http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/15/technology/in-latest-volley-against-amazon-hachettes-writers-target-its-board.html?_r=0

There has been a battle of the titans between Amazon and Hachette (one of the largest book publishers) for some time now. The whole argument is over how the percentages should be split for e-books and what the price of e-books should be. Amazon is pushing for a maximum price of $9.99 and wants 30% (the exact same deal it offers independent publishers) Amazon has responded by putting Hachette books at the bottom of the list for order fulfillment, stopped recommeding them on their recommendations list and refusing to sell preorders. 

I find the whole thing rather amusing from a rhetoric standpoint. You have big name leftwing authors who are pretending to be poor little victims. Accusations that Amazon is being "Orwellian" and is trying to "control what people read". Which is patently absurd coming from a publishing company- the sole purpose of its existence being to determine what books to publish and which ones not to publish. For years, the only practical way for authors to reach a large audience was to get one of the five major publishers to publish them. The five big publishers controlled almost 90% of the book market. E-books have changed that and the big publishers only account for a little over 50% (although they still dominate the paper book market).  

You would think that the big publishers would learn from the hard lessons that the music market did. Technology changes things and people aren't willing to pay $15 for an e-book no matter how large a name is on it. The irony is, that giving Amazon a slightly larger cut and lowering the price would probably be far more profitable for them in the long run. There are so many independent books out there that authors are selling for $1-$5, and a lot of them are really good. There are a lot of really talented authors who were lost in the massive amounts of paper sent to publishing companies. Now, they have an opportunity to appeal to readers directly and get a much larger portion of the money to boot. I don't think anything of throwing $1 at a book, if I like it I finish it, if I don't, I just delete it- who cares it is one dollar. I have also noticed a trend that many authors have started writing in a pattern where they write related novels, but between the time of releasing full fledged novels, they will have little short stories that they put on for $1. If I liked the first book I read, I'll pay $1 for a little 40-50 page short story while waiting for the next installment. 

It is still a daunting task for an author to build a following, but now they can track their daily downloads and get immediate feedback. I was curious at what kind of success an independent e-book author could have, and I found thisvery interesting and informative blog post, which has a series of really good analysis on self publishing. The bottom line is that it is extremely difficult to find success as a new author. Even those who are published by the big five more often than not see sales drop quickly and make very little money. However, there is a decent number of people who are making decent levels of income ($25,000-$60,000), fewer who make up to $100,000 and the really big names who make well into the 6 figures to the giants who make millions a year. The surprising thing is, that even at the higher levels of income, being published by a big publisher doesn't seem to be a significant determinate.

Over time, this is just going to become more pronounced. Just like the music industry has seen a large growth in niche markets, the tv industry has seen a large growth in internet only shows, the big five publishers should learn the lessons that the big players in other entertainment industries learned the hard way. Consumers want large selections and they want them cheap. Huge success on the Internet is more often made by what you give away for free than by trying to maintain high prices. One of the largest problems that big corporations have is their slowness to adapt. Amazon has realized it, and that is why they are going to be a lot richer than anyone else. If they stopped carrying big name authors completely, they will still be the largest online book seller. Faced with a decision between some no name author for a couple bucks and a big name for $15, I'm going with no name every time. Faced with a no name for a couple bucks and a known author for $5, well I might go with what I know.