Diary of a Mad Editor

In a recent post over at Media Bistro, a writer brought up a rather tired argument against Amazon’s Kindle and print publishing ambitions: That somehow, pricing its titles at a lower price point than what mainstream publishers want to charge leads to lower quality.  This is the same argument hardcover publishers used against publishers of mass market paperbacks back in the day. It is the same argument, newspaper and magazine publishers made against Internet publishers before they jumped on the Internet bandwagon and began hiring for sales jobs to peddle online subscriptions. It’s the same argument used against bloggers and it’s the same argument that critics of Amazon have been using since the Kindle. Now, Amazon is doubling down on they’re own print publishing enterprise by starting yet another imprint— this one dedicated to mystery and thrillers novels. To suggest that a selling an ebook for $4.99 instead of $13 means that more low- quality junk is ridiculous. This presumes that all books sold higher price points are automatically good. Quality and price have nothing to do with each other when it comes to writing. And we’re not talking about self-publishing in which their is no editorial control. We’re talking about an imprint that seems to be open only to established professional novelists who have already made a name for themselves publishing books with traditional publishers. So let’s just call this lame argument what it really is: a straw man who doesn’t like Amazon very much.