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Morning Coffee – 30 November 2020

Here are a few stories to read this Monday morning.

P.S. If you need a tech VA or help with your website, email me at [email protected]. Got a story that I should include in next week’s list? Shoot me an email.

 

 

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Allen F December 2, 2020 um 12:44 am

Deities, I love me some revised history in the press. Barnes & Noble and the big trad-pubs are who done did in Borders. The only thing you might accuse Amazon of doing is selling reloads so trad-pub can keep shooting their feet (and other parts) off. And I love Atlantic’s believe that Apple and the big 5 weren’t the bad guys in trying to force higher ebook prices on readers. And in the end Amazon let them have their agency pricing – which the big 5 then tried to whine that Amazon had somehow 'tricked' them into agency – seeing how badly it’s hurt their sales of ebooks ever since. (Since in agency the publisher sets the price, the big 5 get to lose sales – or lower their prices and admit Amazon had been right all along.)

And then there’s the Amazon elephant in the room. Writers don’t need the big 5’s too high prices, bad contracts or too low royalties to reach their readers, they can (after a little editing/formatting help) find/create a cover and let Amazon sell it for them. That’s what’s hurting the big 5 (soon to be 4), readers are getting use to finding good stories that aren’t overpriced. Yes, there’s a lot of chaff out there to dig through looking for the grain, but you had the same problem finding new/good authors from trad-pub. And unlike trad-pub, most indie ebooks are as cheap as a starbuck’s coffee, a much lesser risk than one of trad-pub’s offerings.

If the Atlantic thinks Amazon needs breaking up to save books they’re barking up the wrong tree in the wrong forest. If anything Amazon is getting more reading material out there for more readers. That said reading material isn’t making trad-pub lots of money isn’t Amazon’s fault and they can stop selling their books at Amazon at any time. But they won’t, they know that the loss of Amazon sales would just sink them all the faster.

Sorry for the rant, but if there was anything Amazon was actually doing wrong enough don’t you think that twit that’s still refusing to admit he’s lost would have sent the DoJ after Amazon? Four years and his people couldn’t find anything useful …


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