Someone in the traditional publishing business once said to me, and I quote, “F#$% Amazon”. And it was said with such vitriol that it made me feel uncomfortable, for them. I guess I would be that bitter and angry as well if I was being destroyed little by little too.
I don’t blame them for feeling that way; it’s just human nature. Although, I do think it’s their own damn fault.
As Joe Konrath points out on his blog, the big publishing firms never competed against each other technically. Sure, they competed for authors with signing bonuses and crap like that, but not one of them ever came out and said, “Screw this, I don’t care that XYZ Publishing down the street and everyone else is paying out 17.5% to authors. We’re gonna raise that up to 50% and eat their lunch.”
None of them did that, and guess what, Amazon and others are doing it, and now they suffer. Competition is good. It creates a marketplace that favors the consumer, or in this case, the author.
F#$% Amazon? Actually, it looks like the actual F#$%ing is going the other way.
