Actually, in this case, it might be argued that it's the bookstores behaving badly. I don't know enough about the Barnes & Noble/Simon & Schuster fight to know who to back. This article gives a summary of the fight, but too much is not in the public eye. My gut says B&N is being worse, and that imitating Amazon's "negotiating tactics" (Ie, bullying) is wrong, but I can't say for sure if S&S is being sensible or greedy. Still, it's pretty obvious who it's hurting, and it wouldn't be in S&S's interest to break the sales of their authors:
Caught in the Middle
The money quote:
For context, about half the B&Ns in the country, from what I could tell last year, stocked the paperback of Kat, Incorrigible and the hardcover of Renegade Magic. I think it might be normal to expect those numbers to go down a bit this time round, but I was hoping that at least 1/4 of the B&Ns I looked at would stock Renegade Magic.
Instead, I found...zero. Absolutely zero B&Ns, in any of the zipcode areas I looked up (and I looked up a LOT) were carrying the paperback of Renegade Magic - even stores that had always carried high stocks of the Kat, Incorrigible paperback and the Renegade Magic hardcover.
She's not going to be alone.
Martha Wells remarked, too, that she can't realistically see the publisher taking this into account nearly enough when renegotiating a deal. It's too easy to say, "You didn't sell last time."
This is Alma Alexander's impassioned rant on the same.
Several more authors in the comments here note their book orders dropped. And this link has a lot more. Including links to learn more about the books and to buy them if interested.
Living in another country, I purchase from them maybe once very two years (or less). I don't know what voice I have if I complain to them. But at least I can signal boost.
______________________
And I should have told this story already.
A few days ago now, Elizabeth Bear's newest book, Shattered Pillars, came out. Bear is one of my top favourite authors, and this book, a sequel to Range of Ghosts, was one of the two books that most make me regret my resolution not to buy books for the rest of 2013.
I made a comment to this effect on Bear's release day announcement, including a wistful hope that someone would buy it for my birthday (Which isn't until June, I clarified that, too).
And someone there, an online acquaintance (I had her friended at one point, lost her in one of my most extreme and most temporary purges, and didn't add her back as far as I can tell because dumb) offered to send it to me. After some private correspondence -- I will be getting a book!
It is a truly fabulous random act of kindness. I said I'd try to pay her back *and* pay it forward at some point. She said just pay it forward. We'll see.
Caught in the Middle
The money quote:
For context, about half the B&Ns in the country, from what I could tell last year, stocked the paperback of Kat, Incorrigible and the hardcover of Renegade Magic. I think it might be normal to expect those numbers to go down a bit this time round, but I was hoping that at least 1/4 of the B&Ns I looked at would stock Renegade Magic.
Instead, I found...zero. Absolutely zero B&Ns, in any of the zipcode areas I looked up (and I looked up a LOT) were carrying the paperback of Renegade Magic - even stores that had always carried high stocks of the Kat, Incorrigible paperback and the Renegade Magic hardcover.
She's not going to be alone.
Martha Wells remarked, too, that she can't realistically see the publisher taking this into account nearly enough when renegotiating a deal. It's too easy to say, "You didn't sell last time."
This is Alma Alexander's impassioned rant on the same.
Several more authors in the comments here note their book orders dropped. And this link has a lot more. Including links to learn more about the books and to buy them if interested.
Living in another country, I purchase from them maybe once very two years (or less). I don't know what voice I have if I complain to them. But at least I can signal boost.
______________________
And I should have told this story already.
A few days ago now, Elizabeth Bear's newest book, Shattered Pillars, came out. Bear is one of my top favourite authors, and this book, a sequel to Range of Ghosts, was one of the two books that most make me regret my resolution not to buy books for the rest of 2013.
I made a comment to this effect on Bear's release day announcement, including a wistful hope that someone would buy it for my birthday (Which isn't until June, I clarified that, too).
And someone there, an online acquaintance (I had her friended at one point, lost her in one of my most extreme and most temporary purges, and didn't add her back as far as I can tell because dumb) offered to send it to me. After some private correspondence -- I will be getting a book!
It is a truly fabulous random act of kindness. I said I'd try to pay her back *and* pay it forward at some point. She said just pay it forward. We'll see.