I do wonder if the business model isn’t part of what is harming the sci fi/fantasy midlisters like Dr. Wells and Holly Lisle. Why put those books out in hardcover first? If it was a paperback, I may be enticed to buy the book just for support of the give away but my hardcover purchases are tightly controlled.

This is one of the reasons I think placing the blame on bookstores doesn’t make sense to me. The publisher, IMO, has the highest duty of loyalty to the author in this chain, because they have control over so many of the aspects of how, when, where, and with what support a book is produced for public consumption. IMO publishers are the original point at which the “value” — commercial, artistic, etc. — is set, because publication in and of itself is no longer a mark of endorsement. I don’t think authors and literary agents and bookstores and the like should not *participate* in the promotional process, but I get the feeling that for most authors, publishers are taking on the role of mere factories and not agencies. And yet, unlike factories, publishers take a certain ownership interest in the author’s work, which seems to me like the best of both worlds for the publisher and the worst of all worlds for the rest of us, including authors.

After reading the excerpt, though (I made myself stop after chapter 2) I’m definitely ordering from Amazon. He’d have had a sale anyway from me, but now I won’t be waiting for paperback.