The war on Amazon is Big Publishing's 1% moment. What about other writers? | Barry Eisler

More people are buying more books than ever, and more people are making a living by writing them. Why do millionaire authors want to destroy the one company that's made this all possible?As an author of ten novels legacy-published, self-published, and Amazon-published I'm bewildered by the anti-Amazon animus among various establishment writers. James Patterson pays for full-page ads in the New York Times and Publishers Weekly, demanding that the US government intervene and do something (it's never clear what) about Amazon. Richard Russo tries to frighten authors over Amazon's "scorched-earth capitalism". Scott Turow conjures images of the "nightmarish" future that Amazon, "the Darth Vader of the literary world", has in store for us all. And "Authors Guild" president Roxana Robinson says Amazon is like "Tony Soprano" and "thuggish".These are strange things to say about a company that sells more books than anyone. That singlehandedly created a market for digital books, now the greatest source of the legacy publishing industry's profitability (though of course legacy publishers are sharing little of that newfound wealth with their authors). That built the world's first viable mass-market self-publishing platform, a platform that has enabled thousands of new authors to make a living from their writing for the first time in their lives. And that pays self-published authors something like five times as much in digital royalties as legacy publishers do.If his net worth was... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2014-06-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
News tagged with: #strange things #legacy publishers #net worth

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Amazon appoints three to UK team

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[ The Bookseller | 2011-02-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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iPad is a devil's deal for publishers

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[ Betanews | 2011-02-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Check Google Books data for errors, publishers warned

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[ The Bookseller | 2011-02-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Agency could be on hold for new publishers

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[ The Bookseller | 2011-02-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Non-agency authors are Amazon UK’s bestselling ebooks

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[ The Bookseller | 2011-02-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Bloomsbury to publish ElBaradei memoir

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[ The Bookseller | 2011-02-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ The Bookseller | 2011-02-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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iPhone app store, Amazon Kindle: Why ebook sellers should stop playing by Apple's rules.

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[ Slate | 2011-02-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Humphreys takes over from Ayrton as Serpent's Tail publisher

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[ The Bookseller | 2011-02-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ Publishers Weekly | 2011-02-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Amazon Claims E-book Sales Beat Paperbacks

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[ PC World | 2011-01-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Waterstone's asks publishers to scale-back March orders

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[ The Bookseller | 2011-01-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Amazon Kindle Book Sales Soar

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[ PC World | 2011-01-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Kindle sales outstrip paperbacks as Amazon has first $10bn quarter

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[ The Bookseller | 2011-01-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ The Bookseller | 2011-01-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Fry Communications Builds Out Suite of Publisher Services

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[ Folio Magazine | 2011-01-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Amazon rolls out the first 'Kindle Singles,' short form ebooks

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[ Betanews | 2011-01-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Amazon Ups Its Edge

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[ Publishers Weekly | 2011-01-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Publishers Come Out of Bankruptcy Eager To Buy

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[ Folio Magazine | 2011-01-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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For Publishers, Who Are the Gatekeepers of Social Media?

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[ Folio Magazine | 2011-01-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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