After Monday's announcement on the KBoards, you knew the backlash would happen. I won't link to all of them. You can't miss them on the 'net. The gist is pretty simple. Amazon is a bunch of lying liars!
I'm reminded of Wile E. Coyote. You know the cartoons.
Yep, Wile E. is always fine until he looks down.
Here's the thing. Folks in trad publishing and folks related to trad publishing know they've gone over the cliff of change. They really believe that if they don't look down, they won't smash into the ground.
Except this is real life, not a Road Runner/Wile E. Coyote cartoon. The ground's coming up fast. So they're blaming everyone else. But contrary to their beliefs, Amazon isn't the Road Runner. The 'Zon didn't push trad publishing off the cliff. They jumped off the cliff of their own free will years ago when 'Zon was still a tiny business in Jeff Bezos' garage.
Trad publishing is about to crash, and they have no one to blame but themselves.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I feel like trad publishing are the Plastics of Mean Girls,
but the indies are Missy trying out of the cheerleader squad on Bring It On.
The Fun of Building a Brand…
-
And A Trademark In the Process… So many writers think of doing a
Kickstarter campaign for a new book or a series of old books as a way to
make some small m...
15 hours ago
I agree completely. I also agree with Hugh Howey's latest post -- if the best they can say is, "They might be lying!" or "They're not your friend!" then they're really scraping the bottom of the argument barrel.
ReplyDeleteAngie
Yeah, I don't see any cognitive arguments coming out out the PHs either.
ReplyDeleteThere was a trad pub consultant trolling TPV last night with the "Amazon's not your friend" BS. When I accused her of being a paid shill, her best comeback was I'm just a beginner and she doesn't talk to beginners. But she admitted she was looking for new clients about the SUCCESSFUL self-published writers. And I'm thinking if someone's already making six figures, why does she need you?
But she admitted she was looking for new clients about the SUCCESSFUL self-published writers. And I'm thinking if someone's already making six figures, why does she need you?
ReplyDeleteThis, exactly. It's amazing how many agents (and publishers) don't get that. All I can think of is that they're like the scammy e-mail spammers who deliberately make their pitch letters look ridiculous, with the bad grammar/spelling, awkward phrasing, and unbelievable stories. They do that to weed out the people who are too smart to fall for their crap. Anyone who replies to one of those letters is demonstrably dumb enough to take for every dollar they have.
It's got to be the same with agents like the one above. She's looking for indie pubbed writers who are successful enough that her fifteen percent would be a nice sized windfall, but too stupid to get that a tradpub deal would cost them big money. Because these days, I don't even know that someone being offered mid- to high-six-figures would be able to negotiate the unconscionable crap out of those New York book contracts, which would negate even the potential publicity/visibility factor of a big-advance New York marketing push on a book or three.
That's the only thing I can think of, honestly -- they're looking for the shallow end of the indie pool. :/
Angie
Yeah, I think I'd rather be one of the quiet successes, like Libbie Hawker or Dan DeWitt that kind of slide under the radar. I don't think I could stop the four-letter words rolling from my mouth at these types of offers.
Delete