In an article on their site entitled The Right Battle at the Right Time, The Authors Guild says that the Amazon/Macmillan fight is “… a necessary one for the industry”. They go on to say that “… if Macmillan prevails, the eventual payoff for its authors (and all authors, if a successful result ripples through the industry) is likely to be significant and lasting. ”
They finish by saying that there may be some more rough stretches, but “If Macmillan does indeed prevail, the economics of authorship in the digital age are likely to improve considerably.”
I agree with the Authors Guild that if McMillian prevails that the results will be significant and lasting, but not in the way they expect. Instead it will mean a step backward to an unsistainable model of business. As a result, in the future people will say to their children, “In the old days there were these companies called publishers, who refused to value their products realistically in a changing world. They don’t exist anymore….”.
Wishful thinking.
Yeah, let’s not forget how the Authors totally had our backs with the Google settlement…ahem.
So, nobody ever talks about the customer in these dialogues, hmm? Better for the author, better for the publisher…how about better for the customer?
So the customer pays more, the publisher gets less and, one can assume, the authors get less? Not sure how this is a sustainable model nor how it grows a market where the customer is used to a 9.99 price point on best sellers.
Looks like the publishers trying to avoid an Amazon monopoly and the day of reckoning when they need to cut serious cost out of their overall cost bases.
And what will Amazon now do? Probably encourage some top name authors to its self publishing assets.