No wonder with Amazon taking 70% of the sales price if the e-book goes even one cent above $9.99. If the e-book is sold below that it's "only" 30% - those are absolutely exploitative conditions!
I'm glad that more books are being self-published, I don't trust publishers. I don't know how many times I was aproached on Linkedin and invited to write a book on a topic, just because I've listed it on my profile.
If that's how a lot of technical authors are chosen, that could explain a lot about the quality of a lot of books.
I also don't like the page quotas that publishers have, like it has to be at least 400 pages. Well, what if there is only relevant information for 300? I would rather spare myself the time of reading 100 useless fluff pages.
Also, a lot of potentially good authors get rejected by publishers or not even invited, as publishers have no idea who to ask to write a book to.
The publishers take a premium cut and leave the authors with minimal royalties, meaning that most authors can't make a living from their books, meaning that less books get written.
Allowing authors to self publish lets more authors have a bigger share of the sales, allowing them to continue to write and everyone benefits.
I don't think that the odd quality author that writes a crap self-published book is a good enough of a reason for introducing a middleman, let the market decide. If the book is crap, no one will buy it and it will show. You can only fool the internet for so long.
One of the wonderful things about the Internet: if you don't want to pay Amazon 30% there is a universe of people out there you can sell to for 3~5% or so through your own web presence. You just have to go get them.
The thing is, Amazon in its privileged monopoly position in practice forces you to choose between publishing exclusively on Amazon or self-publishing, at least for new authors.
This is because unless you agree to exclusivity, you will be denied access to essential marketing tools like free promotions (via the KDP program), which are essential for building initial social proof and give the book at chance to take off in rankings.
Unless you have a pre-existent audience that you can point to your Amazon non-exclusive book, there is zero chance that it will take off.
>If that's how a lot of technical authors are chosen, that could explain a lot about the quality of a lot of books.
I agree, but I don't see how self-publishing makes that problem better and not worse.
>meaning that less books get written.
I have a hard time believing this, in the age of the internet. For one, there's more content produced than ever, and it's still accelerating. Second, do we need more "books"? Why not essays and papers and blogs? Not every idea needs to fill 256 pages; most are best served with a less lengthy medium.
But yes, writing a book is a form of art, like making an album or producing a painting. It's very hard to make a living doing so.
For example, for web development, there is a lot of introductory content but there is very little in-depth advanced content published by editors. Advanced content is usually self-published.
And not because people are not looking for that, but because it's not profitable for editors to do several books on the same topic at different levels of difficulty.
What they want is another introductory book on another topic, as they know that is what sells better.
An author getting royalties from advanced books would not be able to make a living, but by self-publishing this becomes much more feasible.
I'm glad that more books are being self-published, I don't trust publishers. I don't know how many times I was aproached on Linkedin and invited to write a book on a topic, just because I've listed it on my profile.
If that's how a lot of technical authors are chosen, that could explain a lot about the quality of a lot of books.
I also don't like the page quotas that publishers have, like it has to be at least 400 pages. Well, what if there is only relevant information for 300? I would rather spare myself the time of reading 100 useless fluff pages.
Also, a lot of potentially good authors get rejected by publishers or not even invited, as publishers have no idea who to ask to write a book to.
The publishers take a premium cut and leave the authors with minimal royalties, meaning that most authors can't make a living from their books, meaning that less books get written.
Allowing authors to self publish lets more authors have a bigger share of the sales, allowing them to continue to write and everyone benefits.
I don't think that the odd quality author that writes a crap self-published book is a good enough of a reason for introducing a middleman, let the market decide. If the book is crap, no one will buy it and it will show. You can only fool the internet for so long.