Unless you've been on a vacation then you know that the publishing world shifted slightly on its axis when Steve Jobs announced the iPad last month. Honestly, when I watched the announcement online I had no clue that two days later Amazon and Macmillan would go to war and Hachette would join the battle with Macmillan a week later. But when Amazon quietly conceded this weeked to Macmillan, thereby raising the price of ebooks I wondered not what concessions Amazon was getting to seal this deal, but how would these changes affect authors?
From what I gathered author's ebook contract agreements with their publishing houses haven't changed yet. I asked a few literary agents over the weekend would this new agency model give literary agents additional value to authors?(There are some of us out here unagented, myself included.) I didn't received one reply outside of a tweet for authors to remove Amazon links from their websites until the Macmillan issue was resolved. I think--like me-- there mouths are still on the ground. Goliath didn't fall, but stumbled a bit.
Yet, I am concerned and seek your opinion. Although authors need to stay current about their industry, they also need time to write and connect with their readers. They definitely don't have time for this, especially when they have no control. What happened to many of my friends last week was short of a natural disaster.What Amazon did was unfair to them. How their publishers did not prepare them for the ghosting of their books on Amazon wasn't cool either. Moreover, who was championing the authors during these battles? If all publishers shifted to the new agency model pricing fomat will publishing houses change the standard royalty rate for e-books, since these books will no longer be sold at wholesale value? Will literary agents suit up for battle with publishers now or at least become translators of this war? Will addendums be made to current contracts on the part of iBook sales and dynamic pricing for ebooks?
Dee Stewart is a mom, blogger, write-or-die-chick, editor, literary publicist, journalist, book reviewer and published author. Her short story, "Short Ride to Sanctuary" is featured in Sistahfaith(Simon & Schuster, Feb 2010.) She also writes for Kensington Publishers under the pseudonmym Miranda Parker. Her Evangeline Crawford Bounty Hunter debut novel, A Good Excuse to Be Bad releases spring 2011. Find her online at http://christianfiction.blogspot.com.
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