Devolution

By now everyone knows about the Kindle select program. For some authors this is a boon for their writing careers. For companies like Barnes & Noble, they see it as a blatant attempt to monopolize the market. The idea that loyalty will grant you a larger cut of the pie. 5 free days of promotion to give your hard word away for the chance to rank in the top 100 free store. For some it seems to work. I myself have even participated and here's why. 

Most indie authors begin with the idea of get your work on every available distribution channel possible. The thought being, the more visable I am the more potential sales I can gain. Soon the hard truth sets in. You get more sales on Kindle than you do on Nook. You think to yourself, well, Nook isn't offering me anything to be loyal and Kindle is. So you say goodbye to Nook and hello to Kindle select and give them exclusive rights to your ebook for the next 90 days. This also makes your work available to their lending library and lends count as sales numbers and the alloted pot is shared among those who were lucky enough to get borrows.  

Now all along I'm thinking, eventually some huge changes will come to the digital publishing age. As we all know the big six are not happy at all that the keys have been taken away from them. No longer are they in charge of who gets published. I've always thought it was wrong that publishers believe that only they are entitled to decide who can be published. I understand this process that no one is good enough to be published is designed so that only the best work is chosen and standards are not comprimised. But the question is, who set the standards? 

Anyone now can be published, no agent needed, no big house behind you. Just you, your words and the world as your customer. The traditonal team cries foul that readers are being short-changed because they aren't there anymore to protect them from authors who weren't put through their gauntlet of ridicule. But Amazon comes to the rescue to the indie author and soon the gates are flooded with more books than the world can read. Paying the highest unheard of royalty rates ever.This is where I fear comes the worry. The 70% royalty fee. Is this the crack they are feeding to indie authors? Are we going to become junkies and blindly follow? As soon the writing on the wall could seriously mean thanks for letting us get you hooked on that nice royalty rate. "Now here's the juice, if you want to continue getting the best rate ever, we're gonna need you to be exclusive all the time." Imagine the shock that writers will feel when they find that no matter what they price their books at, 35% is the best you're going to get if you're not in the select program. It's already being done with India. And really can you fault Amazon if they do go this way? After all it's their ballgame, if you want to be on the team and benefit, then you're going to have to become a team player. If this happens you may see, Barnes and Noble offering their 65% royalty no matter what, just to get back some of the audience. The problem I'm having with B&N is they seem lazy to me in their attitude towards indie authors.  Regardless, I am hopeful that the indie author will still be able to flourish. For many of us our dreams are finally being realized. For the traditional houses, like it or not, indie is becoming the new American Idol or Britains Got Talent as already agents, film people are scouring for new material. Material they can probably get really cheap. 

Time and time again we have seen artists crave one thing above all. Control of their work. Indies have a way of breaking down old methods of doing business. People like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, Frances Ford Coppola, broke the studio system apart. Sure the major studios are still there. But the way they do business today has changed. Publishing is going through the same changes. The outdated boys club of publishing is finally getting a much needed makeover. 

I'd like to see indies finally given credit and treated as real authors. Amazon and B&N know eventually some parameters will have to be put in place and everyone is still trying to figure it all out. I imagine, Apple is sitting on the sidelines waiting to see where it all goes, before they pounce. But the long and short of it. I think Amazon has the indie author world cornered. Let's pray they aren't crack dealers after all.

Whenever conservative bloggers try to be clever and 'expose' liberal myths, you just know it's time to pull out the rain coat, 'cause there's gonna be a whole lot of bullshit flying around.

CNN is earning its nickname as 'Fox Lite' more and more every single day.