Amazon Redux

My previous post regarding Amazon’s rough treatment of Hachette Publishing was not the only expression of outrage regarding the mighty on-line giant. The blogosphere has been abuzz over the incident as small publishers like myself express trepidation over the potential squeeze plays retail outlets like Amazon will impose on us in the future that will further skinny down our profit margins.

Funny thing, as this NY Times follow-up article points out, Amazon has responded in unprecedented fashion to the brouhaha over its behavior with a detailed response in an apparent attempt to smooth some ruffled feathers. It asserts that Amazon negotiates terms with thousands of vendors and some go more smoothly than others and such hardball [my word] tactics seldom need to be applied.

But any intelligent free market soul knows where this is going. When you have the kind of market clout that Amazon has, you wield it with prejudice until you crush all other players and are in a position to dictate terms. Besides, while Amazon has scale, it doesn’t have much in the way of profits—and after awhile shareholders are no longer satisfied with CEOs bragging about market share.  They want the bacon!!!

As a minuscule publisher, this is all I can do: Next month I’ll be releasing my first novel, MEDICUS. And I’ll make it available for pre-orders at a measly $1.99 through Barnes and Noble, Kobo Books, Apple, and Smashwords. On its official release date, which June 27, its price goes up to $3.99—and that’s when I’ll post it on Amazon, too. No price break for Amazon!

Check this blog over the next week for more MEDICUS pre-order information. And save some $$$.

Save Us From Amazon.com

The New York Times is the finest newspaper in the U.S. I’m sort of a newshound and, given the economic crunch of today’s beleaguered print news industry, the Times is about the only major daily standing that provides the breadth and depth of reporting that can satisfy a newsaholic like myself. I read the paper cover to cover almost every day, which is exhausting given the scope of its coverage. And, sure, many are turned off by its liberal bias, but in this day and age, that bias seems to make more sense as the current conservative doctrine has pretty much run off the rails.

So this is a long-winded way of saying that every now and then this blog will feature an article from the Times. In this instance, the article is about how Amazon.com is abusing its market dominance to black mail Hatchette Books, a major New York publishing house.  As the article says:

 “The retailer began refusing orders late Thursday for coming Hachette books, including J.K. Rowling’s new novel. The paperback edition of Brad Stone’s “The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon” — a book Amazon disliked so much it denounced it — is suddenly listed as “unavailable.”

“In some cases, even the pages promoting the books have disappeared. Anne Rivers Siddons’s new novel, “The Girls of August,” coming in July, no longer has a page for the physical book or even the Kindle edition.”

This is SOP for Amazon, which will go to all lengths to bleed the competition and establish virtual monopolies. It has even affected my humble self-publishing enterprise. Try to find my book, One Page a Day on Amazon—no easy task.

The reason is that Amazon wants exclusivity from its self-published authors, something called Amazon KDP. By not distributing your book to other retail outlets, such as Apple, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Smashwords, etc., your Amazon KDP book will be provided with various promotional support and will magically appear in more reader searches on the web site. 

By not granting exclusivity, your book is buried in Amazon’s search engine. (Have you found One Page a Day yet? Now try to find it at Barnes and Noble.) Since I opted for a wider distribution, my Amazon sales are minimal.

But this is about the article and the risk we run by letting organizations become a little too big and powerful. It’s okay that Amazon has a commanding market presence and offers great deals, but at what point does it become the only game in town—where it can set all the terms and conditions and thereby squeeze those providing creative content and limit the choice of its customers to the products and services willing to accede to Amazon’s hegemony and censorship protocols?

Omnipotent semi-monopolies have already conquered the cable TV and wireless telephone industries and consolidation is doing the same thing in the airline industry. I’m sure that’s Amazon’s desired endgame—it shouldn’t be ours.

Maybe You Need to Trust Yourself

In the next few weeks I’m going to release my first novel to the world as an e-book priced at a very reasonable $3.99. Much more on that over the next few weeks. But this is about why I’ve waited so long to take the plunge and publish.

I actually wrote this book (entitled MEDICUS, by the way) more than 10 years ago. And MEDICUS is not my first novel; it is in fact my fourth. None of its predecessors have seen print either. The reason has to do with self-confidence and validation. The old model of publishing is very similar to those of auditioning for a play or trying out for the football team. You put your goods up for professional appraisal, who then decide whether what you have to offer is worthy for the role, the team, or the printing press.

My assumption was if it’s not good for a traditional publishing house, it’s not worth publishing. But publishers make choices based on a myriad of criteria, many having to do with marketing, author pedigree, list balance, and other arcane considerations. Manuscripts chosen based purely on inherent quality represent a vanishingly low percentage of traditional publishing decisions.

I accepted the premise that if my book was rejected, it simply wasn’t good enough and I moved on. But then I went back and re-read my books. And I liked them. To me, the stories were funny, moving, complex, and well told.  Those whom I allowed to read them seemed to agree, including the professional editors I hired to help improve them. 

Could the agents and publishers who rejected my novels have been wrong? Not necessarily. Maybe the themes and characters were not in their wheelhouse or maybe they were looking for the next Michael Chabon or John Irving, who I definitely am not.

But as I’ve gotten older, I’m trusting myself more and more. As a writer, as a bagel maker, as an anything that I do well. So, given the practical ability to self-publish, market and distribute via Amazon, Smashwords, Apple, and Barnes and Noble, I’ve decided to take that trust to another level and expose my work to the public. I’m going to see if there truly is an audience for my stories—an audience that may not have been perceived by the handful of professional appraisers who got the first shot at MEDICUS.

But this isn't only about me. What about you? What is it that you can do, have done, are thinking of doing, but don’t trust yourself enough to undertake and risk a public exposure? I believe I’ve wasted almost 30 years of potential fulfillment by not trusting my skills, talent, and judgment. Are you holding back, too? Maybe it’s time to take a risk and trust yourself!

I’m done letting others dictate my worthiness. Instead I’ll trust my instincts. I’ll let book sales and reader feedback to either validate or invalidate my efforts. It’s a risk I’m finally willing to take. And I’m willing to take it over and over again.

What is your story?  

Big Sur Marathon

It's been a couple of days since I participated in the Big Sur Marathon. It was pretty much all that I had hoped for. It was as challenging as advertised in terms of constant hills, including six or seven that can try the hardiest souls. But I trained for that and my only concern was that my surgically fixed left knee and chronically troublesome right knee would hold out for 26.2 miles, which they did. But the story of Big Sur is the course, which includes some of the most magnificent scenery I have witnessed in my 60 years.

In many ways I've led a fairly provincial experience, being New Jersey born and bred, and outside of a three-day trip to California 30 years ago, frequent flights to see relatives in Tampa, and short visits to Italy, England, and Paris, I am not much traveled. So nothing prepared me for the jaw-dropping beauty of Big Sur--of breathtaking cliffs and crashing waves, and twisted tree limbs, and looming mountains reaching to the sky at my feet.

There is a famous shot at the Bixby Bridge, a miraculous construction that spans a canyon at the half-marathon point, where situated is a grand piano played by a virtuoso in tux and tails, with its amplified sound echoing in the canyons of Big Sur that moved me almost to tears.

My spirits were so lifted by the majesty of of the course that I maintained an amazing energy level and didn't really bonk until I reached the Highlands of Carmel around Mile 22, just before two more monster hills at Miles 23 and 25. Sure, I ran a strategically sound race, running about a minute per mile slower than my customary marathon pace, fueling appropriately, and invoking a sound hill running technique.

Still, I credit the wonder of the most beautiful course for helping me hold up through it all. It was my slowest marathon, and by far the most challenging, and one that I will never forget. If you're thinking of running Big Sur, by all means do so. Just remember to throw the watch away and just enjoy the experience.

AND TRAIN ON HILLS!!!!