Apub signs Koontz

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I'm assuming that Koontz thought of that and he or Amazon will hire a very good editor to work with him.

Same. I don't expect anything as big as this to slip through the cracks.

[mitford13]

The APub imprints, including Thomas & Mercer which Koontz signed with, have all the usual trad pub bells and whistles, including editors.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I'd thought of that too. I don't read Koontz, but Stephen King is known to give praise and credit to his editors.

I'm assuming that Koontz thought of that and he or Amazon will hire a very good editor to work with him.

Why does everybody think that Amazon doesn't have editors? Every single book I read, which comes from an Amazon imprint, thanks the editor among others.

[binaryhermit]

And editors aren't limited to non-self-published works, I think.


But a lot of self-pub books don't see a competent editor and it shows.


EDIT: Then again, it's not entirely clear that all big 5 books see a competent editor either.

[Kindleing]

Originally Posted by binaryhermit

EDIT: Then again, it's not entirely clear that all big 5 books see a competent editor either.

I've been thinking the same thing - my wife reads a lot of paper books from major publishers and frequently complains about poor editing. She sees everything from misspelled words to wrong words to mixing up the names of characters. In one book two brothers were traveling in a car; in one paragraph one brother was driving and in the next paragraph the other was behind the wheel - and there had not been a break in the action/dialog to permit a driver change. It really disrupts the flow.

Wally

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by mitford13

The APub imprints, including Thomas & Mercer which Koontz signed with, have all the usual trad pub bells and whistles, including editors.

The titles featured in the monthly First Reads typically feature blurbs/notes by their editors.

https://www.amazon.com/firstreads

To the extent they talk about APub (which isn't much) their authors tend to be positive about their support and input. A common one is how open and accomodating editors are. They sound more like old school tradpub editors.

Beyond that, APub only plays in fiction.
NonFiction is a non-issue so any inroads the might make won't change that market.

The one area where they are genuinely changing the market is in translations.
They already the largest in the US and growing steadily. Some months FIRST READS will feature two translated books out of six.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by Kindleing

I've been thinking the same thing - my wife reads a lot of paper books from major publishers and frequently complains about poor editing. She sees everything from misspelled words to wrong words to mixing up the names of characters. In one book two brothers were traveling in a car; in one paragraph one brother was driving and in the next paragraph the other was behind the wheel . . .

There are different types of editing, and different editorial skill levels. I think Amazon has tried some to hire away arguably super-star editors and not done well there.

Aggressive insistence on eliminating whole chapters, or having new ones written, might be essential for some books and acts of desecration for others. So. I don't mean to imply there are perfect super-star editors who only work for the big five.

Fortunately for me, I'm OK with typos and don't notice plot errors as your wife does. But I do find many books to be boring, never finishing them. They seem to be disproportionately from university presses.

[leebase]

I can’t tell you WHY there is a quality difference.....but there certainly is. And I’m not talking about grammar. And this from the POV that I actually enjoyed the Amazon author's book. It’s like how I can enjoy a McDonald's hamburger and yet understand it’s no steak dinner

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by leebase

I can’t tell you WHY there is a quality difference.....but there certainly is. And I’m not talking about grammar. And this from the POV that I actually enjoyed the Amazon author's book. It’s like how I can enjoy a McDonald's hamburger and yet understand it’s no steak dinner

It's like any other business. Some companies are so focused on cost, they cut quality to save money. You see it in the software industry. Everyone has a "QA" department, but for quite a few companies trying to get software out the door on a specific schedule, QA is more of a rubber stamp that catches gross errors.

Imprints tend to go through cycles based on whomever is in charge of the imprint. Some imprints have fairly strong editing (i.e. the publisher backs the editor when the author pushes back), while others have a fairly minimalist editing standard.

You also see it with indies. Some are "self edited", most seem to have been edited at a proof read level, a few seem to been polished a bit by either an editor or a reading circle.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

It all depends on what the contract actually says. Is Koontz going to be only available via Amazon? How much money is the contract for? Is Amazon trying to sign a bunch of big name authors or is Amazon just trying to let lesser known authors that Amazon isn't just an ebook/indie publisher?

Who knows, it might even open the door to possible anti-trust charges. The government is going after the big tech companies these days.

I think he's had some books for sale there for a while now. More likely he's just making a series of stories or novella's for sale just on Amazon.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by crich70

More likely he's just making a series of stories or novella's for sale just on Amazon.

No. He's not dealing with the website or KDP.
He's dealing with the AmazonPublishing tradpub operation in Michigan.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Publishing

In May 2009, Amazon launched AmazonEncore, the inaugural flagship general imprint.[2][3] It publishes titles that have gone out-of-print or self-published books with sales potential. The first book published under this imprint was Cayla Kluver's Legacy in August 2009.[2] Other early books published by AmazonEncore include Mercury Falls by Robert Kroese, Shaken by J.A. Konrath, The Grove by John Rector and A Scattered Life by Karen McQuestion.[4]

AmazonCrossing was announced in May 2010,[5][6] for translated works into English. The first translated books were the French-language novel The King of Kahel and the German-language novel The Hangman's Daughter which were released in November and December 2010, respectively.[5][7]

In May 2011, Amazon launched two genre-focused imprints, Montlake Romance, and Thomas & Mercer. Montlake Romance is an imprint for the romance genre; "Romance is one of our biggest and fastest growing categories, particularly among Kindle customers," said Jeff Belle, vice president of Amazon Publishing.[8] Thomas & Mercer is for mystery titles.[9]

It's a more or less traditional publisher so Koontz' going to APubis no different than going to Baen...
...except APub is bigger and has deeper pockets.
Or Roberts going to the randy Penguin a couple years back.

Its a multi year commitment, not a trivial marketing move.

The news here isn't giving Koontz a multibook deal, it's giving *Koontz* a multibook deal. APub's wheelhouse has been newer authors, not long-established names, so moving upscale is somethig to take notice of.

Look at their catalog:

https://amazonpublishing.amazon.com

This is a smaller, growing business getting big enough to play with thd older, bigger players.

Considering that APub is estimated tobe about Hachette size, but more profitable, it is a head's up there might now be six BPHs, not five.

18 months ago:

https://www.idealog.com/blog/changin...wnhill-amazon/

And Amazon Publishing further complicated publishers’ lives. While an early notion that it would compete immediately with big publishers for big books proved an illusion (at least partly because the brick-and-mortar incumbents weren’t interested in helping Amazon-owned titles), the proprietary publishing efforts worked great in the genres, particularly romance. As a result, each week now, a handful of those genre Amazon Publishing ebook titles are handily selling more units than most of the titles on the NYT and USA Today’s best seller lists.

They are biggest in translations and big in the genres.
Lately, they've been expanding into litfic and children's books, thanks to the kingmaker power of FIRST READS alluded to above.

This power seems to be drawing the attention of at least some established names.
That is worth watching, given the boycott on their print books by B&N and the ABA crowd.

[crich70]

He has had some books there (at Amazon) for years though. Lightning for example has a date of Sept. 2 2003 on the page.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by crich70

He has had some books there (at Amazon) for years though. Lightning for example has a date of Sept. 2 2003 on the page.

Well, who doesn't sell through Amazon's website?
Plus, it's not up to authors; it's up to the publisher where to sell their books.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by crich70

He has had some books there (at Amazon) for years though. Lightning for example has a date of Sept. 2 2003 on the page.

I think you are missing the point of the thread.

Lightning is available for sale on Amazon, but is published by Penguin.

Future *newly written* Dean Koontz books will be published by Amazon Publishing.