Traveling to the Bainbridge Writer's Conference near Seattle this weekend to give the keynote. I'll be talking about some of the issues I discuss in this Guardian piece on the battle between Amazon and legacy publishers. The battle fascinates me not just because I write books for a living, but also because it involves some of the topics I find most engaging: political use of language; the establishment mentality and mindset; the struggle between the forces of control and the forces of democratization. Enjoy.
May I draw your attention to this atrocious bit of illogical tripe that was on slate.com about amazon and ebooks.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2012/04/e_book_price_fixing_amazon_is_the_real_bad_guy_.html
subtitled Amazon’s continued domination of the publishing industry will hurt the book market.
I swear he is arguing that publishers being able to gouge readers and authors is somehow a good thing.
You might even get to see some sunshine up here in the PNW this weekend. Watch out for drivers confused by the big bright thing in the sky....We born and bred PNW-ers get a little silly and giddy when it gets above 65 degrees in April.
ReplyDeleteThe comments for the Guardian piece were interesting and entertaining.
Katherine
While I don't agree with you 100%, I find it stunning that my fellow writers call Amazon a heartless corporation, yet believe publishing companies are "just good folks who love books."
ReplyDeleteSure, the editors and the front line troops perhaps, but it's a corporation. The bean counters will choose Snooki over the great American novel every time. There seems to be a cognitive disconnect, they believe they will sell a book that someone "loves," and not one that will sell. Haven't they read the stories of all the mid-listers who've been dropped like a live grenade when book 2 sells 5% less than book 1 did?
I don't get it. I want "traditional" publishing to survive, personally. But they'll have to compete to do that.
I was impressed by the courtesy and restraint of your replies to those Guardian commenters who took a rather trollish approach to your article. There was no point repeating yourself forever to people who were beating their drums too hard to listen, but you told 'em, then you told 'em what you told 'em, and in so doing, you performed a real service for writers everywhere.
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