vgriff

I have a hard and fast rule not to pay more than $10 for a kindle edition of a book. It’s a remnant of my time in publishing. I value books and writing greatly (obviously), and want writers to be able to make a living writing books — I buy lots of books to support authors I love. But digital books are overpriced by most publishers and I just can’t make myself take part in it. I could go on for days about this topic; about how four publishers were actually convicted of collusion on pricing for ebooks but still got away with it, about how authors are cheated out of royalties for digital book sales because publishers refuse to acknowledge the savings in production costs, about how you’re not actually buying a digital book but leasing it. Whatever, that shit’s boring.

The point I was trying to make was that I broke this rule just now. Because I read this amazing essay in the New York Times today, an excerpt of a piece from the upcoming Maid. Read the essay — it’s so good. I hope Ms. Land has a great contract and that her book sells a million copies.