While there are certainly advantages to Amazon’s program, anyone who thinks Amazon is in this to help authors is a fool. Amazon, like pretty much any other business, is in this to make money.
Somewhere during the summer, when I got the latest “I can’t sell this” from an agent, I realized, “You can’t, but I can.” I have not looked back since.
The times they are a-changing, the question of when will probably be answered after the next Christmas season as ebooks emerge at minimum as a major market force, over 20% of book sales is a conservative guess, so the answer to that one is soon.
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware
One of the big publishing headlines this week (here, for instance) was that e-books from some popular authors were selling on Amazon for higher prices than the hardcover versions. For instance, the hardcove…
Given Random House’s recent claim on electronic rights in older contracts, Macmillan’s recent announcement that it will be issuing “enhanced ebooks” simultaneously with some of its hardcover releases (and charging even more than for the hardcovers), and the thorny rights and payment issues raised by the rapid expansion of the ebook market, this seems an especially relevant piece of news: the UK’s Society of Authors has issued guidelines on ebook licensing and royalties for authors and agents.
Last week, the publishing world was abuzz with news that Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and HarperCollins intend to delay the release of ebook versions of most of their hardcover titles by three or four months, rather than releasing the ebooks simultaneously with hardcovers…
