Because we are cheap labor

It's amazing what the switch to an Information Economy does to a society.

There was an article a few months ago that showed why Amazon doesn't make a profit.
here's one.  Yet, Jeff Bezos has enough money to buy the Washington Post.

And Google produces nothing as far as I can tell, yet it is one of the most powerful companies in the world.

And Facebook is worth $50-$100 billion? And they produce, what?

And the companies that produce actual products or manage commodities aren't nearly as rich as the ones who manage information.

Agriculture and manufacturing may keep humans alive, but information gives us purpose.

Each of us must expect that we are here to produce data and information. You might be mad that Google reads your email, but that's their job, and yours, to let them. And what asshole thinks that free email is like paid snail mail? If you could pay 46 cents, the current price of a stamp, to send an email with the guarantee it would not be read, would you pay it?

No, you wouldn't.

In the current economy, we produce data. And we are rewarded with more crap than we can read or view or hear in this lifetime. We consume what we produce and produce what we consume. It's a cycle. But in this information chain, we humans are very near the bottom and companies like Amazon and Google, Facebook are at the top.

I just think it's interesting that snail mail and landline phone calls and UHF/VHF television and AM/FM radio could never be monetized in the way that digital media is now. Companies could only guess at what motivated consumers. But now that we are both the producers and the consumers, companies know everything. Because we just give it away.

Publishing-on-demand: I'm saying this for the last time...

I publish my crap with CreateSpace.

Yes, CreateSpace is part of the "evil empire" that is Amazon, and yes, one day Amazon will dictate what librarians will buy because they will control all the bestsellers by promoting whomever they want on their sites and by sending suggestions to all their Kindle users and creating the bestseller lists from their stock of Amazon authors. Yes, this will happen.

But when I read about libraries assisting their patrons with self publishing by getting a "print-on-demand" machine or service, I think or how much better it is with CreateSpace:
CreateSpace is free. Totally free. Completely free. No cost. Nada. As free as free can be. When I published I Came in Peece, I paid nothing. My only cost was for the 3 copies I bought for friends (total cost for 3 copies, shipped to me, around $12).

I did not pay for a proof copy because I proofed online. Free.
I did not pay for an ISBN which costs around $125-$140. This was provided free.
I did not pay for a bar code, usually $25. Also, free.

I did not pay to have anyone design my book cover because CreateSpace has a wizard for that. I uploaded my own photo and used the wizard for all other design elements. Again, free.

I don't remember the payment system, but you also need to complete that information. But I think you don't need to enter too much personal information if you want them to send you a check for your royalties (ha!), but you need to enter bank info if you want your money sent to direct deposit.

And when I was done, my book was available on its own CreateSpace web page AND also on Amazon.

And after a few days, the "Look Inside" feature was available so that anyone could preview my book. So preview it, you cheap bastard.

Now, you can hate Amazon for destroying all the traditional booksellers by being the online version of "when Walmart came to town."

Or you can hate them for giving that Chicago grandma dozens of naked lady books in her search results when she only wanted to find books for her tween granddaughter.

Or you can hate them for patenting "one-click" purchasing, which is actually 3-clicks since you need to click to sign-in before one-click becomes active, so the patent really covers what every online business had already been doing for years.

Or you hate them for selling The Pedophiles Guide to Love and Pleasure, by Phillip Greaves, or Understanding Loved Boys and Boylovers, by David L. Riegel, which were a big stories a while back, so I don't even know if those books is still for sale, or if any of the thousands of other books that cover topics that might piss you off are currently for sale. Dunno.

Or you can hate them for not collecting sales tax that could have benefited your state for the last 15 years, and you can hate them for all the other reasons that we hate multi-billion-dollar companies.

But if you want to get your library patrons published so that they have the best possible exposure for their books and so their family and friends can purchase them, then you should consider using CreateSpace for your "makerspaces." I know this process is not "print on demand," which might be what your patrons want, especially those really old guys who don't expect to live out the week. But my order for my books got me in about nine days.

Now, CreateSpace is part of Amazon's family, but they don't seem to communicate that well, so it's a dysfunctional relationship. I had a lot of trouble getting my book, I CAME IN PEECE (read it!), in Kindle format even though it was supposed to be a simple click of a button to make it happen. But I had to create a whole new account on Amazon and upload everything myself without getting any help from CreateSpace. But now it's out there in all its Kindley goodness. And it's only 99 cents!

And since CreateSpace is free, you can try it by uploading anything. Yes, even your dreamy-dream journal.

FYI, I published a book back in the 1990s and the 500 copies I had to order (and pay for) for the minimum print run are still collecting dust in the attic. So this is new way to publish is practically a freakin miracle.

Amazon *

So. I've had this thought for a long time, but I don't think anyone can answer the question:

How much influence do book sales on Amazon.com have on (the) The New York Times Best Seller list?

Is there a list of titles whose majority sales were from Amazon that made the NYT list (based on those sales)?

Librarians already know about the influence of Amazon because we deal with library patrons daily who want us to buy some book they saw on Amazon that had "really excellent reviews" from some unknown friends of the author. There has been lots of crap that got bumped on Amazon that made it onto our library shelves. Much of complete and total shit.

So now that Amazon will have its own publishing house (and for tax purposes, will have its offices only in "the cloud," or Belize), to what degree should we ignore sales from those Amazon authors? For example, Penny Marshall is reportedly writing a book for Amazon, and on any other day since 1993, not one person would care. But give Amazon's muscle in the retail world, Penny will sell tons of copies of her milk-and-Pepsi tell-all.

Should publishers be allowed to decide which books become bestsellers? Hell Yes, you might say if you ran Random House, Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Penguin, Hachette, and Macmillan.

But they don't. They promote the books all they can, but they don't own the book stores. Not until now.

If Amazon is both the publisher and the seller, then what happens when they promote a book? It sells. Because everyone who visits Amazon is going to see that book on the front page, and in the sidebars and in the pop-ups. And they will buy.

So now Amazon publishes the book that becomes the bestseller that makes the Times list that influences what libraries buy. And what every other book retailer in the world sells. Can you say, MONOPOLY?

The first title that Amazon publishes that becomes a Times bestseller should bring a wave of lawsuits. Or at the very least, should require an asterisk next to each title that makes the list, meaning, yes, this book sold well, but not in a way that's ethical.

At some point, will the list become Amazon's Best Seller List at The New York Times? If the Times could be so lucky.


[source for Penny Marshall info, Amazon's Hit Man]

Amazon's Big Ass Library

News: Amazon copies the Public Library business model. And adds fees. The story is that Amazon is going to lend ebooks. And everyone says this is bad for libraries.

I don't know why Amazon didn't do this sooner. Here's what could have happened at any time: Let's say Amazon creates the Amazon Lending division and the Lending division buys ebooks from the Amazon Bookseller division. Amazon could lend those ebooks for $2 a week and make... $2 a week minus $10 cost per ebook, is $94 a year. Or given the short lifespan of a book, $47 for six months. So Amazon can make $47 dollars on each ebook it buys from itself.

And since Amazon the Bookseller creates the demand for the books in the first place by pushing them to the front page, it can target the most profitable books to purchase for its Lending division and not waste money on dogs. But given how the web page works, it can buy and rent pretty much anything at any time. "Buy Now for $9.99 or Rent Now for $2.00 a week." I don't think publishers would even be able to keep track of the bookkeeping.

Publishers could have complained. But since Amazon sells more of their books than any other outlet, they wouldn't complain for too long after Amazon gently, but purposefully, squeezed their balls.

What's funny is that libraries have been doing this for years. But without the $2 a week. The only thing Amazon adds to the Library plan is the rental fee. And Amazon's massive global presence. And the ball-squeezing thing.

Amazon's Subscription-based Lending Library vs. the Public Library.

Amazon: Thems that can join is thems that can pay.

Library: All are welcome. Even you.

Amazon: As quickly as possible, regardless of cost.

Library: As cheaply as possible, no matter the delay.

Amazon: We track every word you read. And we can tell which ones you don't understand. Don't you know what spurious means by now? God, my kid knows that.

Library: We couldn't give two fucks whether you borrow Catcher in the Rye. Or if you read, What's Up with Down There? (a guide to your lady parts) and it's companion, What's Wrong with my Dong? (a guide to dude stuff).

Well, actually that last two have wifi keyloggers that gather your Facebook profile if you keep the anywhere near a computer or smartphone. But that's just something I did. For research, not for spying. But I won't tell anyone that you checked them out. Except in my library school thesis. You know, for research.

Whenever our library would bring up charging for services in the past, the plan would always get shot down. The purpose of the library is to provide free services, was always the reason. It didn't matter that ALL real world examples had a cost. Book and movie rentals, computer use, instructional programs, research, all incur some cost in the real world.

So in the middle of a fucking recession, with this Amazon new, libraries are being told that people would rather pay than wait.

So watching TV, I see that most people still have $70/mo for a phone. And $8/mo for Netflix. And $6/mo. for Amazon Prime. But no one seems to have fucking dime for libraries.

Everyone says that libraries have become obsolete because people only want to pay for the things they want; there is no longer a common good. And I've also heard that people shouldn't be forced to pay for something that a private company could supply. Like private roads? Private armies? Because I'm sure you could find some company willing to keep the road in front of your house in good shape if you cough up $5 a day. And if you don't cough loud enough, I'm sure a good ball-squeeze is on the menu.

So you have librarians all shouting how library lending is dead because Amazon is willing to sell the same product that libraries could provide for free if only everyone would shut the fuck up and just pay their $8/mo. in library fees so that we can continue providing books to everyone. Oh, wait, and for that same $8 you get children's programs and online newspapers and computer classes and yoga and reading clubs and meeting space and internet access and music and SO MUCH OTHER SHIT it's not possible to calculate it all. If only you fuckers would just pay your fucking taxes.

But what these librarians are saying is that the book lending model for libraries is dead. Much like how the VHS and DVD lending model perished years ago when Blockbuster and then Netflix and then Redbox appeared. What? That part of library lending is stronger than ever? In fact, Redbox is only $1 and Blockbuster has repeatedly lowered prices AND Netflix users are quitting the service because prices increased?

So what is it about Amazon's model that will kill libraries? Is it the Kindle? So a business model that requires members to spend $114 upfront (for the cheapest Kindle) and then keep a valid credit card on record AND continue to pay $8 to $30 a month is going to beat out a FREE service?

What it will most likely do is allow libraries to get the same deal as Amazon and allow us to lease ebooks from publishers. So then the library will be able to lease 200 ebook copies of Stieg Larsson's ghost-written but based on his notes, second series of novels to fill demand. And then six months later, return them all and buy something else. And when libraries get the power to lease ebooks for one-fifth the cost of purchasing them, then we'll have the power to deliver content to our patrons and near-Kindle immediacy but without the added cost.

I'll say this again; if libraries could only manage to pool all the money, would could get publishers to give us what we want. Because this is tens of millions of dollars. Or even hundreds of millions. I don't have a calculator, but it's a lot. We could offer any book or movie or song to anyone at any time in any format.

Amazon isn't big because they're better. They're big because of that name: Amazon. It's a big damn river. It's the biggest river on Earth. So we'll need to come up with a bigger name for our combined national library. How about Library Planet? Or The Big Fucking Library? I'll leave the naming up to you.

But The Big Fucking Library would look great on borrower cards.