Here's my wee thoughts on the whole Macmillan/Amazon dust up and why it pisses me off:
1) A whole bunch of people I know and respect write for Macmillan and are now frozen out of the world's largest retailer of books, which means less income for these awesome creators.
2) As a fledgling indie publisher who uses Amazon's DRM services as a means of distribution, what are the chances of me getting a Macmillan author to write for me once they know I use Amazon and DRM?
3) Most of the writers I read publish with Macmillan and I buy a sizable wedge of those books from Amazon, which means Amazon has now lost about 80% of my business, if not 100% because the authors I want to read are no longer available through their website.
4) Both Macmillan and Amazon are being greedy fuckers. Seriously, you assholes make millions (and in Amazon's case, billions) of dollars a year, so why don't the two of you budge a little bit and not penalize the people who's sweat and energy you make said millions/billions of dollars off of (Yeah, like either entity is paying attention to me, the consumer.)
Yeah, everyone should buy indie, I agree with this in principal, but guess how many folks across America have access to an indie bookstore? My guess is it's around 1% the other 99% are dependent on B&N and Amazon. And most B&N stores don't stock a lot of lesser known author titles, so that means less exposure and distribution for creators who deserve the public's time and money.
Man , this kind of crap just pisses me off to no end.
