LaveCon 2015 report
July 14, 2015Human Legion Recruitment Poster — revisions
August 8, 2015I don’t discuss politics, religion, or sport on this site. As for Babylon 5 vs. Deep Space 9… I won’t go there. The same goes for culture wars. I try to keep out of those topics because this site is about connecting with fans of the Human Legion series, discussing space opera and military science fiction, and giving bonus goodies and updates. Besides this is an international site. Most of my followers are American, but a substantial proportion of Human Legion fans are from Germany, Canada, Australia and the UK (and at least one from Switzerland… you know who you are!). An English author commenting on American culture wars politics isn’t going to end well, and is going to seem pretty weird to the average German.
I do have opinions, though, and sometimes they escape into the wild.
Here’s my thoughts on an attack on my livelihood by stooges of the old corporate world of publishing. Ultimately this is an attack on the Human Legion, and I’m not ever going to take that quietly.
Tim
4 Comments
Fight the good fight Tim!! And if you wanna wax poetic about politics and the like I can give you a row you’ll long remember… And I might even agree with what I am saying!! LOL!! Every political debate needs a devils advocate or two!
Go for it!
I do not like it when people try to press the rest of us to accept what they call the norm and then they call the shots. I am a self published author on all the epub, et cetera sites. If they try to make us publish through a group like those you described, I may never have published my first book.
I am right with you, Charles. The arrogance of these Authors United people is astonishing. A sense of entitlement oozes from their every word. They accuse Amazon of abusing its market position. They even use terms such as ’monopoly’, which is an outrageous reversal of the truth. No one has done more to increase the publication of new books than Amazon. No one has done more to increase consumer choice. By neutering Amazon, Authors United wants to drastically *restrict* consumer choice, so that once again nearly all commercially successful books are published by just five corporations. They wish to reestablish the publishing oligopoly’s stranglehold until most of the titles you’ll see at book retailers are… the authors from Authors United.
Having said that, the dominance of Amazon’s position does worry me. What if they abuse it in the future? But they haven’t up till now, and I would take the mere theoretical possibility of monopoly abuse in the future, over the certainty of oligopoly abuse from Author United’s corporate paymasters.
Charles, I wish you good fortune in your publishing ventures.
Best wishes, Tim