Read James McQuivey again (listed above), again. He is clear that the market will force a reduction of the $14.99 ebook price, down very close to the “dreaded” $9.99. Now, though, your publisher will get only about $7.00. from that sale rather then before, Amazon was paying them closer to $10.00 +. And guess who’s pocket that will come out of- yours!!

For mid-level authors not getting large advances, the publishers will sacrifice your royalties for their profits (Madison Avenue addresses, for example).

You would do better going with Amazon’s Digital text Platform (self-publishing) for 70% of the purchase price yourself. Don’t buy John Sargent’s drivel. His goal is to end ebooks, which won’t happen. But in the damage, the authors will get hurt.

Once more- Apple is NOT your friend. Look what Steve Jobs did to the music industry. He has never ever published a book, and he has forced a whole re-structuring of the publishing industry. You are getting in bed with the wolf, and he will eat your lunch.

You’ve been dealing with Amazon for years (mostly, but not entirely, to the good). They will be in books for the long run to your benefit, NOT Apple.

Be careful which horse you bet on.

AND, don’t anger readers/customers by supporting higher prices. You’ll be singed by the back-blast!

Randy, it’s a bad situation, but I can imagine how you must feel. I hope it resolves soonest!

As a business woman/consultant who is also a writer I typically am pushing authors – once they are done creating of course – to think about their work in terms of products and markets, etc. But even for me, this makes me so sad. We want to create art and people want the art. Why does it have to be so contentious? Sigh.
Rebecca´s last blog ..The Long And Winding Road

And SIGH to all this mess. I don’t even know what to say about it, really.
Kristan´s last blog ..Loving, and writing, in spite of rejection

As one of the authors affected by this issue, I’ve been deeply frustrated that — like so many new authors and midlisters — my #1 revenue stream, Amazon, has ceased to exist for the time being. This effective ban is a punishment for deeds I never committed, which is beyond unreasonable. Further, this severe punishment against Macmillan wasn’t warranted. It’s bad, destructive, bullying business tactics from Amazon.

I wonder how much money Macmillan is hemorrhaging each day its products remain unavailable on Amazon. It must be staggering. If nothing else, I admire the Macmillan’s tenacity.

The end result for me is a personal revelation that Amazon clearly doesn’t care about content creators, if it ever did. But more important, it revealed that authors’ livelihoods remain ever at the mercy of market forces well beyond their control, and that our careers remain ever-threatened by yet another pressure point: the thug-like behaviors of irrational retailers.

The fate of new and midlist authors often solely hinges on book sales — it’s one of the few tangible ways we justify the worth of our work, as well as the investment a publisher makes in giving us advances, and incurring cost to manufacture, distribute and promote our books. The more books we sell, the better we look … and the more likely we’ll be given opportunities to sell new books.

I imagine that many new/midlist Macmillan authors like me probably rely heavily on Amazon’s market presence and low prices to help generate those sales. But in this current impasse, authors cannot generate those sales. Our very careers are threatened. How can my book be a success in the eyes of my publisher (whom I’m desperate to please) when my sales from my #1 revenue stream have plummeted to zero?

This is deeply distressing, and authors’ absolute helplessness in the situation compounds that distress. I’ve lately been thinking hard about how authors can prevent such helplessness by embracing innovative and disruptive content creation and business models.

If authors crave to ever truly control their creative fates, they should all be pondering this right now.
J.C. Hutchins´s last blog ..A Call For YOUR Creativity: Crowdsourcing Kilroy!