I got an email today telling me that several publishers are going to be sending me money to make up for screwing over me (their end customer), to try to stop Amazon’s Kindle editions from eating into their hardback prices. They did this by refusing to allow Amazon to sell the ebooks unless they did so at the publishers’ preferred price.
As a Kindle fanatic since the first day (and possibly sooner) I was astounded by this self-defeating business decision. Or I would have been had I not had past dealings with the publishing industry. (People in the publishing industry are lovely. The industry itself is a fairy tale princess resisting all attempts at rescue, because that might mean, you know, change). I wanted to buy more books than I ever had before and I DID until the prices went up by 50% overnight. I never bought hardbacks, and I was much more willing to buy any book after reading a kindle sample, but apparently that wasn’t good enough for certain publishing houses. They must have only wanted a wealthy elite to buy their titles, if you judge them by their actions. And now they have to apologize to the rest of us plebs for daring to want to read their books. With cash.
So while I’m sure my Twitter feed will be full of predictions of doom and scathing criticisms of Amazon, as a reader and a writer I say: ha! (Sorry).