Who Will Become Amazon's Next Victim?

By Andrew E. Kaufman
It’s been all over the news the past week—this fall, Amazon will publish 122 books in a number of different genres through their own imprint, and reports say this is just the beginning. According to industry insiders, they’ve been aggressively courting some of their top authors, and just last week the company announced they’ll publish actress/director Penny Marshall’s new memoir.

Amazon has already shown authors they no longer need an agent or a big-name publishing company to get their books into readers' hands, thanks to their groundbreaking self-publishing model. However, this next move seems push the notion up a notch and has many wondering if traditional publishers will soon find themselves on the same boat as bookstores did after Amazon singlehandedly brought them to their knees.

Word from industry insiders is that publishers aren't just wondering about that prospect-- they're plenty worried about it, too, and rightly so. There’s history to consider. Amazon revolutionized how we read with their Kindle, and if this publishing endeavor succeeds, they just may influence what we read as well.

Will Amazon one day put publishers out of business? Several years ago, that might have been a preposterous question, but today more than a few feel it's a distinct possibility. The publishing industry hasn’t exactly shown much tenacity when it comes to keeping up with Amazon’s fast-moving forward-thinking business acumen, one that has placed them far ahead of the pack. And in an industry that as of late seems to be reinventing itself practically by the minute, not keeping up could mean falling by the wayside. Historically, we’ve seen this happen repeatedly--will we see it again here?

Amazon has already proven itself as a force to be reckoned with on the technological front as well after its Kindle survived the great iPad invasion. Now they’re raising the stakes by aggressively going after the market share with their new Fire, a smaller, lighter, and most importantly, cheaper tablet that could give Apple a run for their money. But more than just a media device, the Fire may also help push Amazon into the role as publishing giant. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has referred to the device as an "end-to-end service," which can only be interpreted as something that will keep them in the loop every step of the way, from the product's inception to its final destination: the customers' hands.

Of course, opinions vary on the subject, and this is just mine. But what about you? Do you think publishers will become a thing of the past? And if Amazon does manage dominate the book biz on every level, what do you think the implications of that might be?

Paper or Plastic?

By Andrew E. Kaufman

I admit it—I’m one of them.

I’m talking about e-book enthusiasts, and I’m a card-carrying, flag-waving, dyed-in-the-wool member of the club. I make no apologies for it, either. I love, love, love the Kindle. Not just because I like to read on it—I also make a living from it. Personally, I think they should name a country after Amazon, or at the very least, give them an island.

But I’m a gadget sort of guy (read: tech-nerd), always have been. It’s not that I feel the need to one-up everyone else. I’m not that guy. My reasons are pure and simple: I’m all about anything that makes life easier, and for someone who loves to read—at least from my perspective—it just makes sense. No more lugging cumbersome books around, no more tiny print, and best of all, no more having to drive to the store or wait days for books to arrive. Seems like a win-win sort of thing.

However, not everyone feels that way.

While the number of e-book readers continues to grow each year, there are still many who resist the Great E-book and want nothing to do with it. Now don’t get me wrong—that’s in no way a criticism. A book is a book, and as far as I’m concerned, in any shape or form it will always be a wonderful thing. In fact, I still print paper versions of my novels, and quite honestly, love them. I think there will always be room for both in this world. But what I still don’t get is why some people disagree, why they prefer to cling to only one form. Many say they it’s simply because they love the feel of paper, the smell, love to hold it in their hands. But I have to wonder if maybe it’s something else.

New scares people—it even scares me sometimes—while old provides a sense of comfort. I get that. But there always has been and always will be resistance to the new—that is, until it becomes old. Know what I mean?

Case in point: years back I recall this funny new concept called the Internet. Lots of people thumbed their noses at it, said it would never fly. And look where we all are right now.

I see the same thing happening with e-books. For the first few years people talked about how ridiculous it was, how they just couldn’t see it catching on, how attached they were to their paper books. Well, we know how that turned out. Although Amazon keeps a tight lip on just how many Kindles they’ve sold, others have not. One prediction is that revenues will reach $8 billion by 2012. Yes, that’s billion.

So readers and writers, maybe you can help me understand better: Paper or plastic? And why?

Pricing Your Way to New Fans

by Allan Leverone

I’d like to thank my friend and editor extraordinaire Jodie Renner for her gracious—and utterly irresponsible—invitation to me to guest-post at Crime Fiction Collective today while she’s en route to Manhattan for Thrillerfest. I’m men’s size medium, by the way, Jodie, in case you want to bring me back a Lee Child t-shirt. Although good luck getting it off him.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking a lot about promotion. I’m going to start with the assumption that genre authors want to sell books. I know I do. It would be nice to be so pure of motive that sales meant nothing, that the process of writing was reward enough in itself, but can we agree that’s a load of bunk? Can we agree that’s a sentiment best left to the “literary” authors, who write books where nothing much happens and it’s all very introspective and ethereal?

Because I sure hope I’m not alone in wanting people to buy and read my work. I love to write, but if I wanted to write for myself I could just keep a journal.

So as a thriller/horror author you’ve probably never heard of, promoting my work is almost as high a priority for me as ensuring the quality of that work. That’s where reasonably-priced e-books come in. When I say “reasonably priced,” I’m talking about e-books priced lower than what you would pay for a mass-market paperback, preferably a lot lower.

Obviously, authors contracted with large traditional publishers have no say in the pricing of their work, but if Indie authors, those working with small presses or releasing their work on their own through rights reversion, price their work low enough, a book that defies easy genre classification can potentially gain a wide audience, introducing people who may never have sampled an author’s work to that author.

I’ll use as an example Dave Zeltserman. Fans of noir/crime fiction are probably familiar with his work. But what about readers in other genres? What motivation would, say, a fan of paranormal fiction or urban fantasy have to try Dave Zeltserman’s work? Until recently, none.

But with the rise of reasonably-priced e-books, a fan of urban fantasy might look at Zeltserman’s BLOOD CRIMES (it’s a vampire novel, sort of), priced electronically at a very reasonable $3.99 at Amazon, as a worthwhile gamble. That fan might read the book and discover she loves it, and what will she do if that happens? First, she’ll tell her urban fantasy-reading friends about this great book she just read from this cool author, and then she’ll go out and try another Zeltserman book, maybe a book that’s not strictly, or even partly, urban fantasy.

My point here is not to pump Dave Zeltserman’s tires—although if I don’t sell more books I may end up pumping his gas—my point is to demonstrate how reasonable e-book pricing can potentially earn an author more fans and, consequently, more sales and more money, in the long run than that author might have expected to earn. Books that may have been rejected in the past by what we consider “traditional” publishing houses because they don’t fit neatly inside narrowly-defined genre labels, have a chance at gaining an audience and exposing that audience to the author’s other work as well.

And if the books are good enough, it becomes a win-win for everybody.

Allan Leverone is a three-time Derringer Award finalist as well as a 2011 Pushcart Prize nominee. His debut thriller, Final Vector, was released in February by Medallion Press. A follow-up, The Lonely Mile, is coming this summer from StoneHouse Ink, and his horror novella, Darkness Falls, will be released in September as part of Delirium Books acclaimed collectible horror novella series.