Quote: (09-11-2018 10:38 PM)Paracelsus Wrote:
Quote: (09-11-2018 06:00 PM)Days of Broken Arrows Wrote:
In doing some research on the topic of Amazon banning books, I came across a revelant article from August 10, 2018 on Yahoo Finance.
Summary: Amazon removed the e-books of six self-published novelists who say they did nothing wrong. The authors complained their books were removed without warning and they were given no clear explanation. One of them is a big-selling writer, J.A. Cipriano.
Sound familiar?
My thoughts: The big publishing houses in New York might be pulling the strings at Amazon regarding the removal of these books and Roosh's books.
Big Publishing might be telling Amazon not to stock indie books if they want the big titles from major companies. Like the record industry, the publishing industry has taken big financial blows in the digital era, and the bigwigs try to elbow out anything "indie" or "self-published" which doesn't earn them profit.
I recall reading something similar about grocery store chains and record stores decades ago. If the stores stocked anything other than major brands, the major brands would withhold their big-selling products, which hurt the retailers' bottom lines.
This is just conjecture, but it's worth considering. If this turns out to be the case, self-published authors should ban together and sue Amazon.
One harsh but true point being: you're not really a self-published author if you're publishing via Amazon's Kindle Unlimited. It is actually no different than the slave relationship published authors have with the Big Six.
Instead, you have admitted you are willing to go entirely by what Amazon deems to be an acceptable book. I mean, for fucks' sake, from the article itself:
Quote:Quote:
Because Amazon’s terms of service state KDP authors can’t sue the company, Earle may pursue arbitration against Amazon in the months ahead if his attorney can’t resolve the issue with Amazon.
If you were an employee, would you really be that stupid to sign up to an employer who gave you that term? And let's remember employment is the modern form of slavery when you remember an employee has to remain employable (as opposed to employed).
Better analogy: if you were a tenant, would you sign a lease agreement that said you couldn't sue the landlord under any circumstances?
If not, then exactly how smart are you as a so-called "independent businessman" to sign up to a term like that?
Basically, these so-called self-published authors are not self-published. Amazon publishes for them and worse still controls the distribution chain to their customers. They are no different than the suckers they think they are so different from who kiss the asses of big publishers just to get a guernsey and a pointless place on a bookshelf. Worse: at least the suckers who get ditched by the Big Six don't have their livelihoods tied up by it.
If Amazon is going to continue going this way - and I admit I'm surprised they torched Roosh, these fuckers are still happily selling copies of Mein Kampf and De Sade's work - then it's going to become clearer and clearer that the only way to self-publish is going to be out of your own website, out of your own backyard, and find other sources of advertising or rely on word of mouth to get books sold.
This is what I have been saying about Amazon for years: its business model is flawed, it is an internet middleman, basically the electronic version of Sears ... which also went bust when online models came along. Eventually, someone's going to figure out how to use blockchain and distributed servers, and Amazon will go bust just as fast - because people will be able to talk direct to the producers, not to middlemen. John T Reed's sales of books went up when he quit Amazon, although he remained exclusively in hard copy books and never went to e-versions.
Loved your analogy of Amazon to Sears. The storied company was once the catalog king of retail. I interned at the corporate headquarters for a brief time and saw what was happening behind the scenes. "Fast Eddie" aka Eddie Lampert, the CEO of Sears, has been driving the once storied company into the ground at a rapid clip by dividing it, parceling it & shuttering / closing much of it. But he does stand to profit even if the company tanks. Plus he will still own a handsome real estate portfolio. He is a hedge fund ((())) billionaire from NY / Connecticut that now lives in a gigantic South Florida megamansion nowhere near the firm's Illinois headquarters. Thousands of corporate & retail employees (throughout USA & Canada) have been losing their jobs over the years. And don't forget that Sears merged with K-Mart some years back as well.
Inside The Strange Odyssey Of Hedge-Fund King Eddie Lampert
Eddie Lampert Just Can't Stop Picking At Sears' Carcass
Sears' CEO blames the media for company's decline — but his obsession with Wall Street set it up for failure
The 5 Ways Ed Lampert Destroyed Sears
Yes, Sears is likely to collapse, but its biggest stakeholder will be just fine