Authors thank readers...

[jersysman]

This is gonna get very interesting. It's almost as if authors are gonna be forced to take a side and defend that choice. Will be some interesting reading coming out of this. I'll be watching and listening very carefully.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by jersysman

This is gonna get very interesting. It's almost as if authors are gonna be forced to take a side and defend that choice. Will be some interesting reading coming out of this. I'll be watching and listening very carefully.

No almost about it.
And freelance editors, too, now that they are being branded as unscrupulous and mercenary. (By some of the same execs who forced them to go freelance).

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by jersysman

This is gonna get very interesting. It's almost as if authors are gonna be forced to take a side and defend that choice. Will be some interesting reading coming out of this. I'll be watching and listening very carefully.

My favorite authors are immune from this little tiff - that's because they're all dead

[TimW]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

My favorite authors are immune from this little tiff - that's because they're all dead

I can see James Patterson desperately seeking Monkey...
"O, Monkey! I want very much to be your favorite author! Tell me how!"
(Monkey places an empty "Monkey Chow" bucket in front of Patterson)
"Jimbo, give this a swift kick and you'll be well on your way."

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by TimW

I can see James Patterson desperately seeking Monkey...
"O, Monkey! I want very much to be your favorite author! Tell me how!"
(Monkey places an empty "Monkey Chow" bucket in front of Patterson)
"Jimbo, give this a swift kick and you'll be well on your way."

Eddie Durante--style, right?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h57UR-oIE_g

(That's two good ones.)

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by TimW

I can see James Patterson desperately seeking Monkey...
"O, Monkey! I want very much to be your favorite author! Tell me how!"
(Monkey places an empty "Monkey Chow" bucket in front of Patterson)
"Jimbo, give this a swift kick and you'll be well on your way."

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Eddie Durante--style, right?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h57UR-oIE_g

(That's two good ones.)

...I love Jonathan Winters

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

...I love Jonathan Winters

Funniest. Movie. Evah.
Too bad the studio butchered it so it is effectively impossible to see the full original.

[fjtorres]

Another author chipping in, just in time for the holiday.
http://motherearthseries.wordpress.c...s-and-readers/

[Prestidigitweeze]

Despite the irony in the tone and the obvious symbolism of the fictive group of people behind it, I'm against a petition on an activist's forum (i.e., change.org) that is signed by "the authors" -- particularly a petition in which the actual names of the authors do not appear. To know whether I trusted the writers who were thanking me by kissing my ass in public, I'd want to know their names and backgrounds. To speak for a vast and arbitrary group of people (let alone one that is class, culture and century-inclusive) on a grassroots petition site without their consent seems anti-democratic even in jest. To promote a phony petition in space devoted to activism also seems a tad demoralizing.

This petition's tone, backhanded compliments to Amazon, ostentatious modesty and sweeping generalizations are manipulative in a deliberately transparent way – which is part of a joke that is really just an excuse for a humorless message – but I still don't like being spoken for as a writer or editor. If I wanted to thank readers, I'd do it unassumingly, without an extravagant display of supplication that is the opposite of humility. And as a reader, I wouldn't be narcissistic enough to think, "It's about moo-hanking time those authors kissed my ass."

Besides which, the premise is made of cotton candy. Even though Howie's point is that all authors should thank readers (and Amazon), the presumption that all writers are modern capitalists, want their books to be published and/or posit a readership is false.

Even if every writer you know, read or respect wants a seven-figure income predicated on extensive readership, those desires weren't shared by writers like Emily Dickinsen, Gerard Manley Hopkins, John Wiener, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu or Henry Green. A number of writers write simply to write, just as American composer Charles Ives wrote music simply for the pleasure of the act and the sense of direction afforded by his progress.

Besides which, Colbert's mock encomiums are funnier and his writers better than Howie's.

And apart from that, I still don't like being spoken for. Even in jest, manipulative synecdoche in the service of championing any self-interested corporation makes living in a fine-print democracy feel even less democratic.

[crich70]

While the reasons for posting it may be less than pure (depending on viewpoint) the clip in the OP does make a very good point. Without us, the reader, there is no publishing industry or published author's either. Just as without customers no restaurant will stay open for very long. Books nourish us just as much as food does, though in a different manner of course. Everyone has their own tastes in reading, and there needs to be new books now and then to keep things interesting, but it isn't the publisher who keeps things going in the end, but the reader who buys the product.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by crich70

While the reasons for posting it may be less than pure (depending on viewpoint) the clip in the OP does make a very good point. Without us, the reader, there is no publishing industry or published author's either. Just as without customers no restaurant will stay open for very long. Books nourish us just as much as food does, though in a different manner of course. Everyone has their own tastes in reading, and there needs to be new books now and then to keep things interesting, but it isn't the publisher who keeps things going in the end, but the reader who buys the product.

Exactly.
Like it or not, we all have a stake in this ongoing conflict.
We are the ones footing the bill for the party.

If you like high ebook prices, tradpub has you covered. Agency at 2005 price levels is their end game.
If you like reasonable ebook prices, even for titles from millionaire authors, then like it or not, despise them or not, Amazon is your champion today.

It's not a matter of good guys or bad guys, it is strictly a matter of prices. We all saw what agency did (20% hike) and what removal of agency brought (BPH bestseller prices even lower than the "unacceptable" $9.99 price point).

Hachette publicly said they want no-discount Agency, HC and Macmillan just told the court then intend to ask for it when their contracts come up for negotiation.

So, yes, it is all about Agency.
What we are seeing now is simply an extension of the 2010 conspiracy; the BPHs aren't colluding again--they are colluding still. Sticking to their 2010 accords.

Everything is is just a smokescreen: the only question in play is Agency yes or no.

It really is that simple.

Place your bets accordingly.

[tubemonkey]

The real power brokers in this Agency fight are the readers. Pity they don't use that power to force BPH's to lower prices.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

The real power brokers in this Agency fight are the readers. Pity they don't use that power to force BPH's to lower prices.

Actually, we did.
Last year, bestsellers averaged $8 and under at times.

That's where the desire to force agency comes from and where the anti-indie invective comes from.
If we were the mindless price-insensitive consumption units they think we are they wouldn't need agency; they would still be pricing ebooks at $34 and "discounting" to $17. Windowing would've lasted more than two months. Indies wouldn't account for a quarter to a third of ebooks sold.

Amazon is the enabler for the expression of our reading parsimony.

(KOBO and the rest, too. But Amazon created the modern ebook market so they must be destroyed for it.)

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Actually, we did.
Last year, bestsellers averaged $8 and under at times.

True, but I'm looking more toward readers taking an active role in this current fight and boycotting Hachette until they abandon all hope of ever reinstating Agency pricing again.