I’ve recently been following a discussion on the Amazon forums about how to avoid freelance authors. When I saw the title, I frowned and clicked on it to start reading. Considering the title, negativity was expected, but it was pretty harsh at times.
It’s no secret that the indie scene is underappreciated in almost any medium. There are many differences when you look at the independent creations of art forms like books, movies, painting, and the like. However, in every setting, there is usually a higher body that the public looks to for the latest and greatest. In books, of course, that’s the traditional post.
Getting back to the topic at hand though, the bias in the thread was pretty blatant. Readers don’t want to sift through low-quality books, and they want a way to remove them from what they see. However, the low quality is not what was said, they want independent books removed and only books from major publishers can be seen.
That’s a shame…
However, there is also an argument that can definitely be made. However, it is being badly pursued. The answer is not to be able to remove all independent books from search results, but rather to change the KDP publishing standards. I think changing it as follows would be an effective approach for readers, Amazon, and independent authors alike.
First, divide the post into two categories. Free or for sale. Books published in the free category would basically be published like all the books that are published on Amazon right now. There would be no standards, and a special area of Amazon’s eBook store dedicated to free titles. Those who are publishing something for a small group of friends or family, or authors who want to offer one of their books for free, could publish them there, using the current system.
The main change would come when the publisher in question decides to have the book for sale. At this point, you would do everything the same as now, only the book would not be released soon after. Instead, it would enter a review process. At this point, people may start saying that Amazon isn’t going to pay people to read books by independent authors, that there would be too much volume with everything being added every day.
And that argument would be very valid.
However, there is a solution that could benefit all parties. Thanks to digital downloads, creating and sending entertainment is no longer a hassle. No physical copies required, just a few mouse clicks and you have it. This is the point that should unite Amazon, readers and independent authors. The review process would involve sending free copies of eBooks to well-established reviewers and bloggers, or other beta readers. They are reviewed for quality, both in terms of history and review. Each book is sent to more than one reviewer and their reviews are measured. If the quality meets certain standards, in each criteria area, not an overall score, then the book is listed for sale on Amazon.
There may be some questions for readers at this point, such as why eBooks specifically, and how Amazon can take the word of reviewers and bloggers on what to post. How would it be configured, maintained, etc. Those are all valid questions that would need to be addressed with the parties in question?
However, what I can say is this. Amazon would lose nothing by providing free copies of the eBooks to reviewers. What they would gain is a large amount of material that would be easier to convince customers to buy. The current mentality with independent publishing seems to be to take a handful of money from each other and do it with each author that publishes. Wouldn’t it be much more effective to have quality products that people didn’t have to question as much before buying? Some people say that Amazon is making money off the deal, so they don’t care. If that’s true, they should care. They may technically be making money with the current system, but they are losing a lot of money that they could be making. The independent book market is damaged, and damaged markets don’t sell well.
This situation would help remedy that. By having Amazon partner with these reviewers, in exchange for money if they are willing or other benefits like exposure as an official Amazon partner, free books, or however resolved, the independent publishing world would see a boost.
Digital downloads are a great source of money and offer the convenience of being sent to anyone Amazon wants at no cost to them. This would encourage authors to expand into the e-book market if they currently only publish in print. E-books are a growing trend and Amazon recognizes this. The more digital downloads they have available, the more money they make with nothing being stored, packaged, and shipped.
There have been many beneficial reasons for Amazon to do this featured, but what about the freelance author? What does he get out of it? What he gets is less anonymity and a stamp of approval. Those are two of the biggest hurdles for any independent author. Readers have been burned by plenty of poor work, stories that didn’t even seem to have been spell checked or read after they were written. Every independent author has to fight to overcome those two obstacles. If his books were available with those two stigmata diminished, sales would be much more likely. More sales means more recognition, and more recognition means more readers. Amazon could then promote independent works, which would generate more sales for them and authors alike.
At this point, I want to outline exactly how I envision the review process would work. The books would be rated, as mentioned, in different categories. A certain score would be required in each category, which would be determined after collecting the results of scores and notes from each reviewer. It would not be based on “did you like the story or not” but on the quality of the writing, frequency and degree of errors, etc.
I’m not saying that doing all this would be easy. Change rarely is. Things may continue as they are now, but the market could end up damaged beyond repair. Amazon, and probably many other companies that offer independent publishing services, should consider how they want to approach their publishing game.
