Amazon Hachette Dispute

This morning I woke to find this letter in my email

Dear KDP Author,

Just ahead of World War II, there was a radical invention that shook the foundations of book publishing. It was the paperback book. This was a time when movie tickets cost 10 or 20 cents, and books cost $2.50. The new paperback cost 25 cents – it was ten times cheaper. Readers loved the paperback and millions of copies were sold in just the first year.

With it being so inexpensive and with so many more people able to afford to buy and read books, you would think the literary establishment of the day would have celebrated the invention of the paperback, yes? Nope. Instead, they dug in and circled the wagons. They believed low cost paperbacks would destroy literary culture and harm the industry (not to mention their own bank accounts). Many bookstores refused to stock them, and the early paperback publishers had to use unconventional methods of distribution – places like newsstands and drugstores. The famous author George Orwell came out publicly and said about the new paperback format, if “publishers had any sense, they would combine against them and suppress them.” Yes, George Orwell was suggesting collusion.

Well… history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.

Fast forward to today, and it’s the e-book’s turn to be opposed by the literary establishment. Amazon and Hachette – a big US publisher and part of a $10 billion media conglomerate – are in the middle of a business dispute about e-books. We want lower e-book prices. Hachette does not. Many e-books are being released at $14.99 and even $19.99. That is unjustifiably high for an e-book. With an e-book, there’s no printing, no over-printing, no need to forecast, no returns, no lost sales due to out of stock, no warehousing costs, no transportation costs, and there is no secondary market – e-books cannot be resold as used books. E-books can and should be less expensive.

Perhaps channeling Orwell’s decades old suggestion, Hachette has already been caught illegally colluding with its competitors to raise e-book prices. So far those parties have paid $166 million in penalties and restitution. Colluding with its competitors to raise prices wasn’t only illegal, it was also highly disrespectful to Hachette’s readers.

The fact is many established incumbents in the industry have taken the position that lower e-book prices will “devalue books” and hurt “Arts and Letters.” They’re wrong. Just as paperbacks did not destroy book culture despite being ten times cheaper, neither will e-books. On the contrary, paperbacks ended up rejuvenating the book industry and making it stronger. The same will happen with e-books.

Many inside the echo-chamber of the industry often draw the box too small. They think books only compete against books. But in reality, books compete against mobile games, television, movies, Facebook, blogs, free news sites and more. If we want a healthy reading culture, we have to work hard to be sure books actually are competitive against these other media types, and a big part of that is working hard to make books less expensive.

Moreover, e-books are highly price elastic. This means that when the price goes down, customers buy much more. We've quantified the price elasticity of e-books from repeated measurements across many titles. For every copy an e-book would sell at $14.99, it would sell 1.74 copies if priced at $9.99. So, for example, if customers would buy 100,000 copies of a particular e-book at $14.99, then customers would buy 174,000 copies of that same e-book at $9.99. Total revenue at $14.99 would be $1,499,000. Total revenue at $9.99 is $1,738,000. The important thing to note here is that the lower price is good for all parties involved: the customer is paying 33% less and the author is getting a royalty check 16% larger and being read by an audience that’s 74% larger. The pie is simply bigger.

But when a thing has been done a certain way for a long time, resisting change can be a reflexive instinct, and the powerful interests of the status quo are hard to move. It was never in George Orwell’s interest to suppress paperback books – he was wrong about that.

And despite what some would have you believe, authors are not united on this issue. When the Authors Guild recently wrote on this, they titled their post: “Amazon-Hachette Debate Yields Diverse Opinions Among Authors” (the comments to this post are worth a read).  A petition started by another group of authors and aimed at Hachette, titled “Stop Fighting Low Prices and Fair Wages,” garnered over 7,600 signatures.  And there are myriad articles and posts, by authors and readers alike, supporting us in our effort to keep prices low and build a healthy reading culture. Author David Gaughran’s recent interview is another piece worth reading.

We recognize that writers reasonably want to be left out of a dispute between large companies. Some have suggested that we “just talk.” We tried that. Hachette spent three months stonewalling and only grudgingly began to even acknowledge our concerns when we took action to reduce sales of their titles in our store. Since then Amazon has made three separate offers to Hachette to take authors out of the middle. We first suggested that we (Amazon and Hachette) jointly make author royalties whole during the term of the dispute. Then we suggested that authors receive 100% of all sales of their titles until this dispute is resolved. Then we suggested that we would return to normal business operations if Amazon and Hachette’s normal share of revenue went to a literacy charity. But Hachette, and their parent company Lagardere, have quickly and repeatedly dismissed these offers even though e-books represent 1% of their revenues and they could easily agree to do so. They believe they get leverage from keeping their authors in the middle.

We will never give up our fight for reasonable e-book prices. We know making books more affordable is good for book culture. 

Thanks for your support.

The Amazon Books Team

P.S. You can also find this letter at www.readersunited.com



This message that was sent to people who have a kindle account. The message sent this morning was to try and rally up authors and readers who are against high prices of e-books. Amazon even tries to justify their stances of e-book prices by trying to go back in history to when paperbooks started coming out.

If Amazon actually knew what was involved with traditional publishing they wouldn't have sent this message. Blogger and author Nathan Bransford makes a valid point to end the dispute in his post.

I personally think the whole dispute is over Amazon wanting more power over everything. Amazon is not even taking into consideration what is in the best interest for the author, or the publisher. Amazon is all about Amazon. Borders has already closed because of Amazon. Walmart is starting to see a suffering in sales, what more can they do to disrupt the retail chain?

On that note I'm going back to revisions.

I Did a Guest Post

I did a guest post on querying on a fellow writers blog. Go take a look at things I learned about what you shouldn't do when querying.

http://www.chanelcleeton.com/blog/2014/3/10/guest-post-by-vanessa-e-on-querying

Marketing for Authors

Even if an author is signed with big publisher the author needs to be pre-pared to market their book. Most authors I know seem to rely on the publisher to market the book, but you have to help out as well. You want your book to succeed.

A writer friend of mine who lives in Dallas Victoria Scott did a blog post on a young adult blog about marketing. Victoria is one to go to for questions about marketing she has a masters degree in it. 

Book Bloggers
Well the first thing I believe would be the best marketing tool is for writers to connect with book bloggers. You want to be friends with them. See what books they like to read, or if you have the same taste in reading. Since a lot of book bloggers only review books from big publishers ask them if you can mail them a paper copy of your ARC. I prefer the paperback than e-books. A notehr thing to be weary about is if the author is self published there are some book bloggers that will not review a self published book.

A Social Media Platform
Get connected with social media. Goodreads, Facebook, and Twitter are your best bets for being a writer. Even if you aren't published yet start your platform now. Now and days most agents want to sign a writer with a platform of some sort. Twitter is good for writers because you can easily find your favorite authors, and Goodreads is like facebook for book lovers. Another thing she recommended was connected all of your social media platforms together so that all your posts go to all of your social media platforms. For those who don't know Goodreads is the best because it allows you to connect with readers.You become friends with writers and readers, and you can see what books you have in common. I've been on Goodreads for a long time now, and I love it. Of course I now review books on my other blog.

Website
A writer should have a website or a blog of some sort. Your website should be kept clean, and simply, and not to over crowed. She recommend Wordpress. Some writers I know use blogger, and then just buy the domain connecting it to their blog. I've tried the free version of wordpress and it's okay you just can't really customize font like you can do with blogger. 

So far this is some of the things she recommend on the post, and while 

Supporting Authors

A lot of people view supporting authors from a variety of ways. A lot would go to book signings, ordering bulk of their books at once, chatting with the authors on Facebook about how much they really enjoyed their book.

Here are the ways I support an author

1. Pre-Order Books
I like to pre-order books. Now I may buy the book but then I wait until I have the last book in my hands so I can read the series straight through. Some authors even have it as to where if you forward them the receipt of their book you ordered online they'll mail you autographed bookmarks, or some swag buttons.

2. Order the Hardcover or Paperback
I'm a college student so naturally my money is sucked up by the price of textbooks. Hardcover books tend to be expensive. So I end up just waiting for the paperback version to be released. Don't forget sales are everything. There have been times where the publisher has cancelled a book series because there wasn't enough sales, and they thought people weren't interested in the series.

3. Write Reviews
Review the books you've read. Now don't go on a long rampage on why you hated the book and thought it was the worst book you've ever read (believe me I've seen plenty of those) just keep your review simple, and professional as you possibly can. What you liked about the book, what you didn't like, then rate it.

4. Contact the author
Most authors are on Twitter, and really like it when a reader tells them they just bought the book, and really enjoy hearing compliments from their readers.

5. Recommend books to friends
When I read a book I really, really like I recommend it around. I love trading books with my friends which is why I like having paperback books. I swap books with my friends for the weekend.



Also in support of authors they have to do book signings. In order for them to do a book signing the bookstores have to stay open. Help keep bookstores open. For every book you order online through Amazon go buy a book at Barnes and Noble.

2014 New Years Resolution

I hope everyone had a great Holiday season. With 2014 just hours away I'm going to do my New Years Resolution.


1. Try querying agents again.

2. Finish my New Adult book series for publication.

3. Get at least one of my books published. Even if I don't get an agent I just want to be able to call myself a published author.

4. Learn how to self edit my work better

5. Try getting into the academic program I need for my career.

What H*** is the Matter with Bookstores - Black Friday Blues

I told myself I wouldn't write this post, I told myself I wasn't gong to but screw it.

After getting tons of coupons for Barnes and Noble in the mail, and in my email for Black Friday, I decided to go to my favorite place in the whole world.

I started browsing around and I was looking for books from small publishers I know and like, guess what they weren't there. So then I tried to find newly released books from other Big 5 publishers, guess what, they weren't on display either. I will tell you what I did find, a whole small rolling cart filled with the Divergent trilogy by Veronica Roth (I haven’t read this trilogy yet, it’s next on my list I just waited until the whole series was out), 5 book shelves filled with Cassandra Clare’s novels, and 4 shelves filled with the horrible Twilight Saga. Then when I asked the sales person for some of the books, said they didn't have them in stock, but she could order them for me.

I was angry and depressed. All the books I wanted to read and they didn't even have them. Then for the sales woman to tell me she could order them for me, I can order them myself but I still like to go to brick and mortar in support of them.

An author friend of mine Jessica Spotswood of Born Wicked and Star Cursed was discussing with other authors how it’s hard for their books to sell when they don’t even have a big selection of newly released books. After what I witnessed today she’s right, there really was no selection for me to pick from. The only books I saw were either

A). the ones I had already read

 or

B). They were the books that are already hyped up by franchises.

The bookstores would have had more books to display new authors and releases if Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series wasn't taking up four shelves, 5 shelves of Cassandra Clare books, and a whole table of Veronica Roth’s books. The bookstores can make room they just put in the books that are hyped up because they think it will bring them business. I say it’s high time for them to down the ones that have been sitting there for years and let new authors work shine.

*Big sigh* Now I have to go to Amazon and Barnes & Noble to go order all the books I wasn't able to get.

Big "Thanks, but no thanks"

So as you've been following on my blog, I've been attempting to go the traditional route of getting published.

I spent two months revising, editing, and showed chapters to my critique partner. We went through together through the document making several changes to make the story as unique and interesting as possible. I read spent about two weeks working out the query letter, and followed the submission guidelines. 
I sent out about 200 query letters to agents, at least 100 of them had represented my favorite authors, represented projects similar to mine, or some were with some the top agencies. Can you guess the responses.

Yep, big old fat rejections.

Some sent an instant rejection within three hours. The top agent assistants responded with a "not what I'm looking for."One agent I also really wanted to work with told me that my story was interesting, and unique, but didn't think publishing could take on that book. I thought that was a really nice response.

I also had queried a one publisher that only takes unsolicited queries for two months, they were one I had wanted to work with as well, and got a rejection from them as well.

I'm starting to wonder what I should do with this book. I already finished drafting the second book since it's a planned series, and started working on the final book, I've been thinking of self-publishing it. It's such a unique story, and it would be a waste for it to just be sitting on my flash drive for a long time. If I self publish it, I can have all three of the books released in one year, as opposed to waiting for two years to see it available to readers. I'll probably have to investigate more on the self publishing before I decide to do anything.

Time to Submit

After successfully completing NaNoWriMo in November. I did not look back at it, or even open it back up until the last week of December. I spent two months revising, and adding in the scenes I wrote off to the side in my spiral notebook so I wouldn't go back and add things in because then I wouldn't have finished my story in time for NaNoWriMo.

I think it's a good time to query agents. I'm sending out 200 query letters. Now this may be breaking the way authors query agents, but who know maybe one of them may like the story.

Time to Send Them Out

So I am sending out queries again. I have perfected each query to a specific agent's needs when it comes to the query.

Some like queries personalized, and other like them to jump right into the pitch. I'm hoping for some good results this time.

Big Sigh

Rejections

Nothing but the big fat thanks but no thanks. I know it's hard to get published but still it really hurts.

Some of the responses from the agents were really mean, but a few were nice. Some said they liked the story but because of the market they were afraid to take on the project.

Querying

Okay so I am going to send out query letters. I'm hoping for something. I'm going to be querying just a little over 100 agents. I really hope one of them likes my story. I know publishing has changed but I'll have to see what happens, and I've already written the sequel to the story  and outlining the last book for the planned trilogy. 

I just have my fingers crossed.