Amazon Signs Up Authors, Writing Publishers Out of Deal

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by luqmaninbmore

Only if they are utterly irrational or pointlessly malicious.

Not at all. You won't sell your product in a form I can use, then I have no need of your product. It can fail and it won't bother me at all. The author is the malicious one by keeping his/her product from people who might have wanted it but now cannot get it.

Take J. A. Konrath for example He's a right arrogant a$$. He went exclusive with Amazon. But before he did that, he had his Jack Daniels series available in ePub. Then he pulls them right out from readers who won't buy from Amazon, do not use Calibre and/or do not convert. So for the people who read in ePub, he's screwed them over big time. Does he care? No. Does Amazon care? No. So what you can do is buy most of the series in ePub and that's it, you'd hit a brick wall and you are done. no more. The new books are Amazon only.

So when authors move to Amazon and take away things from readers, this is just malicious. It's just human nature to want them to fail at Amazon. SO really, going exclusive at Amazon can and does piss people off. You want to go exclusive and be thought of as an a$$ and having people want you to fail? Go for it.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

And the sale Sony has going for December on the T1 is only going to help the sales of ePub.

So where do Sony readers shop for books? Library mostly? Or kobo? I have a handful of sales on the Sony site each month, but nothing to write home about. The posts I've seen about the Sony bookstore says books cost more there so it seems Sony owners soon find other venues. Just in case anyone here knows.

[JSWolf]

Maria, I have a question about the version Under Witch Moon sold at B&N. Is it from Smashwords or is it a hand-crafted ePub uploaded to B&N?

I'm hoping you say hand-crafted as what the meatgrinder & Word can do to the underlying code can be something not nice.

[BearMountainBooks]

f

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Not at all. You won't sell your product in a form I can use, then I have no need of your product. It can fail and it won't bother me at all. The author is the malicious one by keeping his/her product from people who might have wanted it but now cannot get it.

Take J. A. Konrath for example He's a right arrogant a$$. He went exclusive with Amazon. But before he did that, he had his Jack Daniels series available in ePub. Then he pulls them right out from readers who won't buy from Amazon, do not use Calibre and/or do not convert. So for the people who read in ePub, he's screwed them over big time. Does he care? No. Does Amazon care? No. So what you can do is buy most of the series in ePub and that's it, you'd hit a brick wall and you are done. no more. The new books are Amazon only.

So when authors move to Amazon and take away things from readers, this is just malicious. It's just human nature to want them to fail at Amazon. SO really, going exclusive at Amazon can and does piss people off. You want to go exclusive and be thought of as an a$$ and having people want you to fail? Go for it.

It should also be noted that Konrath (a$$ or not) got a considerably better "exclusive" deal than is being offered to the masses.

For the right deal, an author HAS to consider an exclusive (although a time-limit is very important.) I'm not saying I like exclusive deals at all. I actually think they hurt retailers and authors, but I understand the business mindset behind it and I also understand as an author it can mean the difference between "I get to write for a living" and "I can't afford to write for a living."

There's some very simple economics involved when most authors need a stash of cash to make it through the 3 months to 3 YEARS it takes to get the next product out. Amazon and other publishers know that. Publishers try to lock down exclusivity too--just not where readers necessarily see it (some books are only published for Wal-mart, such as some Harlequin names). Publishers lock in deals for all kinds of things such as audio and film and so on. This prevents authors from possibly finding cheaper ways to bring certain things to market--which would be a boon for readers.

So, in short: It isn't just Amazon. Lots of businesses do it in various ways. And as authors, the right exclusive deal, regardless of how one might feel about the predatory practice can mean doing what we love or giving it up.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

So where do Sony readers shop for books? Library mostly? Or kobo? I have a handful of sales on the Sony site each month, but nothing to write home about. The posts I've seen about the Sony bookstore says books cost more there so it seems Sony owners soon find other venues. Just in case anyone here knows.

I mainly shop at Smashwords, then Sony, then B&N, and occasionally Kobo. The problem is that there are so many free and very inexpensive books, that I am not spending money on ebooks like I spend on hardcovers. I will buy everything an author has written once I find an author I like, but generally, with ebooks, I am unwilling to spend more than $2.99 on an unknown author and I am so inundated with free and 99 cent ebooks that I rarely have to go beyond them -- until I discover an author I like. Once discovered, I will spend up to $4.99 on an ebook.

I view ebooks as read-once-then-throwaway items. Books that I think are worth keeping I buy in hardcover, although I have come across a few ebooks that are not available in hardcover that are so well-written they are worth keeping.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

f

It should also be noted that Konrath (a$$ or not) got a considerably better "exclusive" deal than is being offered to the masses.

Konrath was also (famously) selling 70x as many books on Amazon as on other platforms; I think the calculus would be a lot different if he were selling something like 20% of his books on other platforms.

But if you write for a living, it is a business and you have to treat it as such.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

f

It should also be noted that Konrath (a$$ or not) got a considerably better "exclusive" deal than is being offered to the masses.

For the right deal, an author HAS to consider an exclusive (although a time-limit is very important.) I'm not saying I like exclusive deals at all. I actually think they hurt retailers and authors, but I understand the business mindset behind it and I also understand as an author it can mean the difference between "I get to write for a living" and "I can't afford to write for a living."

There's some very simple economics involved when most authors need a stash of cash to make it through the 3 months to 3 YEARS it takes to get the next product out. Amazon and other publishers know that. Publishers try to lock down exclusivity too--just not where readers necessarily see it (some books are only published for Wal-mart, such as some Harlequin names). Publishers lock in deals for all kinds of things such as audio and film and so on. This prevents authors from possibly finding cheaper ways to bring certain things to market--which would be a boon for readers.

So, in short: It isn't just Amazon. Lots of businesses do it in various ways. And as authors, the right exclusive deal, regardless of how one might feel about the predatory practice can mean doing what we love or giving it up.

Exclusive would be OK if Amazon offered ePub with Adept DRM (when DRM has to be applied). Then we'd still be able to buy in the format we want without having to jump through hoops to get it into the format we want. Once KF8 is out, I'm thinking that until we get the DRM broken and the format figured out so it can be converted from, that may be it for purchases from Amazon. So these exclusive deals will be even worse. I really don't know how KF8 will work if one doesn't have a Kindle and uses an older Kindle4PC. Will we be forced to upgrade? Will we get a choice of what format we want until KF8 is dealt with? I don't think anybody knows at present.

But if you are selling a series in whatever formats and it's selling, don't go and screw the series up by dropping any of the formats you sell in. That's just making you be an a$$ and makes you look bad. I wanted to try his Jack Daniels series, but because of the Amazon deal, I won't because I don't buy eBooks from Amazon.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

Konrath was also (famously) selling 70x as many books on Amazon as on other platforms; I think the calculus would be a lot different if he were selling something like 20% of his books on other platforms.

But if you write for a living, it is a business and you have to treat it as such.

Well, I hope he gets writes block, writers cramp and tanks.

[luqmaninbmore]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Not at all. You won't sell your product in a form I can use, then I have no need of your product. It can fail and it won't bother me at all. The author is the malicious one by keeping his/her product from people who might have wanted it but now cannot get it.

Take J. A. Konrath for example He's a right arrogant a$$. He went exclusive with Amazon. But before he did that, he had his Jack Daniels series available in ePub. Then he pulls them right out from readers who won't buy from Amazon, do not use Calibre and/or do not convert. So for the people who read in ePub, he's screwed them over big time. Does he care? No. Does Amazon care? No. So what you can do is buy most of the series in ePub and that's it, you'd hit a brick wall and you are done. no more. The new books are Amazon only.

So when authors move to Amazon and take away things from readers, this is just malicious. It's just human nature to want them to fail at Amazon. SO really, going exclusive at Amazon can and does piss people off. You want to go exclusive and be thought of as an a$$ and having people want you to fail? Go for it.

It's not human nature, John. It's just you. Do the authors owe you something such that they must cater to your preferences?

[luqmaninbmore]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Well, I hope he gets writes block, writers cramp and tanks.

Which simply proves my point about maliciousness.

[luqmaninbmore]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Exclusive would be OK if Amazon offered ePub with Adept DRM (when DRM has to be applied). Then we'd still be able to buy in the format we want without having to jump through hoops to get it into the format we want.

Why should Amazon consent to pay the Adobe Tax?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by luqmaninbmore

Which simply proves my point about maliciousness.

It's very malicious and mean and nasty to pull a series out from under the readers. To say to them, screw you for not having bought into Amazon is just wrong.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Maria, I have a question about the version Under Witch Moon sold at B&N. Is it from Smashwords or is it a hand-crafted ePub uploaded to B&N?

I'm hoping you say hand-crafted as what the meatgrinder & Word can do to the underlying code can be something not nice.

Well, it's Calibre crafted and uploaded to B&N pubit. So it's as close to hand-crafted as I can get it thanks to Mr. Goyal.

I do work pretty hard at the Smashwords versions, however. My husband and I are both fairly technical so we have beaten a few of the files into submission, fwiw. I agree that some of the conversions can be rough. Some of my initial loads had the epub versions with a space between all paragraphs. It took us a couple of days to figure that out.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Exclusive would be OK if Amazon offered ePub with Adept DRM (when DRM has to be applied). Then we'd still be able to buy in the format we want without having to jump through hoops to get it into the format we want. Once KF8 is out, I'm thinking that until we get the DRM broken and the format figured out so it can be converted from, that may be it for purchases from Amazon. So these exclusive deals will be even worse. I really don't know how KF8 will work if one doesn't have a Kindle and uses an older Kindle4PC. Will we be forced to upgrade? Will we get a choice of what format we want until KF8 is dealt with? I don't think anybody knows at present.

But if you are selling a series in whatever formats and it's selling, don't go and screw the series up by dropping any of the formats you sell in. That's just making you be an a$$ and makes you look bad. I wanted to try his Jack Daniels series, but because of the Amazon deal, I won't because I don't buy eBooks from Amazon.

You're not missing that much in the Jack Daniels series. It's an okay series until ... book 3 or 4 when it turns to gross horror rather than detective/plot/mystery and became unreadable. Frankly, I found his "the List" more entertaining than any of the Jack Daniels series, although it was a bit overdone toward the end.

For an excellent female protag series look up Carol O'Connell (her stand alone Judas Child is one of the most engrossing thrillers I've ever read.) Linda Fairstein is another writer with a good female protag. I don't think you'll be disappointed in either of those writers and the writing and series is much more consistent than the aforementioned series. Konrath's true love appears to be hellacious horror, bizarre horror and bizarre, and the horror installed itself in a series that did not start out to be horror. I have not read past the one book that was filled with horror elements.

FWIW.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

Well, it's Calibre crafted and uploaded to B&N pubit. So it's as close to hand-crafted as I can get it thanks to Mr. Goyal.

I do work pretty hard at the Smashwords versions, however. My husband and I are both fairly technical so we have beaten a few of the files into submission, fwiw. I agree that some of the conversions can be rough. Some of my initial loads had the epub versions with a space between all paragraphs. It took us a couple of days to figure that out.

Thanks. Once I'm done my holiday shopping, I'll then most likely have enough left and I can then buy your book from B&N.