservations...
Any of these books pub-dom ? I presume not, otherwise there be no money to be made for anyone.
And I'd love to know how many other publishing houses she "shopped it out to" .
If it's such a good idea, why did the publishing world en masse turn it down ?
Mind you, I suppose Amazon probably has more cash to risk on a possibly shakey proposition.....
Not that I necessarily doubt anyones altruistic motives, but have Amazon hitherto shown any great enthusiasm for printing stuff that should "never have gone out of print anyway" ?
As far as I can see, it's an interesting idea to publish works that will won't be expensive to get the rights to, with the equivalent of some "bonus tracks/out-takes" tacked on to give them, hopefully, some sales. Amazon doesn't have to price 'em high to cover initial costs, after all. It's probably worth a punt, with their resources.
But the scale talked about in the article, well, I can see why "straight" publishers held back. And it would certainly have been harder for them to finance sufficient interest to get the venture of the ground, compared to the "Dark Side" !
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