Two Very Different Worlds
Two corporate giants for a long time were locked in what can literally be described as ‘mortal combat’ and did so until Nov 2014 when they finally brokered a peace deal. One is the American online retailer Amazon and the other a large French book-publishing group called Hachette, (Hachette owns many smaller publishing firms). Amazon used bullying and other underhanded tactics to try and force a ceiling price on the majority of Hachette’ eBook units down to a uniform $9.99 – saying many more sales can be generated with a set low price – while Hachette rightly insisted on setting its own flexible pricing structure on all of its books and eBooks, allowing the publishing industry and authors to maintain a status quo of existence. In reality this battle was a collision between two very different worlds – the old publishing world, as represented by the Hachette Book Group, and the new online publishing world, as represented by Amazon – or so it thinks!
A Superficial Conflict
The reasons for this conflict, as has been put forward by both parties, are actually quite superficial from an introspective viewpoint. What’s really going on is that our existing book & magazine publishing (and distribution) industry world-wide are somewhat out of step with our modern internet world – especially in regards to eBooks (and eMagazines). This publishing industry, as represented by the warring faction of Hachette, is like an ‘old dinosaur’ that is simply beginning to outlive its usefulness and clearly needs to go through a process of readjustment and redirection. However, Amazon, the other warring faction, has become a large sociopathic corporation who, through its underhanded and well recognised bullying tactics, wants to take control of the new publishing world – and thinks it has a right to! The rise and advent of Amazon and other similar corporations has unfortunately also seen the demise of thousands of bookstores around the world while, of course, online book and eBook sales have increased – although only marginally. You might say, “Well yes, this is all part of a changing internet world”. But is it really! Or, is it more about a greedy corporate giant (we’ve all heard similar stories before) who wants to ruthlessly and unfairly take a huge world-slice of the publishing pie and destroy many authors, publishers and bookstore retailers in the process?
Take a Third Option
Why can’t we have a third option to such warring and self-serving factions where the greater good for all authors, publishers, book retailers and customers world-wide are put to the fore? I’ve been involved in the publishing industry for the better part of my life and have, at different intervals, worked as a book retailer, author and now as a publisher. So, being in such a unique experiential position, I felt qualified to find, help and develop this third option and, with the help of my colleagues, have finally come up with a new workable system via our soon-to-be-launched online website called Bibliosity.