great. lovely. perfect.

[alexconall]

So Amazon's being a bully. Again. This time it's the publisher Hachette that they're trying to strongarm. And frankly I am sick to death of Amazon's bull.

I think tomorrow I'm going down to the local indie bookstore with a list of the books I have on preorder at Amazon and going "hey do you do preorders". And assuming they can preorder them all for me, I am then cancelling my Amazon preorders saying "found cheaper somewhere else", comment to the tune of "I find that supporting bullying of publishers and the authors who depend on those publishers is a price I am unwilling to pay", on every single preorder. I have seven, counting only the hardcopy books, and I can maybe find the DVDs and the CD for preorder on BN.com. And then cancel my Amazon Prime membership into the bargain.

My problem is (as it has been since the Kindle Worlds nonsense started) that I'm a self-published author, and I like print books, and used books are a marvelous thing and they don't exist in electronic format. Neither do ebooks that can be read without an expensive piece of electronics, which provides a barrier to entry to reading for the sufficiently poor; used print books have a much lower price tag. Who the hell goes to lulu.com to browse for books? As far as I know, Lulu doesn't distribute to other booksellers, either. And as far as I know, my choices for self-publication in print are Lulu and Amazon CreateSpace. Also, if I don't have copies of my books available for sale on Amazon, I'm shooting myself in the foot sales-wise. (And I can't pull A Dinner of Herbs off Amazon without the consent of my co-conspirator, anyway.)

How do I resolve this? How do I as a self-pub author stop supporting Amazon without hurting myself a lot worse than I hurt them?

crossposted from conallpublications.com

Comments

[lynnoconnacht]

The draft is in the works, if I recall? My brain is mush this late at night, but I think I remember you talking about novels you were working on.

Isn't Kickstarter also Amazon-based when you're in the US, though?

[alexconall]

There are many drafts in progress. The progress is mostly 'this would be a really cool thing to write, let's try to plot it out a little'.

Fuck. Yes. That is true. IndieGoGo, then.

[lynnoconnacht]

Sounds good! Anything you're particularly excited about?

As potential bonuses, IndieGoGo does let you opt for flexible funding instead of the all-or-nothing approach and it lets people donate without making an account, so that might also help make it more attractive as a crowdfunding source.

[alexconall]

The Shining Ones trilogy: Abraham's Daughter, Mary Mary, and the third is probably called Fatimah the Blessed. Go listen to Arcade Fire's "Abraham's Daughter" and SJ Tucker's "Mary Mary". Doesn't "Abraham's Daughter" have interesting implications for the evolution of Judaism, and therefore Christianity and Islam? The problem is of course that first I have to do all the research on the history of the three major Abrahamic religions. Blow That Trumpet Gabriel (quartet: Leah Far-Sighted, Rachel and the Gods, Rebecca at the Well, Sarah Laughed—Leah is the draft that's furthest along of all my novels in progress) I can do a lot more making it up as I go, but the problem with that is the worldbuilding has to hold together.

This is true!

[lynnoconnacht]

Talk about chilling songs... (What is it with this weekend and giving me chilling songs?) But yes very interesting, indeed. It's all the more chilling for the fact that it doesn't match up to my (admittedly spotty) recollections of those tales because that disconnect is part of the point of it all.

Yay, world-building! I hope it's cooperating with you! It's Leah Far-Sighted I remember you talking about. ^_^

Huzzah for alternatives!