Literary Competition

   Publishers and book stores are right in complaining about competition from Amazon and its book sales division. There are indeed many examples of literary works pirated and republished via Amazon, bypassing the obligation to pay royalties to authors and fees to the original publisher.
   But the latest report on the problem, printed in the New York Times, deals only with one aspect of the issue -- that of traditional publishers and book store owners. There is no mention of the predicament faced by writers.
   Publishers and book stores want to deal with authors with a proven record of success in writing books that sell well. New writers, even those with a long history of success in journalism, are rejected because they have no record of success in book sales.
   But how can they sell books if no one will publish them?
   There, then, is the business opportunity that Amazon recognized and exploited through its Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) division, and the company is well ahead of traditional publishers.
   Publishers and retailers now want to prevent Amazon from continuing to publish and sell books. But they are likely to have the same amount of success other retailers have had in fighting the competition from Amazon.
   None.
   Meanwhile, authors -- even beginners -- can set up and publish their work via KDP at no cost and can start collecting royalties within two or three months, compared to nearly two years with a traditional publisher. Assuming the author's work is accepted and published at all.
   The downside, of course, is that promotion, advertising and marketing must be done by authors themselves rather by a corporate publishing division.
   But the upside is that a book becomes available worldwide immediately, and if an author is able to do marketing and promotion, so much the better. Even more so if knowledge of the book goes viral on the Internet.