Fighting over computer keyboardOur friends at The Passive Voice have linked to an interesting little op-ed by author Lili Saintcrow where she weighs in on the Hachette vs Amazon battle, which we have already covered here.

She raises the valid point that publishers rely on pre-sale orders to gauge the probable success of a title, and this affects how much promotion, attention and resources the publisher then puts into the book and the author. From the article:

“Those forecasts create numbers that are used when, for example, Devi makes the case to buy another series from me while I’m finishing up writing the current one. It’s not fair, but it’s the only metric the publishers have in some cases, for all sorts of reasons–frex, it can take over six months for the contracts department to get all situated.”

The part that interested me the most, though? As is usually the case with TPV’s link posts, it’s the comments. Saintcrow paints a very sympathetic picture, but the comments damn her more than I was expecting. Firstly, TPV rightly points out that Hachette, a big corporation themselves, is hardly the cuddly puppy dog here, and has been getting away with paying paltry author royalty rates since time began.

Secondly, the commenters point out that Saintcrow’s assertion that the dispute between Hachette and Amazon is “forcing her to release fewer books” is simply not a given. Hachette could start their own ebook portal. Saintcrow could publish books directly. Nobody has to accept the status quo if they don’t want to.

It was an interesting read. I finished the story proper expecting to see hugs and cuddles for Saintcrow and was surprised to see the comments call her out on her assertions. There is no black or white, good vs bad here. There is just a bunch of corporate overlords trying to navigate their new marketplace, and the authors may be caught in the middle, but that’s only if they choose to stay in that marketplace too. Saintcrow does have other options these days!

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"I’m a journalist, a teacher and an e-book fiend. I work as a French teacher at a K-3 private school. I use drama, music, puppets, props and all manner of tech in my job, and I love it. I enjoy moving between all the classes and having a relationship with each child in the school. Kids are hilarious, and I enjoy watching them grow and learn. My current device of choice for reading is my Amazon Kindle Touch, but I have owned or used devices by Sony, Kobo, Aluratek and others. I also read on my tablet devices using the Kindle app, and I enjoy synching between them, so that I’m always up to date no matter where I am or what I have with me."

1 COMMENT

  1. I’m actually the one who submitted the story to The Passive Voice. I linked to it in my Amazon Derangement Syndrome article but didn’t feel I could say much about it on its own. When you get right down to it, it’s basically just another textbook example of ADS.

    I engaged with her some in the comments, but she was entirely disinclined to want to do anything except blame Amazon for her troubles. (Lady, Amazon’s not the one who participated in an illegal conspiracy here.)

    People might have been kinder to the author if she hadn’t started disemvowelling (that is, removing the vowels from all the words in the post, making it harder to read) the comments of many of the people who disagreed with her. (At least I escaped that fate.) She even accused one of them of “mansplaining.” Ugh. This treatment earned her a going-over by J.A. Konrath on his own blog.

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