The
state of publishing has been changing a lot as of late. First the
biggest Barnes and Noble situation: They removed ability to download
ebooks direct from their site and sideload. Not everyone that reads on
their devices has every day access to wifi. Many sideload that don't
have Internet connection, or just prefer to archive their books in case
B&N shuts down the Nook, which to be honest, it looks more likely
every day. They lost a lot of people with this move.
Then
they changed the encryption key method changing it from your name and
credit card number to something random. The old method was wonderful if
B&N ever closed the Nook store, other devices could read the Nook
content. But not any more.
And now their botched website which made
everything far worse and slower than it ever was. Ironically, when I purchased my Nook First Edition
back in 2010 the site was great. Simple, fast, and it just worked.
Then about 1.5 years later they did a update and it turned into a huge
bloat ridden monster. They promised this new design was only temporary
and they were working on it. Here we are many years later, and they
finally roll something out that is even worse. And they just named Frederic Arigir
as the new head of Nook and esales. Many are speculating this is just
the start of the Nook shut down. I hope not as with less fish in the
pond, the more problems down the road for consumers. It is also not a
good sign B&N shut down all ebook stores except USA and UK on August 7th.
Regardless
if you have Nook books I suggest you download them with nook for PC
or Nook Study as soon as you can (Google for them, they are still
available although unsupported) so you can backup your books. And if
you want to remove the encryption so you can read them on another device
should B&N shut down Nook, check out Apprentice Alf's blog (Google
it). He has tools to remove the DRM (copy protection). While I do not
advocate piracy, this is securing your investment. Just as long as you
don't share that investment with anyone else. ;)
Amazon
has made several changes to their payment system that has many authors
upset, saying that they are paying per page. While technically true, it
implies something that is not. Amazon is not truly paying per
page, but rather the per section. In other words they only track in
about quarter increments. Therefore once someone reads 1/4th through
your book, you get paid instead of the whole book when someone reads the first chapter. This is not very different then Scribd, who
also used a similar business model. The main reason for the change is
due to some authors 'gaming' the system by releasing very short works to
be paid more than a author that releases detailed, long, space operas.
This should be seen as nothing more than leveling the playing field. I
personally have never been in KDP select, as I do not limiting where
my readers can purchase my books. But I understand those that do, and
the readers that follow them.
In other news, Scribd
has removed most of its Romance category ebooks from the catalog. In
summary, they couldn't afford it. Scribd's business model is such that
they pay full retail everytime someone reads a ebook. Romance readers
are, in general, fast and voracious. At $9.95 a month from said
members, they were spending more than the subscription fee was
covering. And they had a lot of people doing this. Hence, it was
either this change or close the company. It is sad to see but not
unexpected. Personally though, I would have made a change to offer a
limit on Romance genre books per month. That would allow them to leave
the books in the catalog and retain more members than simply removing
the entire genre. Regardless I agree that this choice is better than
going out of business as I think more players in the feild the better,
rather than handing everything over to Amazon. While I do not have any
large issues with Amazon, a monopoly is never a good situation.
And
last, but certainly not least, Authors United and Authors Guild have
been in the news. Authors Guild is pushing to change
the copyright law. They are proposing that ISP's also be the watchdogs
for content. This is a little extreme to say the least. Not to
mention the DMCA is already being abused by people to remove content
they simply don't like, rather than actually have true copyright
complaint. I am against piracy certainly, but they are going way too
far. Also while I think that blatant piracy with someone stealing your
work and selling it should be stopped at all costs, simply passing on
works I would akin to free advertising. The one thing they just do not
understand is most people that pirate wouldn't buy anyway. They are not
lost sales, and nothing to worry about. Just see them as free
advertising as they may share your work (think of it as a library) with
someone that will go out and buy your books as they like your work.
While you should let pirates run the Internet with free download sites
everywhere you go, the Authors Guild are going to the extreme.
Authors United and American Booksellers Association on the other hand is pushing for the Dapartment of Justice to investigate
Amazon for antitrust volitions. In short they think "Amazon has used
its dominance in ways that we believe harm the interests of America’s
readers, impoverish the book industry as a whole, damage the careers of
(and generate fear among) many authors, and impede the free flow of
ideas in our society."
In
essence they are saying Amazon is using unfair business practices in a
effort to control the market, hence trying to create a monopoly. I do
not think that Amazon's ultimate goal, however I do agree that a
monopoly is never a good thing as I have said before. Let's be honest,
this whole situation is the publishers fault, not Amazon's. The
publishers did not want to embrace ebooks. That changed their business
model and they wanted to stay right where they were. That let Amazon
come in and corner the market. Is creating a device that consumers
wanted and reasonable prices illegal? Certainly not, but the publishers
and attempted ebook price fixing was. Now they are trying to go after
Amazon in a different fashion. Many of these publishers are charging
the same price for a ebook that they do for a print book. The author,
in general, gets the same royalty with a ebook that they do with a print
book. However the publisher has a lot less costs and more money goes
right into their pocket, not the author's.
All
they would have to do is lower their ebook prices to a reasonable
level, create a nice ebook sales system on their sites without DRM, and
Amazon would have serious competition over night. So I don't feel much
for these people. They are dinosaurs and need to change or go extinct.
I know they don't want to, but that is life.
One thing is for certain, no matter what, we do not want one company to control everything. No matter how great that company is, sooner or later problems will result if history is any judge.
Don DeBon is the author of Italian Fever, Red Warp, and Soulmates. Currently available on Nook, iBook, Kindle, Smashwords, Oyster, Scribd, and Kobo.
