Is Amazon Bad For Writers, Readers, And American Literature?

Lately there has been a lot of talk in the press and on the Internet about whether or not Amazon is bad for readers and writers. Famed writer James Patterson, in particular, recently gave a speech where he argued that Amazon threatened to destroy American literature and the government needed to get involved. YA author John Green said Amazon is a bully threatening to destroy the “quality of literature” created by the “importance of that partnership” publishers have with writers.

Of course, there is a simple way to prove or disprove Mr. Patterson’s and Mr. Green’s argument – mathematics. Let us postulate a hypothetical reader who has $30 to spend a month on books. He cannot exceed this amount for any reason due to limited income, which is a situation most of us have experienced, are experiencing, or will experience.

So. What can our reader get for his $30?

The list price for a new hardback book is $27.99. Depending on discounting, our reader could get it for anywhere from $18 to full price. The list price for a mass market paperback is $9.99 and with discounting is usually around $7 to $8, depending upon the retailer. So for his $30, our reader can get one hardback book and one paperback, or three paperbacks.

My DEMONSOULED series has seven books, each one over 100,000 words long. In hardback terms that would put them around 400 to 450 pages each. The first one is free, 2-4 are currently $2.99, and 5-7 are $3.99. Which means for $20.94, our reader can get the entire series (or for $19.95, if he get the first three books in DEMONSOULED OMNIBUS ONE instead of the first three books individually). Which means that after buying the entire DEMONSOULED series in ebook form, our reader would still have money left over for a nice coffee. Two coffees, if he got them at a gas station.

Ah, but does the writer of that $28 hardback book get more money for his labors? Not really. The average royalty for a hardback book is about $2. For a $2.99 ebook, the author gets about $1.94 to $2.09, depending on the size of the file. With a $3.99 ebook, the author gets about $2.75. So a self-published writer can make more money for a $3.99 ebook than a traditionally published writer will make off a hardback book. For that matter, a self-published author will make more off a $3.99 ebook than a traditionally published writer would make off a $7.99 mass market paperback, as the royalty rate for paperbacks is lower than that of hardbacks.

“But,” someone might object. “Those hardcover books and trade paperbacks are real books! You just write self-published crap! When you pay for a traditionally published $28 hardback, you are paying for quality!”

The quality of literature is in the eye of the beholder. One man’s classic is another man’s dreck. I should point out that the second and the third books in the DEMONSOULED series have each sold over 10,000 copies, and that the final book in the series has sold over 3,000 copies, which means that over 3,000 people like the series enough to buy each available book. There are traditionally published writers who would be delighted to sell 3,000 copies. And perhaps the DEMONSOULED books are objectively bad (if such an objective standard were even to exist) they have nonetheless objectively entertained thousands of people. (And there are many, many self-published writers who have sold vastly more books than I have.) The readers paid the money for the books. Should not they be the ones to decide if it is good or not?

So the reader pays less money for more books. The author gets paid more money. Everyone wins!

Except, of course, for the major publishers, the alleged “partners” of writers and readers. And by its own bad decisions, traditional publishing has left itself vulnerable to the disruption of ebooks.

It is unlikely that the major publishers have actually been engaged in a conspiracy to destroy fiction reading as a form of recreation among Americans, but they certainly have acted as if they were. Consider how books have gotten more and more expensive, how publishers bend over backwards to charge libraries as much as possible. Academic publishers are particularly egregious in this regard, especially considering that they often pay the contributors to their journals nothing at all. Consider how many small bookstores went out of business because the publishers focused upon the major book chains instead of smaller stores (amusingly, the decline of the large book chains has led to an increase in independent bookstores). Consider how publishers have inflicted more and more restrictive and draconian contracts upon writers (and it is worth reading the comments section of the linked post for more tales of publisher maleficence), often crippling the writers’ ability to sell work elsewhere. American literature was in decline long, long before Amazon and ebooks came along, largely thanks to the large publishers.

Publishing likes to present itself as a “gatekeeper” of quality, a guardian of culture, but the gatekeepers have demonstrated appalling arrogance. They have usurped the authority that rightfully belongs to the reader. It is the reader who should decide what books are worth his or her time, not a publisher selecting books based on whether or not he approves of the political message or whether or not he thinks it is likely to sell. And thanks to Amazon and ebooks, publishing has been transformed from an oligarchy to a democracy. (It telling that the writers who attack Amazon the most tend to be the ones that were in the top 1% of the old publishing oligarchy.) It is now the individual writers that decide whether or not to take the risk of publishing their books, and the individual readers to decide whether or not the books are worth their time and money.

The math is clear. Amazon (and the ebook revolution it spurred) is cheaper for readers and pays more to writers. Rather than destroying American literature, it will launch a renaissance in literacy by bringing cheaper books to many, many more people, and reading for recreation will slowly transform from an elite activity to a popular one.

-JM

UPDATE: Miral Sattar has a good article on the topic on PBS’s website.

UPDATE II: Thriller author Barry Eisler expands on the 1% metaphor in The Guardian.