Amazon May Be Disintermediating Publishers: Maybe Good News for Authors?
July 9, 2014
Update: A person asked me who is the IDC “expert.” The answer is David Schubmehl. His picture on LinkedIn shows him as a very, very happy individual. My photograph shows a quite annoyed 70 year old individual. Whenever I think about this unauthorized reuse of my content now being sold on Amazon, my heart races and I fear the IDC matter is pushing me closer to the “narrow house.” Did William Cullen Bryant use another’s work in “Thanatopsis”? Stephen E Arnold, July 9, 2014 at 4 53 pm
I read “Amazon Angles to Attract Hachette’s Authors to Its Side.” The main point is that Amazon is pro content and anti at least one publisher. Here’s the passage I noted with considerable interest:
Amazon has proposed giving Hachette’s authors all the revenue from their e-book sales on Amazon as the parties continue to negotiate a new contract. Hachette’s response on Tuesday was to suggest that the retailer was trying to make it commit suicide.
Why am I pro Amazon? Well, two UK publishers stiffed me for books I wrote and they published. One annoying outfit is out of business. No loss, believe me. The other is still promoting the book and presumably selling the scintillating monograph called Successful Enterprise Search Management. More recently I reported that IDC, one of the numerous McKinsey / Bain / Boston Consulting chasers published my content under another person’s name. The “expert” whose knowledge derived in part from the work of me and my associates is marketed on Amazon at this link as of July 9,, 2014. Notice that the IDC “original work” carries the hefty price tag of $3,500. (Goodness, I was offered a job at IDC when I worked at Ziff Communications in New York. I passed. I was uncomfortable from the git go with this company.)
Verified, July 9, 2014 at Amazon.com. Search for Schubmehl Attivio or IDC Attivio.
I hope Amazon disintermediates any publisher, consulting firm, or knowledge outfit that does not issue contracts, honor copyright, and puts individuals like me in the unenviable position of having my expertise inflate that of another; specifically, an alleged expert named Dave Schubmehl, formerly from the vendor of multiple software written by third parties. I assume that’s what “ramp quickly” means. For more on the shuffle of my work under an IDC’s consultant see http://arnoldit.com/wordpress/wp-admin/post.php?post=40033&action=edit.
Publishers and trust, respect, and appropriate professional behavior in my experience do not go together like peanut butter and jelly.
Go, Amazon. Disintermediate these outfits. And I will gladly split any money from my work 50 50 with you. Amazon has earned my trust. The publishers who have treated me poorly have lost my trust.
Ronald Reagan was correct, “Trust but verify.”
Stephen E Arnold, July 9, 2014
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7 Responses to “Amazon May Be Disintermediating Publishers: Maybe Good News for Authors?”
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I concur with the fact that publishers are not interested in writers/authors. I’ve had two recent experiences where articles…clearly marked for sale as features…were taken and put into their magazine’s “letters to the editor” column rather than pay me.
In one case the magazine sold items to HighBeam which turned around and was selling one of the articles via subscription from the “letters” column where it has no business being in the first place. That magazine BTW was one of our professional magazines Information Outlook by Special Libraries Association. Although I’ve spoken at one of their conferences, I have since disassociated my self from them, although I still consider myself a “Special Librarian.”
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