Hello everyone, I hope all is well with you. I’m back today and I’m talking about some changes that are happening in the Publishing Industry.
As many of you already know, Hachette and Amazon are having difficulty coming to agreeable terms regarding their contract. From what I understand, Amazon is trying to keep the cost of e-books down and Hachette wants to keep them up.
Amazon has taken steps to take off the pre-order buttons on Hachette’s books until the situation is resolved. This has upset some of the authors. Because of this Amazon has orchestrated a bold move. They contacted some of the authors and the Authors Guild and offered to pay 100% of the royalties to the authors until the contract issues are resolved.
It’s my understanding that Hachette hasn’t responded to this. I’m very interested to see how this is resolved. Especially since Simon and Schuster’s contract is coming up for renewal soon. As each New York publisher’s contract comes up for renewal, we’re going to see Amazon flex their muscle a little bit more.
My take on all of this is the New York Publishers are going to have to change the way they do business. I’m interested to see what will happen to the industry when they finally realize this.
My gut feeling on all of this is; this is the best time to be an author, especially an Indie author. :)
Why do I feel this way? If New York has to change their business model, it’s possible that they’re going to have to change their process on many different levels in order to compete with the small presses and self-published authors out there.
In my opinion, the small presses are already way ahead of the big publishers because they know how to operate at a lower cost. The big cost for New York publishers is marketing. Make no mistake, they know how to market their products, but it’s expensive. Smaller presses leave a lot of the marketing up to the authors and even though it’s a pain, it does allow us to develop our fan base. There’s nothing more important than that personal touch from an author.
Self-published authors are also way ahead of the game because they’ve learned what marketing techniques work best for them and they know the true cost of editing and formatting their books.
Therefore, this is probably the best time to be an Indie, especially with Amazon watching our back for us, there’s nothing we can’t do. :) If the New York publishers have to cut back on marketing and leave it up to their authors, well us Indie authors have been doing it for years. :) So, we’re ahead of the game.
Keep in mind, it does take time to build up your readership. Even though social media has opened up doors for all of us, it will always take time.
Thanks for stopping by and reading my post today! I’d love to read your comments about the Hachette/Amazon situation so please share your thoughts! :)