Friskbiskit

Amazon V Macmillan: Support the Authors

As many of you know by now, Amazon and Macmillan are duking it out over the price of ebooks.  A lot has been blogged about this already, and I've been too busy reading everyone else's posts to post one of my own.  Suffice it to say that while I see flaws in Macmillan's adherance to hardcover sales as the core of their profitability, and I take real issue with their measly 20% ebook royalty rate, I do support their wish to set their own prices for their products.  And Amazon is being a big douche.  They seem to like to throw their weight around, and use the buy button as a stick to beat anyone who disagrees with them into submission.  For those of you who may have forgotten, this has happened before.

So, while I'm glad overall that Macmillan is standing up to Amazon, I am also all too aware of the situation that I and all the other Macmillan authors find ourselves in. Though supposedly Amazon has capitulated, in a display of great maturity, they are still withholding the buy buttons for Macmillan titles, and no one seems to know when they will be restored. Particularly affected are those authors whose books are launching right now. Will their sales suffer? Yes. Did they have fuck-all to do with this dispute?  No.  Can we do anything about it?  You bet!

It's simple: buy a Macmillan author's book from another source.  My friend David Coe's book, The Horseman's Gambit, is out in paperback today, and Doranna Durgin's The Reckoners is also out.  And here's the Macmillan site for many, many more.  Including by the way, my other project, though I consider myself one of the lucky ones, having my eggs in more than one basket.

More online booksellers:

Barnes&Noble

Powell's

IndieBound

Borders

And I bet you can find even more.  Or go to a brick and mortar store. I know, Friskbiskit pimping print books and meatspace commerce.  What is the world coming to?

#Amazonfail

Okay, so, by now, Amazonfail has made headlines in national newspapers and you've probably heard all about it.  If not, the short version is that last weekend over 50,000 books on topics ranging from m/m romance to lesbian parenting were mysteriously stripped of their Amazon sales rank, which also made them disappear from searches of the bookselling behemoth's website.  Included in the mass suppression of ideas were books by Gore Vidal, Mary Renault, and Annie Proulx, as well as  guides to recovering from sexual assault and books with information for people with disabilities. Left untampered with was Playboy: The Complete Centerfolds, and A Parents Guide to Preventing Homosexuality, natch.  Amazon claims the sales rank stripping was done in error, though as of this writing, the company has yet to come forth with a real apology or any specific information about how and why this occurred.  Books do seem to be getting their sales ranks back, though slowly.

It's been a busy week at Friskbiskit, what with the Running Press launch on Monday and all, so I'm only getting around to commenting on this matter now.  Since I'm not a multi-million dollar corporation with the livelihoods of thousands in my hands, my delay seems more forgivable that Amazon's. 

I hardly need to say how deeply I deplore what happened, and how very concerned I am with the way Amazon handled the matter.  Until this incident, I've been pretty laid back about Amazon.  Sure, I thought, they do seem to be attempting to monopolize publishing, but at least their overriding drive to sell as much stuff to as many people as possible will ensure that everyone has a chance to market their product with them.  I know, I know.  I was wrong and now I see the error of my ways.  Monopolies are unhealthy and they lead to abuses (intentional or not and as far as I'm concerned the verdict is still out on this one) like the one we've just seen. 

This seems like a good time to point out to my fellow Kindle owners that we can buy direct on our devices from All Romance eBooks.

Also, from now through Thursday, Loose Id is offering 10 percent off all LGBT ebooks.

M/M Goes Mainstream Today!

Update: In the wake of AmazonFail, I have replaced all the sales links in this post with ones to Powell's Books. I was busy with family commitments yesterday and this whole thing caught be my surprise this morning.  I've been playing catch-up ever since. I'd love to post about this issue, but I'm not going to let this bullshit overshadow Alex and Erastes big day.  Not here.  Now, on with my original post:

Regular Friskbiskit readers know how excited I am about Running Press' new historical m/m romance imprint.  The books are being marketed as romance novels, to be shelved in the romance section of your local bookstore.  Much has been made over whether or not m/m is viable as a mainstream subgenre of romance, and now, finally, we have an opportunity to prove ourselves. 

To celebrate this watershed moment, I've invited Alex Beecroft and Erastes, the authors of the line's flagship novels (on sale today!) to take over the blog for the day.

Transgressions, by Erastes, is available from Amazon Powell's here:

http://powells.com/biblio/62-9780762435739-0

And you can read the blurb and an extract on Erastes' website here:

http://www.erastes.com/transgressions.html
 

False Colors, by Alex Beecroft, is available from Amazon Powell's here: http://www.powells.com/biblio/8-9780762436583-0

And you can read the blurb and an extract on Alex's website here: http://www.alexbeecroft.com/falsecolors.shtml

Erastes: Thanks Jessica for letting us loose on the blog – she asked us to interview each other and it was a lot of fun. Hope you enjoy our conversation.   
Our two new m/m historical novels are being published simultaneously by Running Press on 13 April 2009 in the USA (around a month later in the UK).  

The story of how that came about can be filed under "being in the right place at the right time" – the lovely Ruth Sims had connections with the Director at Running Press, and they discussed how m/m was ripe for mainstream. He asked to see Ruth's novel, loved it and said he'd love to publish it, and did she know anyone else with a novel ready to go?  She thought of me, (Erastes) with Transgressions ready to go, and put me forward and to my utter glee, they accepted it.   

Sadly, due to personal reasons, Ruth couldn't go ahead with the deal, and Running Press then asked me if I knew of anyone else with an historical novel ready or almost ready to go.  I knew that Alex had nearly finished her book, and … the rest is history! 

Alex: So, you may be asking, what's the big deal about this book launch that makes it any different from any other?