Indie Booksellers Tell Indie Authors To Go To Hell
Yesterday, I mentioned one of the dumbest things in the world of books: Hey Barnes & Noble: Stop Bitchin’ and Start Competing!
But today comes an even dumber Amazon-bashing: ABA Says ‘No’ to Amazon Publishing
QUIZ! Find the disconnect here:
- Ebooks and Amazon have hurt book stores, especially independents.
- Amazon has helped authors, especially independents.
- Amazon develops a program so book stores (especially independents) can profit from Amazon books.
- Independent book stores refuse to deal with Amazon, thereby screwing themselves and independent writers … all the while having no effect at all on Amazon.
This is especially significant when it comes from Amazon’s Createspace service that offers print-on-demand, dead-tree books. Die By Wire is available in both Createspace and Kindle versions. And a few weeks ago I ordered a number of them to take into my favorite independent book store to see if they wanted to sell them.
Then, Amazon announced that it would be making Createspace books available through standard hard-copy book distributors like Ingram. So, I thought, I’ll wait because now I can get distributed and sold into physical stores without having to call on them one by one.
But, not-so-fast! Everyone is trying to pile on Amazon … and totally missing the target. Indie authors are the only ones getting hurt. And that just strengthens my ties to Amazon.
There was a time when independent book stores could count on authors to stand up for them, to support local book sellers and to help neighborhood stores.
It goes both ways, folks.
All of you are looking more and more like the evil behemoth you think Amazon is.
All of you have acted like an illegal cartel, breaking the laws against restraint of trade and unfair competition … not against Amazon, but against me and my indie colleagues.
You have all conspired to take a shot at how I — and thousands of other indie writers make a living. And that runs afoul of anti-trust legislation. Think about it.
