Is Amazon Screwing Over Bloggers?
Written byPosted on November 20, 2007
Filed Under Amazon, Kindle
[For more on these Kindle investigations, see ten arguments against the Kindle, the initial query concerning blog content being redistributed without permission or compensation, the first wave of Kindle blogger responses, and the the second wave of Kindle blogger responses.]
On Saturday, Matthew Ingram noticed this about the Kindle:
The second thing that hit me was the part where Steven Levy says that users will be able to download books, newspapers and magazines, and will even be able to “subscribe to selected blogs, which cost either 99 cents or $1.99 a month per blog.” That one made me do a double-take. Pay a monthly subscription fee to read a blog? Either Levy and/or Bezos have been smoking something, or they have found some magical way to get people to pay for something that has historically been free.
So wait a minute here. Do any of these blogs get a cut here? I’m going to conduct some investigation and confirm if this is indeed the case.
[UPDATE: Here is a list of Kindle blogs. This blog does not appear to be listed, but Galleycat, Overheard in New York, Jossip and Boing Boing are. It appears quite likely that arrangements have been made with these respective outfits. But I will dig up more info and find out for sure.]
[UPDATE 2: Emails have been sent to many of the bloggers at the Kindle Store. If I find out anything for sure, I will post my findings here.]
[UPDATE 3: Jason Kottke has additional links, including the revelation of bloggers getting "a revenue share with Amazon, since it costs money to get those publications." Nothing, as of yet, confirmed with anyone from Amazon. Hopefully, I'll have some more answers later this afternoon about what's going on.]
[UPDATE 4: Glenn Reynolds has emailed me back, telling me that his syndication rights are owned by third party Pajamas Media. He believes they cut this deal. I will follow up with them. Of being informed of the Kindle, he writes, "I've heard nothing from Amazon myself. I don't mind being on Kindle at all, but it seems surprising that I haven't even gotten a PR email from them." I plan to assemble another post based on the responses I get.]
[UPDATE 5: Robert Scoble writes:
Because then I’ll get a few bucks back for each one you buy. If I read my email right, Amazon is paying bloggers $40 for each one sold. That’s pretty darn cool.
The price to you doesn’t change. But, if you don’t want me to get some money, then visit Amazon’s home page by typing http://www.amazon.com into your browser window.
It’s not the only way I’ll get paid, though.
If you buy a Kindle and you buy my blog. It looks like I get 30% of that fee.
Anyway, thanks Amazon for all the cash! (I’ll need it, cause I just bought my own — it will be here tomorrow).
"Thanks Amazon for all the cash" indeed. If Amazon is indeed paying bloggers $40 for every Kindle sold and many of the top technology bloggers are on board for this, can we count upon these bloggers to be critical of the product?]
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Books To Jump Up and Down Over
Beyond Heaving Bosoms by Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan. The famed writers behind Smart Bitches, Trashy Books have written a very funny and thoughtful volume about romances, both Old Skool and New Skool. Here is a book that any smug and humorless literary manboy beating his flabby passive chest over Banville or Bolano should probably read pronto, if only for the distant possibility that he might get over himself. While the Choose Your Own Adventure segment at the end caused me to have a very disturbing dream involving Shelley Long (don't ask), Sarah and Candy did have me rethinking many of my own misperceptions when I wasn't busy laughing. They're not afraid to take on the New York Times Bok Review or even the groupthink within certain sectors of the romance community.
Alice Fantastic by Maggie Estep. This wild and highly enjoyable narrative involves two sisters (presumably, the third one was still being rented out by Chekhov), a hippie ex-junkie mother who lives with seventeen dogs, a murder, gambling, and libidinous Hollywood actresses who live in Woodstock. But this is the wonderful Maggie Estep we're talking here. And what seems at first like a quirky yarn becomes something unexpectedly moving about connectivity. What I love about Estep's work is the way that she'll juxtapose an extremely astute observation (now that you mention it, why do cab drivers always have somebody to talk with on the phone past midnight?) with an often outrageous story development.
Generosity by Richard Powers. It doesn't come out until September 29th, but Richard Powers's latest will have anyone committed to books reconsidering their literary fervor. I foresee some animosity from the vanilla critics hostile to idea-driven novels, but book bloggers, YouTube chroniclers, and MFAs would do well to plunge into this chance-taking narrative, which introduces vital questions about what the reader's relationship is with media, scientific dissection, and "creative nonfiction." Are we rats fleeing to happy cities? Or can we find the humanism within the purported plague?
Pieces for the Left Hand by J. Robert Lennon. Lennon is one of the most underrated fiction writers working today. Much as On the Night Plain proved that Lennon had a lot more in the toolbox than heartfelt (and often very funny) suburban satire, this slim but fascinating volume juxtaposes 100 small-town anecdotes -- arranged by category -- in a manner that reads, at times, like Nicholson Baker's passions for minutiae and, at other times, Stewart O'Nan's concern for psychological detail. The result is fiction that makes us wonder about whether one person's subjective view of particulars can entirely be trusted. This book never found a publisher in 2005. But thankfully, Graywolf has released it in the United States, along with Lennon's latest novel, The Castle.
Wonderful World by Javier Calvo. This wonderfully raucous volume has been completely ignored by the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. But it's probably one of the most delightful reading experiences I've had this year. Calvo cavalierly mashes up multiple genres and manages to mix up familial subtext with larger-than-life, almost cartoonish characters. (Indeed, one might argue that one mobster's penis is a character of its own in this sprawling novel.). This is not an easy thing to pull off, but Calvo makes it work. And it's helped immeasurably by Mara Faye Lethem's idiom-specific translation. (See longer post.)
The Means of Reproduction, Michelle Goldberg This thoughtful book tackles the complicated (and little discussed) subject of reproductive rights from numerous angles, which includes a number of unpleasant but necessary ones. The upshot is that there isn't a quick fix solution for declining birth rates and fundamentalist abuses. Just about every political faction has contributed to the friction. But you'll want to read this book anyway to refamiliarize yourself with the topic, but also to understand just what's occurred during the past several decades to get us where we are today. (See also podcast interview with Goldberg.)
Uh oh.
Not good.
Jason Kottke discovered (via Engadget) that there is some sort of revenue sharing going on.
http://www.kottke.org/remainder/07/11/14512.html
Even if there wasn’t revenue sharing, I presume what the payment for is the EVDO service you get with the device.
Why charge for individual subscriptions instead of a flat fee for access to the network? It seems like a sneaky way of making a market for something that’s ordinarily free.