seanan_mcguire on what authors control, as well as boycotts, one-star reviews, and other matters or less tangentially related to Amazonfail.Amazon shares fall 7 pct on publishing fracas — Amazonfail has sucked three billion dollars in market capitalization out of the stock price.
The Kindle Missile Crisis — Nathan Bransford with some analysis of his own.
Levi Montgomery raises a point about author power which I hadn't considered — Thirty years ago, if I read and loved your books, and they disappeared from the shelves of my local store, I would probably have never known why, nor what to do or whom to call. Things are different now. I need to mull this one over.
My take on why authors can't just switch publishing houses — In answer to a question which has been raised repeatedly. Yes, the question itself is a red herring. No, I have no desire to do so, have yet to see how Macmillan isn't working for the business interests I share with them. It's just an intellectual exercise, but may be useful to some folks.
Finally, some things I've learned about authors from reading what ebook-buying consumers from the pro-Amazon side of this dispute are saying.
- Authors are greedy
- Authors are rich
- Authors hate ebook readers
- Authors control pricing
- Authors control what their publishers do
- Authors should be punished for what their publisher does
- Authors are taking orders from their publishers' PR departments
- Authors should self-publish, because they'll make lots more money that way
- Authors don't know what they're talking about
- Authors aren't necessary
- Authors are bullying Amazon
This depresses me immensely, and reinforces what I said before about us authors looking greedy and short-sighted to consumers for whom we are the main public face of publishing.