Sounds like the take over of U.S. agriculture by Cargill in the 90's:
already owning the storage and distribution facilities, they buy the
farms of people desperate for income due to shut-outs from access to
bank loans or markets by the mega-corp's, amalgamate large tracts of
land, and then hire a land manager who hires minimum wage workers to
toil in often unsafe conditions over grueling hours to maximize profits.
Oh, wait! Amazon already has the storage and distribution angle (as read
in a prior post), so it just needs control of the poorly paid, desperate
writer.
But, maybe more writers will be published. The closed shop of the
publisher has been a growing problem and self-publishing can be
difficult as no major bookstores will handle the works.
Darryl
On 10/17/2011 7:30 PM, Arthur Cordell wrote:
Amazon Signs Up Authors, Writing Publishers Out of Deal
/by/DAVID STREITFELD . Oct. 16, 2011 ; NY Times
SEATTLE --- *Amazon.com*
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/amazon_inc/index.html?inline=nyt-org>*^1
<http://www.readability.com/articles/pakyokrz?legacy_bookmarklet=1#rdb-footnote-1>
has taught readers that they do not need bookstores. Now it is
encouraging writers to cast aside their publishers. *
Amazon will publish 122 books this fall in an array of genres, in both
physical and e-book form. It is a striking acceleration of the
retailer's fledging publishing program that will place Amazon squarely
in competition with the New York houses that are also its most
prominent suppliers.
It has set up a flagship line run by a publishing veteran
<http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/23/agent-and-former-publisher-to-lead-new-imprint-for-amazon>^2
<http://www.readability.com/articles/pakyokrz?legacy_bookmarklet=1#rdb-footnote-2>
, Laurence Kirshbaum, to bring out brand-name fiction and nonfiction.
It signed its first deal with the self-help author Tim Ferriss
<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/17/technology/amazon-set-to-publish-tim-ferriss.html>^3
<http://www.readability.com/articles/pakyokrz?legacy_bookmarklet=1#rdb-footnote-3>
. Last week it announced a memoir by the actress and director Penny
Marshall, for which it paid $800,000, a person with direct knowledge
of the deal said.
Publishers say Amazon is aggressively wooing some of their top
authors. And the company is gnawing away at the services that
publishers, critics and agents used to provide.
Several large publishers declined to speak on the record about
Amazon's efforts. "Publishers are terrified and don't know what to
do," said Dennis Loy Johnson of Melville House, who is known for
speaking his mind.
"Everyone's afraid of Amazon," said Richard Curtis, a longtime agent
who is also an e-book publisher. "If you're a bookstore, Amazon has
been in competition with you for some time. If you're a publisher, one
day you wake up and Amazon is competing with you too. And if you're an
agent, Amazon may be stealing your lunch because it is offering
authors the opportunity to publish directly and cut you out.
"It's an old strategy: divide and conquer," Mr. Curtis said.
Amazon executives, interviewed at the company's headquarters here,
declined to say how many editors the company employed, or how many
books it had under contract. But they played down Amazon's power and
said publishers were in love with their own demise.
"It's always the end of the world," said Russell Grandinetti, one of
Amazon's top executives. "You could set your watch on it arriving."
*He pointed out, though, that the landscape was in some ways changing
for the first time since Gutenberg invented the modern book nearly 600
years ago. "The only really necessary people in the publishing process
now are the writer and reader," he said. "Everyone who stands between
those two has both risk and opportunity." *
Amazon has started giving all authors, whether it publishes them or
not, direct access to highly coveted Nielsen BookScan sales data
<http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2010/12/amazon-gives-nielsen-bookscan-to-authors.html>^4
<http://www.readability.com/articles/pakyokrz?legacy_bookmarklet=1#rdb-footnote-4>
, which records how many physical books they are selling in individual
markets like Milwaukee or New Orleans. It is introducing the sort of
one-on-one communication between authors and their fans that used to
happen only on book tours. It made an obscure German historical novel
a runaway best seller without a single professional reviewer weighing in.
Publishers caught a glimpse of a future they fear has no role for them
late last month when Amazon introduced the Kindle Fire
<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/29/technology/amazon-unveils-tablet-that-undercuts-ipads-price.html>^5
<http://www.readability.com/articles/pakyokrz?legacy_bookmarklet=1#rdb-footnote-5>
, a tablet for books and other media sold by Amazon. Jeffrey P. Bezos,
the company's chief executive, referred several times to Kindle as "an
end-to-end service," conjuring up a world in which Amazon develops,
promotes and delivers the product.
For a sense of how rattled publishers are by Amazon's foray into their
business, consider the case of Kiana Davenport, a Hawaiian writer
whose career abruptly derailed last month.
In 2010 Ms. Davenport signed with Riverhead Books, a division of
Penguin, for "The Chinese Soldier's Daughter," a Civil War love story.
She received a $20,000 advance for the book, which was supposed to
come out next summer.
If writers have one message drilled into them these days, it is this:
hustle yourself. So Ms. Davenport took off the shelf several
award-winning short stories she had written 20 years ago and packaged
them in an e-book, "Cannibal Nights," available on Amazon.
When Penguin found out, it went "ballistic," Ms. Davenport wrote on
her blog, accusing her of breaking her contractual promise to avoid
competing with it. It wanted "Cannibal Nights" removed from sale and
all mentions of it deleted from the Internet.
Ms. Davenport refused, so Penguin canceled her novel and has said it
will pursue legal action if she does not return the advance.
.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Page 2 of 2)
"They're trying to set an example: If you self-publish and distribute
with Amazon, you do so at your own risk," said Jan Constantine, a
lawyer with the Authors Guild who has represented Ms. Davenport.
The writer knows her crime: "Sleeping with the enemy." Penguin
declined to comment.
If some writers are suffering collateral damage, others are benefiting
from this new setup. Laurel Saville was locked out by the old system,
when New York publishers were the gatekeepers. "I got lots and lots of
praise but no takers," said Ms. Saville, 48, a business writer who
lives in Little Falls, N.Y.
Two years ago she decided to pay for the publication of her memoir
about her mother's descent from California beauty queen to street
person to murder victim. She spent about $2,200, which yielded sales
of 600 copies. Not horrible but far from earth-shaking.
Last fall, Ms. Saville paid $100 to be included in a Publishers Weekly
list of self-published writers. The magazine ended up reviewing her
memoir, giving it a mixed notice that nevertheless caught the
attention of Amazon editors. They sent Ms. Saville an e-mail offering
to republish the book. It got an editorial once-over, a new cover and
a new title: "Unraveling Anne." It will be published next month.
Ms. Saville did not get any money upfront, as she would have if a
traditional publisher had picked up her memoir. In essence, Amazon has
become her partner.
"I assume they want to make a lot of money off the book, which is
encouraging to me," said Ms. Saville, who negotiated her deal without
an agent.
Her contract has a clause that forbids her from discussing the
details, which is not traditional in publishing. The publicity plans
for the book are also secret.
Can Amazon secretly create its own best sellers? "The Hangman's
Daughter" was an e-book hit. Amazon bought the rights to the
historical novel by a first-time writer, Oliver Pötzsch, and had it
translated from German. It has now sold 250,000 digital copies.
"The great and fascinating thing about Amazon's publishing program is
that there can be these grass-roots phenomena," said Bruce Nichols of
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, which republished the novel
<http://hmhbooks.com/catalog/titledetail.cfm?titleNumber=1486264&searchString=Hangman%E2%80%99s%20Daughter>
this summer.
Ms. Saville no longer even contemplates a career with a traditional
publisher. "They had their shot," she said. She is now writing a
novel. "My hope is Amazon will think it's wonderful and we'll go
happily off into the publishing sunset," she said.
.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
References
1. ^
<http://www.readability.com/articles/pakyokrz?legacy_bookmarklet=1#rdb-footnote-link-1>Amazon.com
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/amazon_inc/index.html?inline=nyt-org>
(topics.nytimes.com) (
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/amazon_inc/index.html?inline=nyt-org
)
2. ^
<http://www.readability.com/articles/pakyokrz?legacy_bookmarklet=1#rdb-footnote-link-2>run
by a publishing veteran
<http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/23/agent-and-former-publisher-to-lead-new-imprint-for-amazon>
(artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com) (
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/23/agent-and-former-publisher-to-lead-new-imprint-for-amazon
)
3. ^
<http://www.readability.com/articles/pakyokrz?legacy_bookmarklet=1#rdb-footnote-link-3>Tim
Ferriss
<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/17/technology/amazon-set-to-publish-tim-ferriss.html>
(www.nytimes.com) (
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/17/technology/amazon-set-to-publish-tim-ferriss.html
)
4. ^
<http://www.readability.com/articles/pakyokrz?legacy_bookmarklet=1#rdb-footnote-link-4>Nielsen
BookScan sales data
<http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2010/12/amazon-gives-nielsen-bookscan-to-authors.html>
(latimesblogs.latimes.com) (
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2010/12/amazon-gives-nielsen-bookscan-to-authors.html
)
5. ^
<http://www.readability.com/articles/pakyokrz?legacy_bookmarklet=1#rdb-footnote-link-5>introduced
the Kindle Fire
<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/29/technology/amazon-unveils-tablet-that-undercuts-ipads-price.html>
(www.nytimes.com) (
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/29/technology/amazon-unveils-tablet-that-undercuts-ipads-price.html
)
Share
·
o Post to Twitter
<http://www.readability.com/articles/pakyokrz?legacy_bookmarklet=1>
o Post to Facebook
<http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=http://www.readability.com/articles/pakyokrz>
o Email this Article
<http://www.readability.com/articles/pakyokrz?legacy_bookmarklet=1>
Original URL:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/17/technology/amazon-rewrites-the-rules-of-book-publishing.html?nl=technology&emc=techupdateema1
<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/17/technology/amazon-rewrites-the-rules-of-book-publishing.html?nl=technology&emc=techupdateema1>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_______________________________________________
Futurework mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
_______________________________________________
Futurework mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
