By Porter Anderson | @Porter_Anderson
Said the Online Retailer to the Entrepreneurial Author
Come into my platform, where you shall have control.
Make your book cover be exactly what you like.
Set your price where you want it. Change it on a whim.
Make your book free. Make your book pricey.
Upload your brilliance. Format your genius.
Retain your rights. Collect nice royalties.
Come into my platform, where you shall have control.
And then your book disappears.
[dropcap style=”flat” size=”5″]I[/dropcap]n every round of author survey results—from Digital Book World’s “What Authors Want” last January, to Dr. Florian Geuppert’s report to us last week in Frankfurt on his study of 1,800 European authors using his Hamburg-based Books on Demand platform—entrepreneurial authors tell us that creative freedom and control of their business are top reasons for self-publishing.
But look how easily revoked that control is when retailers get into a bind, as Kobo did with its bricks-and-mortar partner in the UK, WHSmith.
What has developed this week is a new demonstration that for all the promises and expectations of control, authors are still very much at the mercy of the marketplaces in which they’re establishing new prominence.
There may come a time, and sooner than later, when entrepreneurial authors need to consider some form of unified liaison to the retailers, great and small, with whom they partner. Because when the very few can trigger a purge of the many, someone needs to be able to reach the retailers, negotiate to protect the commerce of the blameless, and get us past this draining era of intermittent crises.
Read the full article at WriterUnboxed.com