Elites or freedom fighters: How the Amazon-Hachette battle took on the rhetoric of class warfare
From GigaOm:
One side defends the ideals that this nation was founded on: Independence and freedom from tyranny. The other side is made up of elites who keep the little people down and take the money that is rightfully theirs in an attempt to control the message and maintain the status quo.
I’m talking not about the Tea Party and big government, but the worlds of self-publishing and traditional publishing. Yet the rhetoric in both debates often sounds very much the same. In 2009, the Tea Party movement took shape in the United States. At just around the same time, ebooks began gaining in popularity, and as the digital publishing revolution took off, so did the once-stigmatized practice of self-publishing. Authors were suddenly able to get their ebooks to large audiences without going through traditional publishers. On January 20, 2010, Amazon began offering 70 percent royalties on self-published Kindle books (priced between $2.99 and $9.99.) In doing so, it opened up a new revenue stream for thousands of people.
. . . .
The wildly differing rhetoric used on each side provides some insight into why the negotiations seem so momentous, and it is one explanation for why it can be so difficult for the supporters of each side to find any common ground. Some of the most outspoken leaders of the self-publishing movement have adopted Tea Party-like rhetoric benefiting Amazon that can make it difficult for those from the “elite” world of traditional publishing to sympathize. Those traditional publishers, bestselling traditionally published authors and literary folk, on the other hand, tend toward anti-Amazon arguments that the self-publishing movement finds preposterous.
. . . .
Amazon’s ability to pull this off reflects an underlying trend in the self-publishing movement: Its reliance on Tea Party-esque, “freedom fighter” rhetoric. Earlier this year, self-publishing site Smashwords published “The Indie Author Manifesto,” modeled after the Declaration of Independence and including the line “I shall not bow beholden or subservient to any publisher.”
. . . .
Meanwhile, statements that Hachette and Amazon released last week illustrate the ways in which Amazon has picked up on the voice of the self-publishing movement, while Hachette’s language is stilted and formal:
Hachette:
“Amazon has just sent us a brief proposal. We invite Amazon to withdraw the sanctions they have unilaterally imposed, and we will continue to negotiate in good faith and with the hope of a swift conclusion. We believe that the best outcome for the writers we publish is a contract with Amazon that brings genuine marketing benefits and whose terms allow Hachette to continue to invest in writers, marketing, and innovation. We look forward to resolving this dispute soon and to the benefit of the writers who have trusted their books to us.”
Amazon:
“We call baloney. Hachette is part of a $10 billion global conglomerate. It wouldn’t be ‘suicide.’ They can afford it. What they’re really making clear is that they absolutely want their authors caught in the middle of this negotiation because they believe it increases their leverage. All the while, they are stalling and refusing to negotiate, despite the pain caused to their authors. Our offer is sincere. They should take us up on it.”
“We call baloney” is the master stroke: Brief, folksy and eminently tweetable. “Our offer is sincere. They should take us up on it.” Just 51 characters — easy to share that!
Hachette’s statement is written with more complex language and can’t be distilled into a single phrase; there is nothing there that you want to tweet and I had to think for a second about what they meant by “sanctions.” Both sides argue this is war, but Amazon is more charming about it and makes its message easier to spread.
. . . .
One of the main reasons that charges of “elitism” rankle the traditional publishing world, I think, is that most people who work in the industry — whether they are publishers, independent booksellers, editors or authors — don’t feel like one-percenters. And most of them aren’t: Book publishing pays notoriously low salaries and most authors — whether they are traditionally published or self-published — will never get rich.
Supporters of Hachette and traditional publishing fear Amazon’s growing power. They worry that its business practices will drive publishers into the ground, forcing them to consolidate or go out of business, and leading to a less competitive and vibrant marketplace for books.
But I think that many members of this group fear the loss of the “right” kinds of books. Thus far, all of the greatest self-publishing successes have been in genre fiction – thrillers, mystery, romance, science fiction — rather than literary fiction or narrative nonfiction, the types of books that win the biggest prizes and get serious reviews. There is a fear that in a world dominated by self-publishing and Amazon, it’s not just “books” that wouldn’t get published, it’s the “important” books that wouldn’t get published. (Robert Caro, anyone?)
There is, too, a fear that Amazon does not value or respect books as cultural objects. “To our knowledge, Amazon has never clearly and unequivocally stated (as traditional publishers have) that books are different and special, that they can’t be treated like the other commodities they sell,” the Authors Guild’s Richard Russo wrote last week. “This doesn’t strike us as an oversight.”
Link to the rest at GigaOm and thanks to Sharon for the tip.
PG understands the use of the term, Tea Party, in the article for timeliness, but suggests that Populist is a better description of some of the characteristics of the indie publishing community. Populist movements have arisen on both the right and the left in American politics.
Additionally, the self-publishing viewpoint is international and a uniquely American political term probably doesn’t describe similar feelings overseas.
Yeah, “Populist” is a much more apt term.
Also, I don’t think Smashwords’ Indie Author Manifesto can be said to represent the general feeling of most indie authors.
I haven’t clicked through to the article. Didn’t do more than skim here — but I did enjoy the paragraph about the two press releases.
I keep hearing people on the Hachette side say things about “Amazon talking points” as though indie writers aren’t writersr and can’t speak for themselves.
This article acknowledges that Amazon doesn’t have talking points — it’s smart enough to leverage the talking points of the indie movement. (But then you have to bother to understand writers and readers to do that.)
As a traditionally published writer (and indie, too), I’ve received royalty statements that clearly listed all the numbers sold of my books. Not once did I ever read that I was a special snowflake and my books were cultural objects so nobody should worry their little heads about how many I sold.
But maybe that’s because I’m a genre writer.
That ‘books are special’ bit was the thing that got me. I’ve always been a heavy reader, I believe books are special. But Amazon is a business, books are a commodity that makes them money. Target, Walmart, Costco, and several other big stores that carry books and/or music in addition to other items don’t say “books are special, music is special so we’re going to treat them differently than any of our other things on our shelves” and no one implies they are cultural barbarians.
Yes, books are special, to us, to readers, to society, but that doesn’t mean that they *have* to be “special” to a business as an entity. They are a good to be sold. That’s how capitalism works. There’s nothing wrong with that.
And I gotta say, while my former publisher may believe that *they* are special because they publish books, they sure as heck didn’t treat my books like they were special, so why should a store do any differently?
Amazon has never announced that videogames are special cultural objects that are clearly the great new artform of the current half-century.
But actually, Pong has more of a claim to that than the average literary-work-not-written-by-Shakespeare, and yet the Authors Guild doesn’t seem concerned to acknowledge the creativity nexus of Silicon Valley. Or of paintings or sculptures or LED T-shirts, all of which Amazon also sells.
firstly i love your name suburbanbanshee. And I would like to be a ‘special cultural object’ — I wonder if I have a chance if I dont even know what the phrase means. lol.
I object to the idea that there is a widening divide between Indie and traditionally published authors.
The vast majority of Hachette, and in fact all traditionally published authors, are staying quiet.
A lot of us straddle both worlds, Indie publishing where appropriate and traditionally publishing where appropriate. I have to stay quiet because I can tell you for a fact that at least one of my traditional publishers would not like it if I publicly took up for Amazon.
I think there is a divide between a few big name trad writers and the Indies, but the traditional writers in the trenches, the mid list, are mostly quiet because many are self publishing on the side or under pen names, and almost all understand that their future with the big publishers is always uncertain.
Their silence speaks volumes. I have private conversations with trad. pubbed authors both at conferences and via email, and the common refrain is curiosity about self-publishing and dismay with their publishers.
You can’t say anything negative about your publisher publicly, or you are toast. The lack of positive outpourings is all you need to know.
I’m starting to think that rather than more blog posts we need some protest songs.
“I ain’t gonna work on Hachette’s press no more.”
Stick with the classics – Twisted Sister’s We’re Not Gonna Take It.
Hey, Bob Dylan is arguably more of a classic than Twisted Sister.
LOL Matter of perspective, Tony.
Haha, exactly. I grew up playing Twisted Sister songs in a cover band, and hated Bob Dylan (still do, guy sings like he’s got a mouth full of mud).
Any 80′s band/artist is going to have special meaning for me, even Flock of Seagulls and Tony Basil.
Hey, maybe “I Ran” could be a traditionally published author’s victory/celebration song when they finally escape?
(but remember, there’s that part of the chorus that says “but I couldn’t get away.”)
Most people don’t listen to Bob Dylan for his singing ability per se.
Yeah, I think Dylan’s ‘The Times They Are A Changing’ fits well.
Come agents and publishers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your authors and writers
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’.
The week I withdrew all my queries and committed to doing all my books indie (even the literary fiction!) I could not get this song out of my head. And I didn’t want to.
Prolly more one of AGE.
I think I’d go with Woody Guthrie.
I think I’d have to go with Pete Seeger who recently passed from this world at age 90 something I think. The original commie muckraking unionizing singer of old folk songs who refused to rat out his friends to the absurdist ‘House UnAmerican Activities’ undeveloped zombies.
I prefer his sister, Peggy. And she’s still kicking, just about.
Love it, Andrew.
You write sixteen books,
And what do you get?
Another decade older
And deeper in debt.
St. Peter, don’t you call me,
Cause I can’t go.
I sold my soul
To a big publishing ghoul.
I LOVE this.
Hilarious.
“You can get anything you want at Amazon’s Restaurant.”
(excepting Bezos)
ha ha
The Hachette Author’s Lament
(to the tune of Dylan’s “Idiot Wind?)
Hachette’s got it in for me, they’re planting many stories in the press.
Whatever it’s about I wish they’d cut it out quick but when they will I can only guess
They say my sales are awful gray cuz the Zon took a button away,
but they got a hundred million bucks and the Zon has offered me full pay.
They can’t help it if they’re sucky….
Too true. When I was traditionally published, I NEVER spoke against my publisher under any circumstances. In fact, I had to be very careful about what I said in general.
I remember once touting on Twitter that I’d just agreed to two different publishing deals in one day and my agent called me up and gave me holy hell, saying it could cause conflict between the two publishers and I needed to shut my mouth about such things or I might lose both deals.
And I wasn’t even saying anything BAD about them.
Ugh. That sounds just so exhausting. I hate walking on eggshells around people. I’m so glad self-publishing came along. IF I had been able to get a contract, I would have been able to keep it for all of five minutes. Lol.
Yeah, I pretty much was a cheerleader for my legacy masters until the Kindle came along and I tried self-pubbing. Even then, I didn’t begin to get really critical until I knew I didn’t need legacy anymore and wanted to get my rights back.
Besides not saying anything negative, I also found myself spinning harmful things in a positive light. Not only so I didn’t get my current publisher upset, but in case other publishers were reading my blog. To be thought of as a rabble rouser meant no one would give you a new contract.
But I think I’ve made up for lost time in the rabble rousing department.
Years ago, I told the Big 6 that I’d stop blogging if they gave me a million dollars. In my own immodest way, I think it would have been the best million they ever spent.
You would have needed to refund it – you would not have been able to keep quiet.
It’s possible the midlisters are under a gag order from their publishers. They can keep an eye on a few millionaires, but if the great unwashed horde of authors starts talking in public they’re bound to start tripping over each other and saying things their publishers would rather leave unsaid.
It would be impossible to control.
I agree with Hugh, the lack of support coming from trade-published mid-lister authors is very telling.
What people don’t seem to understand that if there’s a divide, it’s between trade-publisher and self-publishers, not traditionally published authors and self-publishers.
Most self-publishers now that they had tasted the freedom, just don’t like the s***** terms of trade-publishers’ contracts and are quite vocal their dislike.
I cannot even tell you how pissed off I am at being compared to the Tea Party.
Deep breath, J.R. No one’s advocating that indies overthrow their respective governments.
I had exactly the same reaction.
thank you.
+1
I have no problem whatsoever being compared with Tea Party members. I know a fair number of them here in Central VA. Funnily enough, they’re nothing like the mainstream media describes them.
Now, if I were compared to the people they describe, yeah, I’d be offended. I suspect that Tea Party exists only in the minds of mainstream media writers and newscasters.
We must have a different sort of Tea Party members in northern VA…or maybe there’s just something in the Potomac trickling in.
Every one that I’ve met simply wants lower taxes, a smaller government, fewer regulations, and less government intrusion in their lives.
I rather agree with that. I don’t want a nanny state. I want a state that serves the will of the people.
+1
The couple of ones in my acquaintance are not at all scary and pretty much are like Meryl describes. It makes me suspect the media’s portrayal.
^This^
Well, we know the media’s portrayal of indie authors is way off, so why should they be trusted about anything else?
I’ve seen too many bogus reports of events at which I was personally present to trust anything written by a reporter with a deadline, an agenda, and an incentive to produce a “good story”.
The last time I was called for jury duty one of the voir dire questions was whether the potential jurors watched shows in the CSI genre, and (if so) whether they understood that the techniques and procedures depicted on the shows were…ahhh…somewhat at variance with reality.
Most “Tea Party” movements (plural, because as a true grass roots phenomenon most are local and small) are philosophically rooted in the libertarian wing of the Republican party and do not in any way, shape or form, advocate the overthrow or any government or even non-political resistance. (They are not related to the much smaller underground militia movements that do both.)
All the Tea Parties want is a Federal Government that deals with big national issues (defense, R&D, Space Exploration, interstate affairs) and leaves regional issues to the states, local issues to the cities and counties, and all levels stay the heck out of people’s lives. They do not appreciate a government that wants a say in what they can eat, what they can say or, increasingly, even think.
Most are people who were almost apolitical before the “great recession” but were galvanized by the crisis and the aftermath.
Which is to say, they value personal independence and accountability as much as a typical self-published author.
It’s not really a bad parallel, especially when you factor in how the NYC big media machinery mischaracterizes both movements.
^This^
I’m not American, so even though I’m aware what the Tea Party for American stands for, sort of, the mention of it always makes my mind go into direction of cakes, scones and tea and chats and gossips, and muffins. Can’t forget the muffins.
In Texas, it’s more sunglasses, American flags, and firearms.
No beer?
Have you ever seen American flags, and firearms without beer? There’s always beer accompanying American flags, and firearms in the movies, always.
Mea culpa. Forgive me for forgetting the beer.
I wrote a bit thing about how the Tea Party around here (Idaho) is about as rational as 2+2 = 613,426,932, but this isn’t a political site/blog.
So I’ll just say… I am in no way, shape, or form, part of a movement that believes my wife and all of her co-workers (public school teachers) need to carry guns at work.
I’m just an author. I write books. Terrible books, but I write them instead of wandering around town trying to convince others that Obama is a Kenyan Muslim terrorist jihadist who has sold America to the UN, which is a private organization of Bilderbergs and other assorted Illuminati who are being controlled by lizard aliens from the star system Alpha Draconus.
(if you don’t believe all that last paragraph, go google “David Icke” and “Alex Jones”)
(also, watch the Idaho Governor’s Debate from this spring. Seriously. Watch it. Ignore Butch Otter and the other guy in a suit, and focus on Grandpa Winter and Bikerman)
I agree. Maybe Tea Party members are more rational in other parts of the country, but where I live (the south), not so much. I had to drop most of my acquaintances who went Tea Party after Obama was elected. It just got really annoying. They’re honestly part of the reason I gave up on Facebook too.
In New Zealand children have tea parties with pink cups and saucers on cutsie little tables sitting on tiny white chairs decorated with flowers. They have tea pots with pretend tea, and biscuits and cakes made from play dough. Sometimes the tea pots and cups plates and saucers are made from flowered porcelain, not plastic.
Anyone suggesting that politics, guns and beer and tea parties are somehow connected… has obviously read some really interesting YA dystopian novels.
Or it’s proof that reality is WAAAY stranger than fiction.
Here’s where it comes from in a U.S. context:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_tea_party
That’s the one where they threw the tea overboard to make sure they had plenty of water to brew enough for all the guests, right?
I like New Zealand tea parties. Need to have real cakes though.
Taxed Enough Already.
Actually they initially called themselves the tea baggers, but then they found out that this was a reference to a whole different thing, so they accused the damn libruls of calling them that first.
It was all pretty hilarious. And for the majority of the country, Tea Partiers are a joke. Which is why I don’t particularly like the comparison in this article.
Cite or it didn’t happen. The Tea Party’s opponents are the ones who first called them “teabaggers”. Hell, I didn’t even know what the term meant when I first heard it, and I’m a city girl and fairly well-read.
http://theweek.com/article/index/202620/the-evolution-of-the-word-tea-bagger
“Several Tea Party protest sites encourage readers to “Tea bag the fools in DC.” Jay Nordlinger at National Review Online later admits: “Conservatives started [using the term]… but others ran and ran with it.””
If you need another one, Meryl, my sister-in-law Lori used the term in an e-mail to DH as a self-description in April of 2009 in reference to the Tea Party. Once I finally stopped laughing, I had to explain it to DH as well.
His response? “EEWWW! I didn’t need to know that!”
The very first reference I ever saw to the teaparty movement was someone advocating tea bagging. Granted they were talking about espousing the spirit of the boston tea party, but when I couldn’t stop laughing after hearing their “serious” declaration they realized so,etching might not quite be right. Am I liberal? Yup, extremely, but that had nothing to do with it. I’m a Halo, Unreal, and CoD player so the whole “tea bagging” thing has been a well known term for a decade and a half.
ROFL Yeah, exactly. We bought Genius Kid his Xbox a few months after the sister-in-law incident. DH almost went through the roof the first time he heard GK say it while playing Halo with some friends.
Not everybody plays videogames this sort, and I don’t recall any of the initial explanations including mmo behavior as part of the explanation. The news went straight to obscure vile sexual practices in real life, the better to punish and shame Grandma for daring to engage in politics. Grandma might have thought the mmo thing was funny.
There was a thing earlier this decade for mailing various objects as a protest to politicians, businesses, etc. There was a point where people were mailing tea bags as a protest, too.
But a quick search on [search engine of your choice] would have eliminated some problems in this case. Heck, I do that with titles before I release any of my books. (Thank goodness! Otherwise, one of my mainstream books would have the same title as a Ron Jeremy film.)
Something may not be someone’s cup of tea, but a lot of people practice deliberate ignorance when it comes to reality.
I used a pen name that turned out to be a naughty word. Who knew? I found out when I tried typing the name into a blog post and I was censored. Googled and found out why.
Exactly, J.R.
And that, I imagine, was the point.
“I cannot even tell you how pissed off I am at being compared to the Tea Party.”
I thought that was pretty funny. I’d say both authors and publishers tend to lean left.
This. I think that the author was just trying to be topical. Two years ago they might have chosen “Occupy.” (Although, on closer examination of the article itself, it looks like this was driven entirely by using Mark Coker and his tea-party-esque manifesto.)
I agree with PG that the major problem with being too topical is that it’s clumsy and does a bad job of communicating.
If they were trying to be topical, they should have used the Tea Party comparison four years ago.
Even if the reference is a bit old (I don’t think the Tea Party is really that big a deal anymore), it still works.
Me too, JR. I like “populist” much better.
“Tea Party-like rhetoric”
Tea Party – a group of people who simply said, Hey, Washington. Stop spending our money foolishly.”
How evil can you get?
Rhetoric – the art of effective communication in speech and writing.
Dan
There shouldn’t be a difference between Trad-published authors and Indie Authors, after all we are all writers. Well, that’s my point of view as an Indie Author. But, I’m sure most Trad-published authors would not use my name and writer in the same sentence. We belong to two different institutions, a house, indoor institution, the Trad-pub, where it is nice and warm, and you are considered better than the rest, but you have to follow the house rules. And the no-house, outdoor institution, Indie-pubs, where you fend for yourself and fight the elements. Why get out of the warm house of Trad-Publishing as long as you get paid, and your paper books have 1,000% better chance of being bought? Some indoor authors heard that some of those outside strays live in palaces, eat caviar and drink champagne. Is it worth the risk of getting out of the house and venture out in the wilderness? The Trad-authors know the house was built on their back, but why rock the boat, why take risks? As long as the indoor institution lasts and you get fed why leave? Should they trade on bird in hand for two in the bush? I believe that not all trad-authors are happy with the house, but the outdoor alternatives are fraught with risks, and therefore keep the indoor institution in place.
You’re generalizing about traditionally published writers in a way that is very off-putting and inaccurate.
I guess you didn’t agree with my post above that lots of trad authors straddle the fence.
If they’re straddling the fence, they’re not really trad, are they?
Depends on how you define it.
Generalizing about people, making assumptions about other people’s decisions, making assumptions about the views and feelings of large groups of people, as Mit did above, is exactly what divides people.
Not a good idea, as a rule.
Depends on how you define it.
Well, the terminology is pretty clear in ordinary usage: You have self-published or ‘indie’ authors, you have traditionally published or ‘trad’ authors, and you have those who do both, who are ‘hybrid’ authors. If you do any self-publishing, by those definitions, you are not a trad author.
And I don’t see where Mit is making assumptions. He’s going by what a large number of traditionally-published authors have been saying very loudly and very clearly, to the effect that those of us in the other camp are not ‘real’ writers, don’t have ‘real’ books, and (to the extremists among them) represent ‘the death of literature’ or some such nonsense. As for those who are not part of this chorus, I believe the legal doctrine is Qui tacet consentire videtur.
T.K., I don’t think I’m generalizing at all. Trad-authors are similar to contract-employees. They only get paid when they perform. As any employee, I was one, I was loyal to the organization that pays me. And being part of a Trad-publishing organization, it is somehow better than being on your own, like the Indie Author who has to be the chief cook and the dishwasher too. Trad-authors have esteem bestowed on them by their publishing houses. Also as I said above, they should know that they built the Publishing houses, and the houses will come down without their support. Question is, why trad-authors would contribute to the demise of a sure thing, the Publisher Houses? Just to find themselves on their own, learning new skills and marketing their books instead of writing? I wouldn’t do it, no matter how bad some people say I have it as a trad-author.
Are the trad-authors curious about Indie-publishing? Sure. The smart ones understand that one day someone is going to move their cheese, and they better be prepared. Others hear about the tens of thousand of $$$$$$ some Indie-authors make, which in many cases might be more than what they make, and make them wonder why not jump ship?
In the end the following sums it all:
-Authors who are published by Trad-pubs always mention that they are trad-published, or the House that published them. It is a badge of honor, like graduating from Harvard or Yale. They never say I’m an “author.”
-Authors who are Trad and self-published call themselves Hybrid-authors. They’ve been on both side of the fence and know what’s going on in either camp. And of course they have a more “round” experience.
-Authors who are self-published call themselves Indie-authors. But why put a qualifier in front of the Author? To my readers I’m an author, and that means I am the Author. Not traditional, not hybrid, not self or Indie. Just Author.
You’re probably mostly right. But what I fear is that trad pub will hold onto the rights these authors want back and that will destroy their chances of getting financial freedom anytime in the near future. That’s one risk of staying with trad pub given the changes in the publishing industry. So they are taking risks, even if they don’t think they are.
So Mark Coker posted a “self-publishers’ declaration of independence” that Owen uses to draw a parallel between the Amazon-supporters and the Tea Party.
But didn’t Coker just write an op-ed a few days ago taking Hachette’s side in the dispute?
*scratches head* I’m confuzzled again.
Applying logic to an article by Laura Hazard Owens is hazardous duty.
I see what you did there.
My kids say that everything I do on the internet is an attempt to get that response. That’s not true, but it was that time. Thanks!
Hahahahaha
I didn’t realize it was Laura; I saw only GigaOm — whom I’ve thought of as questionable lately.
This explains so much.
@Chris Meadows
“So Mark Coker posted a “self-publishers’ declaration of independence” that Owen uses to draw a parallel between the Amazon-supporters and the Tea Party.
But didn’t Coker just write an op-ed a few days ago taking Hachette’s side in the dispute?”
Coker is a complicated man. He also backed the Big 5 during the whole collusion scandal they were involved in. Who are we, mere peasants, to question Mark Coker the King of Smashwords?
So glad I use Draft2Digital now and not smashwords as my aggregator of choice. I thought why am I on smashwords again if the owner is backing the trads in situations like these? (never mind that Draft2Digital is amazing!)
Marx wanted (and expected) the state to whither away. So do libertarians, more or less.
Monarchists in pre-revolutionary France generally wanted a decentralized state, certainly not a centralized state that redistributed wealth. Now U.S. Republicans want the same, more or less, at least that’s the impression that I get.
Political labels can be pretty elastic.
“Monarchists in pre-revolutionary France generally wanted a decentralized state, certainly not a centralized state that redistributed wealth.”
“L’etat, c’est moi” France was about as centralized as you can get.
The wealth was just being redistributed from the peasants to the Versailles class.
True about the centralization – I was thinking more about the fear that a centralized state leads to high taxes and expensive public programs, and thus redistribution from rich to poor. But as you say, there was a very intense redistribution going on, just the other way around.
No no no do not compare to the Tea Party. It invites too much partisan nonsense into the discussion!
Partisan nonsense drives clicks. That’s why so many “articles” are being posted about why everyone needs to take sides (or not. The latter is a popular stance, as well, usually posited by authors who consider themselves hybrid).
At least here it gets thrashed out in a friendly environment. The Internet is kinda like the real world. There are neighborhoods full of rational people. And then there’s Salon.
So true. Pretty much every news website I frequent goes this path eventually. They need the clicks to survive and the fastest way to do it is to p*** off readers. Pissed off people comment far more. Huffington Post found that out years ago.
OMG THAT’S SO NOT TRUE FOR ME PERSONALLY BBLA BLA BLABLA BLA.
Something like that?
Well, now I’m really looking forward to the inevitable articles that will compare this situation to the medieval Crusades, to the religious wars of early modern Europe, to carpetbaggers and Reconstruction in the South, to the dissolution of the monasteries and the Reformation, to the fall of the Rome and the barbarian invasions, to the siege of Troy, to the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 (“Land! Bread! eBooks!”), and to the robber baron era and the rise of labor unions.
Joe Konrath will be cast as Martin Luther, Hugh Howey as George Washington, Passive Guy as Trotsky, James Patterson as Winston Churchill, the Authors Guild as the Ninth Legion, and Hachette as the Alamo.
I’ve got $5 that says it’s only a matter of time until Hitler and the Nazis get dragged into the debate.
Konrath as Freydís Eiríksdóttir, Hachette as the Skrælings.
Love it!
And lots of writers as bit players – the soldiers, the peasants, the hoi polio, the…
Too late. Hitler already got dragged into it.
05/2014/hitler-hates-amazon/
DAMN. I guess I owe PG $5.
Buy another TPV t-shirt. (You know you want to.)
Hahaha hilarious.
you have great faith lr that any might even know history well enough to hurl nuanced epithets
Right, because all the rest of us here is iggerant moh-rons, and you are the Only Educated Person on the Internet.
Everything okay, Tom? You seem a might grumpy this morning.
You’re misreading my comment Tom. Your response is puzzling. You ok?
I miiiight have cast Hugh Howey as George Washington on Konrath’s blog a few posts ago. I think the one where he fisked Howey, but I can’t be sure. I just know that they were joking in the comments about hauling him into a position of power and Howey saying, “Nooooooo!”
Oh, good. We’re getting into my territory. Historical fiction.
*cracks knuckles*
How about Palmyra vs. Rome? After Rome, a bloated and vainglorious empire that actually just borrowed all its culture from the cultures it conquered, (1) went through 19 emperors in 35 years (2), the Queen of Palmyra, a mere woman(!!!) (3), handily took over Rome’s most important assets and almost instantly controlled all the riches of the empire, including spice (4), grain (5), and Antioch (6). Rome freaked out (7) and looked like a big bunch of dithering idiots (8).
(1) buying up imprints
(2) corporate mergers
(3) self-published authors
(4) ebooks
(5) algorithms
(6) Seattle
(7) collusion
(8) that NYPL panel
(We’ll just pretend like Zenobia won in the end. After all, what good is history if you can’t learn from it and do better the second time around?)
Wait. You think the traditional marketplace for books is competitive and vibrant?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. The more fool you.
Like they haven’t been consolidating since the 80′s?
Y’all do realize that Laura Hazard Owens’ article is click-bait? It’s why I find the whole thing so damn funny.
Click-bait pretty describes the entire Huffington Post website. It thrives on outrage. It’s part of the media outrage machine and even though sometimes it’s justified, it’s always just so transparent.
Yeah, but this was GigaOm, which is generally a step or two above the sludge HuffPo likes to wallow in.
Next they’ll be spouting this:
Three Rings for the Agents under the sky,
Seven for the Publishing Houses in their halls of stone,
Nine for Authors doomed to die,
One for Jeff Bezos on his dark throne
In the Land of Amazon where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and into Amazon bind them
In the Land of Amazon where the Shadows lie.
I’ve heard some BigPub pundits refer to Seattle as “the heart of the Evil Empire,” but now I get to live in Mordor, too! Man, this place just keeps getting awesomer and awesomer.
I feel like I should be sending you a survival and defensive gift basket in containing items such as:
1. Blow up moat
2. Instant protective walls/shields that can withstand magic and bombing
3. Survival kits of food, water purification tablets, water, etc – Bob Mayors has info on this on his weekly Friday survival blogs & Amazon sells survival kits
4. Grenades
5. Chocolate or your whatever your treats of choice are
6. Wine or other beverage of choice
7. Instant warriors just add water
8. Weapons
9. Magic wand & other magical protections
10. Generators so you don’t run out of power & can keep writing while Seattle is under siege.
11. Books for when you need a break from writing
Unfortunately I don’t have the money and some of the above don’t exist yet – I’m sure Bezos will get right on theses necessary items for survival as soon as he realizes they are needed. They’ll be delivered by armored & armed drones…
I’ve been loving all the song lyrics, but I vote this the winner.
Can I just note with unease… my cat Hector has been staring at The Passive Voice with RIVETED fascination for about 10 minutes now…
Either Hector finds this all amusing, or he’s thinking, “Silly humans. If they could only feel the true power of the CAT!”
Hector might be planning a takeover. But of TPV, Hatchette, or Amazon? Or is Hector enjoying the poetry/songs tonight?
What’s funny is that there is nothing new about this framing of the conflict. This is always what disruption in the marketplace looks like, particularly in the tech sector (and increasingly, all media content is inextricably linked to the tech marketplace, including books). It’s always insurgents vs. establishment. Populist is a far better word. But the observation this article is making is about as profound as saying that the sky is blue or that water is wet.
“There is a fear that in a world dominated by self-publishing and Amazon, it’s not just “books” that wouldn’t get published, it’s the “important” books that wouldn’t get published. (Robert Caro, anyone?)”
Someone help me out here. It seems like to me that in a “world dominated by self-publishing,” pretty much anything and everything can and will be published. Had that ‘domination’ happened in an earlier time, I can envision Mr. Joyce accessing the KDP platform and happily sending Ullysses out into the ether.
That doesn’t mean it would have attracted a readership, but it would have been there for people to try.
Personal aside: I found Ullysses impenetrable and gave up, but then again, I’m not much inclined to stick with difficult works, even if they’re good for me. I also abandoned my attempt to read the Bible from cover to cover. (Though in my own defense, I did read Genesis 27 times, but that may be because I was titillated by all those begats.)
“Someone help me out here. It seems like to me that in a “world dominated by self-publishing,” pretty much anything and everything can and will be published. ”
Yeah R.E. that’s what I thought too but maybe I’m wrong I’m not a NYC big pub exec just a lowly academic in Canada land so what do I know, huh.
Btw I read the bible in Greek (Septuagint) it flows better.
As for Ulysses I haven’t tried it but I am planning to read War & Peace one page a day besides my regular reading.
That’s almost 4 years of reading War and Peace, at that rate. (Just looked up # of pages on Amazon.) Wow. That’s dedication! If I were going to read it, I’d want to get it over more quickly.
“I’m not much inclined to stick with difficult works, even if they’re good for me.”
When is impenetrable ever good for you? Ullysses, like any other book, is a matter of taste. If it doesn’t speak to you, it doesn’t speak to you.
I just came home from a writing group and I had to bite my tongue when several writers mentioned seeking out agents and publishers. I did chime in that I was indie but I don’t think they really heard me.
M.P., while they’re seeking agents and publishers, you’ll be making money and be in complete control of your work. I’m guessing most of them will give up around the time you buy your next car with your earnings…
Another is an author doing pretty well, but I’ve heard her twice say that the small publisher she has is pretty much the same as self-publishing, except that they do cover art and editing in return for some of the profits. I didn’t want to ask how that was remotely like self-publishing other than the fact that the publisher doesn’t do much marketing?
At the end of the meeting, when everyone was done reading and we had a few minutes still, I worked up the nerve to mention that due to a multi-author boxed set I’m in, that I had some pretty cool author rankings in several categories. I think one was police procedurals, where at that moment I was #9 on Kindle. I wanted to show that just because I was self-published didn’t mean I was less than traditionally published authors. It’s all about writing a good book and then the hardest part–getting that book in front of readers. I don’t think it’s easy no matter which route an author chooses.
Agreed! Definitely a populist movement where people are taking control of their own futures.