On Forbe’s tech site today, Sramana Mitra thinks publishing is “archaic beyond belief, it’s an industry that treats its most important asset–the author–badly,” and is wondering how long this can go on. Mitra brings up some good points in her commentary about how, after retailers, shippers, distributors, agents and houses take their share, there’s little profit per book left for the author. However, she has a business plan for Amazon.com to change all that:
“Let’s say, in the new world, Amazon becomes the retailer, marketer, publisher and agent combined and takes 65% of the revenues, offering 35% to the author–we end up with a much better, fairer world.”
It would be fairer as far as authors making more for their hard work, but will the media that shuns vanity publishing step up and review those books?
