Thursday, June 30, 2011

Yes California--Tax Amazon!

Every independent bookstore in the country pays taxes.  Not Amazon.  Why should they be given this competitive advantage?  California is calling them to task on it, and so what do they do?  Drop all of their local affiliates.  AP has the story on Huffington Post.  Every state should get behind California on this issue.

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Write for Amazon and Don't Get Paid--What a Deal!

Writer Beware posts an article by Laura Hazard Owen at Paid Content here (she wants, and like most of us, needs to get paid!) about the bias in the reviews at Amazon.  Book reviews are invaluable, but Amazon wants us to do it for nothing, so they can make more money?  Biased in terms of who is writing them, and along multiple other dimensions.  But I'm not going to give up too much here--here is what the author has to say.  Well worth reading, and hopefully, someone will decide to pay her for it.  This is one of the better researched articles I have read on the subject.

Amazon Takes on Author's "Blurbs."

Writer Beware does a great job monitoring the publishing industry from a pro-writer perspective. They posted this interesting article on how Amazon is trying to manipulate the author "blurb" process that appeared in the New York Observer.  Basically, authors give us a blurb and we will promote your book. Unethical?  Probably not.  Just slimy.