Amazon single-handedly made ebooks the ubiquitous force they are today. Others helped it along, of course, but Amazon made it happen in the timeframe we’ve seen. They’ve opened up the playing field to let indie authors and small presses compete realistically with the Big Six. They’ve made books and other items readily available and affordable to millions of people who may have had trouble accessing those things before. I don’t like everything about the Kindle model – exclusive file format, etc., but it’s very good overall. Amazon are very good overall.

There’s no question that I would rather have Amazon around than not. Although, on a slight digression, when the hell are we getting an amazon.com.au? Seriously, Amazon, why do you hate Australia?

But there are changes happening at Amazon that I don’t like. I’ve never been able to ignore a bully and I don’t like monopolies. They’re bad for everyone except the person in control of said monopoly. And while Amazon are still doing many good things, they’re starting to do many questionable things as well.

The major problems are these:

- Setting up as a publisher, not just a retailer;
- Starting the KDP Select program;
- Cutting publishers out of control;
- Propogating the cheap and free model.

Why are these things bad? Let’s look at them one by one.

Setting up as a publisher:

This is not a bad thing per se – another opportunity for writers to get published is a good thing, right? Well, not if it restricts the writer’s ability to sell their work. Whenever Amazon set up a service, they make it exclusive to themselves. For example, their CreateSpace POD printing venture means stock is only available through Amazon.com – not even the other Amazon branches internationally. As a result of in-fighting, Barnes & Noble have said they won’t stock any Amazon published books. This is a direct result of B&N’s problems with previous Amazon exclusivity policies, and I can’t really blame them. But it means that writers being published by Amazon have a greatly restricted range of outlets for their work. And Amazon encourages that in order to gain monopoly share.

Starting the KDP Select program:

This is a program where authors can make their Kindle ebooks available free for 5 days out of every 90. The idea is that it will greatly enhance their profile, drag more readers to their work and they’ll see greater sales in the long tail. Amazon have a pool of cash and for every author with a free book, Amazon distributes a share of that pool based on how many free downloads that book saw. Sounds great, but it’s not. That distribution pool is already getting smaller, the vast majority of people involved will only ever see a tiny fraction of it and, worst of all, those books can only be included if they’re exclusive to Amazon. No iBooks, no Smashwords, no Nook, etc. That means that once again, Amazon are forcing exclusivity and using sweet, sweet cookies to lure authors into snubbing every other retailer. Then you find out that the cookie is made of mud and dog crap.

Cutting publishers out of control:

It’s getting harder and harder for publishers to manage their stock at Amazon. My novels are published by Gryphonwood Press. They recently commissioned new cover art for both books and tried to get Amazon to update the art. Nothing happened. No responses, no changes, nothing but huge frustrations. Eventually, after talking to my publisher, I went to my Amazon Author Central page and requested the changes myself. The update was made inside 24 hours. This is Amazon responding to authors, not publishers. That means they’re actively cutting publishers out, which actively encourages authors to do their own thing. That’s not an author’s job. It’s their publisher’s job. But this strikes me as an underhand way of getting authors to distrust their publishers or decide they can do without them and go the indie route, which is better for Amazon.

Propogating the cheap and free model:

So many novels are on Amazon for 99c. I’ve already talked about the free option on the KDP Select program. This is a big problem. For one, many readers are starting to undervalue work. They decide to wait until something is free or reduced to 99c before buying it and that’s bad for authors. This is our job – we’re trying to make a livng here and there’s a lot of work in writing a novel. It’s worth more than a single dollar. But Amazon don’t care. They’ve got something set up where anyone can upload an ebook, charge a buck for it and think they’re on the author gravy train. 99.9% of those people are unlikely to sell more than a handful of books. But that’s all right with Amazon. After all, if they make 75c for every book sold, they don’t need to sell millions of every book. They just need to sell a few copies of millions of books. Each author is making fuck all, but Amazon are raking it in. And those authors who stick exclusively with Amazon are told they’ll do even better, with no guarantee that that is actually the case.

You can see how all these things are set up to benefit Amazon, at the expense of everyone else – authors, publishers and readers. It’s better for all of those people if price points reflect the effort involved in making the work being sold; if product is available through a range of outlets for a range of devices to give readers a choice and therefore give authors a greater chance at more exposure and sales, leading to a stronger career. The only beneficiary of the models described above is Amazon.

Now I don’t mind Amazon doing well for itself, but not by monopolising an industry and not at the expense of authors and readers. That’s where I have to step in between the bully and bullied and say, “Wait a fucking minute, here, what do you think you’re doing?”

What can you do about it? Lots of things.

If you’re a writer or publisher:

Don’t make your work exclusively available in one place. It benefits everyone to have it available in as many places, for as many devices as you can.

Don’t price your work ridiculously low and devalue it. Equally, don’t price it stupidly high and drive all the readers to pirate sites instead.

Don’t saturate the work with DRM, inconveniencing readers who can’t read a book they paid for on seperate devices.

Stand up against monopolising policies wherever you can.

If you’re a reader:

Check various venues for the availability of the work you want and don’t always buy in one place.

Try to buy non-DRM versions in order to encourage greater openess in the future. DRM is not the way to fight piracy.

Don’t go for pirated work. If you respect the authors you’re reading, pay them for their work.

Don’t only read free books and those you can get for 99c. At the very least, you’re cutting yourself off from some really good stuff out there and only encouraging the lowest common denominator.

Chime in with a comment below if you have an opinion or an idea about this. Or if you completely disagree with me – I’d love to hear why.

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Today, it’s Andrew McKiernan.

Who is Andrew?

Andrew J McKiernan is an author and illustrator living and working on the Central Coast of New South Wales. His first short story, Calliope: A Steam Romance, was published in the 2007 anthology Shadow Plays and was named in a number of year’s best recommended reading lists for fantasy. Since then his stories have been published in magazines such as Aurealis, Midnight Echo and the Eclecticism e-zine, as well as the anthologies In Bad Dreams 2, Masques, Scenes from the Second Storey, Macabre: A Journey Through Australia’s Darkest Fears, and Year’s Best Australian Fantasy & Horror 2010. His stories have twice (2009 & 2010) been shortlisted for both Aurealis and Australian Shadows Awards, as well as a Ditmar Award shortlisting in 2010. His story The Desert Song from the Scenes from the Second Storey anthology received an Honorable Mention in Ellen Datlow’s Best Horror of the Year Vol.3. Andrew’s illustrations have appeared on many book and magazine covers, as well as featuring in the collections Shards: Short Sharp Tales by Shane Jiraiya Cummings from Brimstone Press and Savage Menace & Other Poems of Horror by Richard Tierney from P’rea Press.

What are you tooting about?

Three short blasts from my own trumpet today…

Toot the First

In a land where the veil between life and death has been torn aside, how far would you go for the one you love? This is the question asked in Love Death, my new story appearing in Aurealis #46 on Kindle and at Smashwords. It is about the death of love and the love of death and how those two things entwine like lovers within the human psyche. It has romance. It has love lost and love regained, and love lost again. It has life and death and states in between. It is exotic and erotic and disturbing by turns. And in the end, there is hope. But most importantly, it is available to read for FREE from Smashwords!

Toot the Second

After a 650,000 year round-trip through the Oort Cloud, long-period Comet C2094VI is returning to our solar system. The Peregrine Expedition is sent to the very edge of the Kuiper Belt to land on Comet C2094VI. Their mission? To unlock the scientific secrets trapped within its icy time-capsule. But what nameless horrors lurk at the comet’s heart? And what does its return mean for the future of humanity? Find out in my Lovecraftian SF story The Wanderer in the Darkness available now in Midnight Echo 6, the official magazine of the Australian Horror Writers Association.

[NB - My own story, Trawling The Void, also happens to be in that particular issue of Midnight Echo - Alan]

The Final Blast

Having just passed that most wonderful Festive Season of stress, depression, credit card debt and familial disfunction, what could be more appropriate to our mood than an anthology of Christmas themed horror? Ho Ho Horror from The Australian Literature Review is now available in both print and e-book formats. Edited by Steve Rossiter and featuring stories from both new and up-and-coming authors such as Gordon Reece, Belinda Dorio, Sam Stephens and Cameron Trost this anthology is certain to have you quaking in your santa boots. And believe me, I know! I had to illustrate each of their sordid and depraved tales for the anthology, as well as supplying the full-colour cover illustration! Even weeks after reading the stories, I still can’t look at a plum-pudding or sprig of mistletoe without a shiver of terror. Go get it now… it will make a great stocking filler for your kids next year.

Andrew’s website: http://www.andrewmckiernan.com

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As it describes itself:

The Drabblecast is an award-winning, illustrated, listener-supported audio fiction magazine, released as a free to download, weekly podcast. It features short stories at the far side of weird, including science fiction, horror, fantasy, and everything in between. It is hosted and produced by Norm Sherman. The Drabblecast is open to submissions and is a paying market.

The production values are excellent, the host is great, there are all kinds of fiction including Drabbles of 100 words and Twabbles of just 100 characters. These things really aren’t stories per se, but they are good fun. In a dark, sick and twisted kind of way, which is exactly how I like my fun.

And I’ll certainly be submitting some work to the Drabblecast in the future. If you like your fiction weird and podcasted, get on board this crazy train.

All the details here: Drabblecast.

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Well, it actually started with editors extraordinaire Liz Gryzb and Amanda Pillar, who came up with the concept for this book and put out the submission call. It’s a great theme. I love noirish stories and all my work tends to have some influence from the noir or crime angle. Even a lot of my sci-fi – I just can’t help it.

And yes, I have a story in this book, of which I’m very proud. But it’s not as simple as that, because I can’t take all the credit for the story. For the first time ever I’ve collaborated on a piece of writing, and the story in this book is called Burning, Always Burning, and was co-written with the hugely talented Felicity Dowker.

I would often see collaborative stories and think to myself, “How the freaking fuck do people do that?” My work is usually so personal. I sit here in my cave and tap away at my keyboard, letting the sweating babies of my fetid imagination creep out into the world. How could I ever share that process with anyone?

As it happens, it was surprisingly easy. Felicity and I have been good friends for a long time, and have long respected and enjoyed each other’s work. During an email exchange one day, when we should have been working, we started slinging lines back and forth in a noirish, Mickey Spillane kinda way, just for shits and giggles. We only got about half a page of stuff down before it petered out, but we both agreed it would be kinda fun to write something together one day.

A while later, Liz Grzyb and Amanda Pillar put the call out for paranormal noir stories. It seemed fated. So we decided to give it go and dusted out those couple of parapgraphs, polished them up, talked about our ideas and plot and then just started bouncing the thing back and forth. We’d write about 500 words, edit the previous 500 and email it away. Sooner or later, it would come back – the 500 new words edited and another 500 added. Or so. It just worked. The story grew. We live nearly a thousand kilometres apart, but through emails and text messages we came up with our yarn and, without any subjective bias of any kind, it’s fucking great.

We submitted it and we’re both very proud that it was accepted. Seriously, look at the company we’re in:

Lindsy Anderson – The Third Circle
Chris Bauer – Three Questions and One Troll
Alan Baxter & Felicity Dowker – Burning, Always Burning
Jay Caselberg – Blind Pig
M.L.D. Curelas – Silver Comes the Night
Karen Dent – A Case to Die For
Dirk Flinthart – Outlines
Lisa L. Hannett & Angela Slatter – Prohibition Blues
Donna Maree Hanson – Sangue Sella Notte
Rob Hood – Walking the Dead Beat
Joseph L Kellogg – The Awakened Adventure of Rick Candle
Pete Kempshall – Sound and Fury
Chris Large – One Night at the Cherry
Penelope Love – Be Good Sweet Maid
Nicole Murphy – The Black Star Killer
Brian Grant Ross – Hard Boiled

And you’ll notice among that stellar company the All-Time Collaboration World Champions, Lisa L. Hannett & Angela Slatter. Sixteen stories, eighteen authors, paranormal, noir, sexy covers, murder and mayhem, monsters and mysterious femme fatales. How can this book not be freaking awesome?

Damnation & Dames will be launched at Swancon 37, Easter 2012, and will be available in trade paperback for $30, and as an ebook in Kindle format post-launch. The anthology will be available from Ticonderoga’s online shop at indiebooksonline.com, and internet bookstores such as bookdepository.com and amazon.com. Seriously, I can’t wait.

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Episode 36 is live now and we have a great chat with short story expert and all around top lass, Angela Slatter. We talk about the highs and lows of various lengths of fiction and Angela gives some great advice.

Get a listen on here.

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And that neatly segues to my reason for posting today. I was very honoured when Angel McCoy, the power behind Wily Writers, asked me to guest edit a themed month for their podcast. The theme of my month was Post-Apocalypse/Dystopia. I read a lot of really good stories and it was hard to pick the two winners. I’ll blog a bit later on about the process of reading, judging and editing for that, and my thoughts on the subject. Hopefully it’ll help both myself and other readers here when we submit our own fiction to any publication.

In the meantime, I did select two winning stories. I wanted strong stories, with good ideas, powerful characters and a tangible sense of place. But I also wanted two stories very different from each other, to explore the theme as fully as possible.

The first story is up now:

Bloodstone by R.B. Payne

Even horror writer J.P. Bloodstone is unprepared for the actual end of the world. Stranded in Beverly Hills, he discovers something far worse than decomposing zombies, vampiric aliens, or infected mutant motorcycle-riding killers.

As I wrote on the Wily Writers site about this story:

I really like the voice of “Bloodstone.” It evokes all kinds of classic writerly angst, like the misanthropic Hunter S. Thompson. Imagine someone like that on their own in a post-apocalyptic world, and you’ve got the start of this story. Couple that with a classic bit of writer/reviewer animosity, and the bones of the story are in place.

This piece is well written with a strong character and an excellent description of the post-apocalyptic world. It also cleverly uses the character to explore possible reactions to an apocalypse, while the reality in this case is a lot less exciting. There’s humour here as well, in the character and the situation.

All Wily Writers stories are published on the site in text as well as podcast, so whatever your preferred format, the option is there. Bloodstone is a great story, read by the excellent Philip Pickard (who also did a great job reading Declan’s Plan for me).

Find the story here.

I’ll post about this again when the other winning story goes up, then I’ll post about the process of judging and editing after that.

And thanks again to Angel McCoy for inviting me to be a part of this. As a writer, it was fun to be on the other side of the fence for a change.

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Have you ever become so deeply fascinated with the setting of a book that it lingers on, invading your mind long after reading is done? We all know good world building is essential to any story. But occasionally an author takes that art one step further, creating an environment that enthralls, breathes, lives.

I was very pleased that Mary asked me to contribute, because I’m a huge fan of well-realised places in fiction. Locations are definitely characters in my stories.

You can find my guest post on the subject at Mary’s site here.

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My books are pirated all the time. I see them on fileshare sites and there’s nothing I can do about it. And yes, it pisses me off. But it’s a part of the modern world. As the old saying goes, the only thing worse than piracy is obscurity. Sure, I’d like to see stricter controls in place to protect film and music piracy, and, of course, ebook piracy. It’s in my interests – it affects my ability to make a living. But I do not agree with SOPA or PIPA as anything like valid ways to deal with the problem. It needs to be crushed for the fucking idiocy it is.

Of course, my little corner of the web here won’t make much of a dent if I black out. Ironically, the only thing likely to happen is that I might lose a couple of books sales. But I will speak out against the bills. And I can’t think of a better way to do it than with this animated gif from The Oatmeal. It’s simply perfect:

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The first ep of 2012 has just gone live and it’s a corker. We talk about our plans for the year, discuss KDP Select, have some free books to give away AND have a chat with Myke Cole, author of the Shadow Ops books – the first one, Control Point, is out next week from Ace.

The books sound great:

Cross The For­ever War with Witch­world, add in the real world mod­ern mil­i­tary of Black Hawk Down, and you get Control Point, the mile-a-minute story of some­one try­ing to find pur­pose in a war he never asked for. – Jack Camp­bell, New York Times Bestselling author of The Lost Fleet series

I’m definitely looking forward to reading that. Myke is a great guy too, and a total nerd for roleplaying games. It’s a fun chat.

Check out the new episode here.

And check out Myke’s site here. You can pre-order Control Point now.

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