THREE CHEERS FOR AMAZON!!!<\/p>\n
I've given the company a hard time for its failure to clean out its Mobi closet, but people aren't perfect so I can hardly expect a company to achieve perfection.\u00a0 Lord knows, I'm the poster child for flaws.\u00a0 So I'm not saying that Amazon is perfect, but this week it took huge strides in becoming close enough to perfect for me.\u00a0\u00a0Amazon just proved once again that it is the indie writer's best friend.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This week, Amazon's indie writer's subsidiary, CreateSpace, entered the publishing biz.\u00a0\u00a0CS has signed distribution deals with Ingram's Lightning Source and Baker & Taylor<\/a> which will make\u00a0books widely available to\u00a0retailers and bookstores\u00a0as well as to schools and libraries.\u00a0 It's a big, big deal done quietly, almost under the radar.\u00a0<\/p>\n This quiet deal promises to change the face of\u00a0publishing.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Amazon first championed indie writers with its Kindle platform.\u00a0 Yes, big publishers and major authors - if they're smart - publish on Kindle.\u00a0 But the costs of such big named books brings big costs to Amazon as well.\u00a0 There have been numerous stories speculating that the big e-tailer loses about $2 on each\u00a0work of a Royal-published<\/a> author that appears on Kindle.\u00a0 Invariably those stories reach the flawed conclusion that the weight of these losses will drag down Kindle and Amazon.\u00a0 Of course, the stories never mention the horde of indie work\u00a0published on Kindle.<\/p>\n For each indie work, Amazon bears no up-front cost.\u00a0 The writer sets the purchase price and Amazon\u00a0collects 65% of that price for each\u00a0book sold.\u00a0\u00a0 And more and more, buyers don't care whether the book has been vetted by a big publishing company.\u00a0 Buyers want to decide for themselves and they're starting to hit the buy button more and more often for the indie works.\u00a0 Each time an indie work sells, the e-tailer and the indie author profit. Big publishing shills cries of bankruptcy ahoy aside, I think Amazon is laughing all the way to the bank. \u00a0<\/p>\n What's the proof that Amazon is profitting from being the indie advocate?\u00a0 Why, 'tis this week's new deal, of course.\u00a0 Under the terms, any indie writer published on CS who purchases\u00a0the pro-plan, at a cost of $39.00 per year, can enter their work in the new distribution channels.\u00a0 And that's the best value out there for indie writers.<\/p>\n Often the cost factor will prevent authors from\u00a0signing with Lightning Source or Baker & Taylor.\u00a0\u00a0Those distributors require the writer to own the ISBN and then to pay a set up fee.\u00a0 ISBNs are purchased in a block of 10 for\u00a0somewhere between $250-$300.\u00a0 Then there is a set up fee, of say $75, for each book.\u00a0 That's too big a chunk of change for many indie writers, especially in this economy.\u00a0 Lord knows, I blogged previously about my desire to get my books out there through LS. But in times when my family can't pay all its bills, laying out big bucks for distribution of books just wasn't happening.<\/p>\n So like many other indie writers, I was anticipating the day when I could get my work out there in the big, wide world.\u00a0 On that day, my books could sit out there on store shelves beside works of romance authors like Julia Quinn, Johanna Lindsey, Catherine Coulter, Nora Roberts.\u00a0 And my new books,\u00a0the contemporaries where love and law intersect, they could one day sit beside John Grisham's work.\u00a0 Heck, my last name (Graham) is even alphabetically close to his.\u00a0 Well, thanks to Amazon, today is the future.<\/p>\n I was already published through CS and already enrolled in the pro-plan.\u00a0 So Amazon made the path to my dream as easy as checking a box.\u00a0\u00a0To\u00a0other indie writers, I'd note that CS has no set up fees, they provide and own the ISBN, and the pro plan is only $39.00 per year.\u00a0 For that price, you already got bigger royalties on Amazon.\u00a0 Today, it also gives you the keys to the world.\u00a0 Even I can afford $39.00 per year and\u00a0my current economic balance sheets are\u00a0as gloomy as anyone's.\u00a0<\/p>\n The move\u00a0pits Amazon against the traditional publishing companies.\u00a0 But it doesn't do it by attacking the walls of the Royal's castles.\u00a0 Amazon has built a new castle and thrown open the gates.\u00a0 It doesn't set up Amazon or CS as judge and jury.\u00a0 The companies aren't screening works or deciding what Americans want.\u00a0 Instead, they're banking on a future where Americans decide the next big thing for themselves, one purchase at a time.\u00a0<\/p>\n This move makes Amazon the Ellis Island for indie authors.\u00a0 The company's Kindle success, fueled by\u00a0profits made more from indies than the establishment, convinced the\u00a0giant that the huddled masses did yearn to breathe free.\u00a0 And in freedom, there is both choice and profit.\u00a0 Our country was built on those principals and when it remembers that America is the country free enterprise built, happy days will return for everyone.\u00a0 For now, at least Amazon has remembered.<\/p>\n Once again, traditional publishing's insular, short-sighted protectionism has brought the Royals a step closer to their own demise.\u00a0 The companies could have seen the rise of devices like the Kindle as a low cost way to sell more books to more people.\u00a0 The publishing Royals\u00a0could have negotiated new\u00a0 contracts with lower advance money and\u00a0bigger writer royalties.\u00a0 That would mean the writers shared not only the risk, but the reward as well.\u00a0 But of course, publishers didn't do that.<\/p>\n Instead, the publishers closed ranks and circled the wagons.\u00a0 They said, no big discounts to Amazon, never, not in a million years.\u00a0 In fact, we're going to delay the release of new e-books so that we can bank bigger profits on our paper versions.\u00a0 Take that, Amazon, they cried.<\/p>\n And Amazon took the publisher's sword and impaled them on it.\u00a0<\/p>\n So, book buyers everywhere, keep an eye on the shelves of your favorite bookstore,\u00a0supermarket or\u00a0drug store.\u00a0 Within the next few weeks, if the owners of those stores and markets are smarter than the publishers, those shelves will bloom with books as wide and varied and different as the dreams and personalities of the shoppers.\u00a0<\/p>\n So once again, Amazon steps forward as the advocate for\u00a0change and choice and the future.\u00a0 Maybe an Amazon World wouldn't be such a bad place after all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" THREE CHEERS FOR AMAZON!!! I've given the company a hard time for its failure to clean out its Mobi closet, but people aren't perfect so I can hardly expect a company to achieve perfection.\u00a0 Lord knows, I'm the poster child for flaws.\u00a0 So I'm not saying that Amazon is perfect, but this week it took ...continue reading \"Amazon Attacks Again – There’s A New Publisher On The Block\"<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=773"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":789,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773\/revisions\/789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}