My writing this week has been a bit hit and miss. I had what I thought was a fairly straight forward set of scenes that I was going to write for a couple of stories but, when I came to actually sit down and write, it didn’t quite happen as planned. While this wasn’t what I wanted, I was able to jump between a couple of stories and still achieve some headway, but it didn’t really work towards being able to achieve traction on a publishing date for them.

What I have been doing over the last couple of days, more than anything else, has been thinking about the different goals of an author and a publisher, and also those of the retailer. While this has recently been demonstrated with the ongoing stoush between Amazon and Hachette, it has been appearing on and off for a while, and if anyone thought that things were going to be much improved after Apple’s court case, they were mistaken. Fundamentally, all I care about as an author is that I attract people who want to read my books. That’s it. If I can earn a living from it, become famous, or completely dominate the genre, then all of that is a wonderful bonus. It is writing and getting readers who want to read that is first, and most important.

At the same time, fair compensation for the work carried out is important. I don’t do my work in isolation. There are editors and other contributors to the publishing process who must be paid and, as an independent self-pub, I have the responsibility to ensure all aspects of the publishing supply chain are taken care of. By only publishing electronically, it does cut some expensive costs, but also limits potential readership.

I’d been keeping out of the other arguments between the bigger publishing houses and the major retailers, although I had been keeping tabs on what was going on, as it was likely to have a flow on effect to what I am doing. Thus, I was surprised to see a recent email from Amazon’s KDP team which took the front foot on their dispute with Hachette. The content of the email can be found at readersunited.com.

The first thing that struck me was the STC - Style, Tone, and Content. It didn’t seem like an appropriate sort of thing for a behemoth to be sending to the authors using it as part of their retail solution.

It also merited a raised eyebrow that they chose to ignore the contribution that penny dreadfuls, dime novels, and the pulp magazines (spiritual successors to the dime novels and precursors to the pulp paperbacks) made to the overall literary scene, particularly as they predate the timeframe that the KDP team give. It is also worthwhile to note that these alternative publishing formats actually provided a cheaper entry point for many authors than to directly approach the major publishing houses, and gave many the leg up they needed in order to be picked up for wider readership, something that the self-pubbed ebook scene has been doing over the last few years for some skilled authors (and some not-so-skilled).

I can understand the push for cheaper ebook pricing for most books, but things start getting murky and questions begin to get asked about where the line is for dumping, for loss leaders, and for collusion (which is one of Amazon’s claim against Hachette) Similar questions can be asked about Amazon, itself, and the restrictions that they place on certain distribution methods for authors, as well as how they determine their cut of a sale. It really is a two-edge sword when you start getting into arguments like this and it’s doubtful that there could ever be a clear winner. Everyone will probably take some form of hit from whatever solution is worked out.

These sort of arguments eventually drift into wondering why music prices are set the way they are, and why certain regions of the world have almost punitive regional pricing differences (Australia, for example). Perhaps Amazon’s beef with Hachette will have a positive flow on effect into these other issues...

Where do I stand on the broader issue, and not just this particular evolution? I can see merit to both sides of the argument, and can understand why each side wants what they want. It just seems that there is so much risk of negative outcomes that neither side will ever be able to declare a decent victory. It’s the old pig wrestling trope, except both sides see the other as the pig in the argument. Since I’m not in a position to sell mud-pit tickets, I’m going to have to make the best of whatever outcome is eventually arrived at, and to do so with the least amount of mud sticking.