Stephen Covey ditches Simon & Schuster, gives exclusive rights to Amazon

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by poohbear_nc

I know it's mean & petty & cynical of me - but after reading all the publishers' BS press announcements this week, I am hoping a MAJOR selling author (such as Rowling - as mentioned in another speculative post, or Stephanie Meyer, etc) jumps ship from their publisher and locks into a deal with Amazon. While I deplore added restrictions on a book's availability, the sheer stupid ineptitude - I can't even think of a word strong enough to describe their ignorance level - of publishers in regards to ebook publication leads me to conclude that the ONLY way to get their attention is through their pocket-book. If not a readers' boycott -- then an authors' boycott - of their alleged services.

You;d love that because you do have a Kindle. But for the rest of us, it's unfair. Do you really want to see the eBook market even more splintered then it already is?

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

All I can say is screw you Stephen Covey.

Well, as long as you're being rational, calm and polite in regards to the situation....

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What he is doing is tell me that because I don't have a Kindle or a PC, I cannot purchase his eBooks.

T,FTFY

However, I have to say I don't think this is a fantabulous development. This ought to be a warning to those who view publishers as Pure Evil, since without them we are in an even more balkanized ebook world....

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Well, as long as you're being rational, calm and polite in regards to the situation....



T,FTFY

However, I have to say I don't think this is a fantabulous development. This ought to be a warning to those who view publishers as Pure Evil, since without them we are in an even more balkanized ebook world....

I don't read eBooks on my PC. I use my Reader. Reading on my PC would keep me tethered to my PC. No thanks.

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

How is this a good thing for the average person who will not be able to read eBooks s/he wants to read because the eBooks are locked into Amazon and they don't have a Kindle?

If giving Amazon a one year head start on an ebook is what it takes to get a backlist title as an ebook, then that is a net win. The ebook is forever, Amazon's exclusive is only one year.

In this case, the ebooks seem to already be available. So you can buy them today, but in the future there will be one year period when you can't without a Kindle.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

If giving Amazon a one year head start on an ebook is what it takes to get a backlist title as an ebook, then that is a net win. The ebook is forever, Amazon's exclusive is only one year.

In this case, the ebooks seem to already be available. So you can buy them today, but in the future there will be one year period when you can't without a Kindle.

The last time I heard about a time limited eBook deal with Amazon was Terry Goodkind's Wizard's First Rule. It was supposed to be 6 months exclusive and then generally released. This has not happened long after the 6 months was up. So I don't really have a good feeling about this deal. I think it could just as easily turn into another Wizard's First Rule. So why is making some of us wait at least a year (If not longer) better then making us wait 4 months? It's not. It's worse. And we have no evidence that when the year is up, the eBooks will be available elsewhere.

[DawnFalcon]

Exactly, he's removing their availability and restricting it to a single propitiatory retailer. That's sufficient to get him a spot on my "never buy" list.

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

You should be able to return it--if I bought a book in a store, took it home, and discovered everything after the first couple of pages was in an unreadable font, or had random ink-spills on the paper, I'd be able to return it.

Well, it's readable, in landscape because the font is larger - and it's a good book, so on the whole, I decided to keep it. It's just that I can't read it in portrait, so I can't prop it on the table when I eat lunch (using my Tuff-Luv cover, which has a prop that puts the 300 in portrait mode at exactly the right angle to read) & it's more awkward to hold in landscape.

My T-L cover for my 300 makes lunchtime reading very convenient, much better than pbooks. Oddly, my T-L cover for my 505 doesn't give me the same reading angle. I think it might be a manufacturing defect, but I got it so long ago I can't very well complain now. I have a notion about how to get it fixed that shouldn't cost much.

I wrote a comment about the problem, but so far it hasn't been posted. I also emailed Sony support about it.

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by tompe

An editor influence the content also. I would be pretty annoyed if I bought a book that had not gone through some filtering/editorial process. And I do not believe that comments from readers will enhance the quality of the book. It will be a nightmare having different versions of books.

It's not comments that might do the trick, it's tags. I have a sense that tagging is potentially very powerful in this context, but I don't have the vocabulary or knowledge to articulate what I sense. I do believe that tagging provides an alternative to hierarchical filing schemes, for example. Wisdom of crowds & all that...

[kennyc]

Wonderful! We need more and more of this!

Authors taking charge of their work and gaining a fair income from it.

[poohbear_nc]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

You;d love that because you do have a Kindle. But for the rest of us, it's unfair. Do you really want to see the eBook market even more splintered then it already is?

No - as I said in my post - I DEPLORE adding restrictions on ebook marketing.
My point was that seemingly the only way to get publishers' attention is through direct threats to their existence (i.e. their income) - and currently (IMHO) Amazon is the only entity large enough (and with enough money of its own) to challenge the stranglehold publishers have over the availability & distribution of their authors' works in ebook format(s).

[dadioflex]

Edit.

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by dadioflex

So... maybe we'll see books listed as "written by..." along with "edited by...".

There's plenty of precedent.

I don't know if we'll see that, but I'd take bets now that there'll be some big writers who'll jump ship to exclusive deals and take along their favourite editors with them. Amazon wouldn't feel the extra percentage points on profits they might give away to lure writers and their editors, not like traditional publishers who have a razor thin profit margin in comparison. Amazon could offer the writer 45%, the editor 5% and still come out of the deal with plenty of profits after marketing and such (which they'd do through their own system).

Barring the absolute shitty-end of the stick we as consumers will no doubt have to hold, can anybody think of a reason why Amazon wouldn't go into business as a publisher, considering they have the paper (POD with createspace) and ebook infrastructure locked down already?

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by dadioflex

So... maybe we'll see books listed as "written by..." along with "edited by...".

There's plenty of precedent.

Certainly there are numerous independent editing services and many publishers even rely on them and on contractors to do the work.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by poohbear_nc

No - as I said in my post - I DEPLORE adding restrictions on ebook marketing.
My point was that seemingly the only way to get publishers' attention is through direct threats to their existence (i.e. their income) - and currently (IMHO) Amazon is the only entity large enough (and with enough money of its own) to challenge the stranglehold publishers have over the availability & distribution of their authors' works in eBook format(s).

The only way to stop this exclusivity is for enough people who would purchase these exclusive eBooks to tell the author that yes, I want to buy your books, but no, I will not when they are under some sort of exclusive deal. And then don't buy them. So if nobody buys them, the author will get the idea that this exclusive deal was a bad idea and never do it again. Maybe other authors will find out how badly it went and not do ti as well. We have to vote with our wallet. But not only do we not have to buy them, we have to let the people the need to know just why it is we did not buy the books. If they don't know, then all they'll think is that this author just doesn't do well in eBook.

P.S. Sorry I misread your post.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The only way to stop this exclusivity is for enough people who would purchase these exclusive eBooks to tell the author that yes, I want to buy your books, but no, I will not when they are under some sort of exclusive deal.

You are probably correct, but I'm not sure the general public will be vocal enough, let alone care enough, for this type of protest to actually take effect.

Of course, there already are such imbalances, as there are many books available for one platform but not another. I would imagine that unless Amazon utterly dominates (as in, >75% of market share) -- which I don't see as likely, but who knows? -- such imbalances probably won't last indefinitely anyway, especially with everyone else consolidating on epub.

So while exclusivity isn't a good thing, I'd say the real novelty here is that the author is cutting out the publisher. Separately there's the question of whether Simon & Schuster are just going to let this go, or actually take action to protect what they may assert are their exclusive rights to publish these particular titles in electronic formats.