What is "Doom Eager"?

Lorrie Moore, from "Better and Sicker"
"Martha Graham speaks of the Icelandic term "doom eager" to denote that ordeal of isolation, restlessness, caughtness and artistic experiences when he or she is sick with an idea. When a writer is doom eager, the writing won't be sludge on the page; it will give readers -- and the writer, of course, is the very first reader -- an experience they've never had before, or perhaps a little and at last the words for an experience they have."

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Amazon's 'Predatory' Pricing Practices

I've got to stand up and applaud Bob LiVolsi's comments at the recent MediaBistro E-Book Summit, accusing Amazon of "predatory pricing."

LiVolsi Calls Amazon Pricing 'Predatory'
By Calvin Reid -- Publishers Weekly, 12/17/2009 6:50:00 AM

The comments came in regard to Amazon's decision to charge $9.99 for many frontlist e-books. I'm not in the publishing industry and have yet to finish the first draft of my novel; however, as a former bookstore owner, predatory pricing is a practice of which I am painfully aware.

When my husband and I opened our bookstore, we were seven miles or so from the nearest big box bookstore, a Books A Million, so I figured that local folks in the beach town area in which we lived would come out to support an independent bookseller. If nothing else, we'd get area residents that didn't want to drive out to the somewhat rundown BAM or over the intercoastal and into town to Borders and Barnes & Noble. For the most part, I was partially correct. What I underestimated were the number of folks that were happy to walk into our store to browse for books and then go home to buy them cheaper on Amazon, often telling us how much they loved our cute, up-scale bookstore/gallery and how much we added to the community but how they could say a few dollars online.

So, when LiVolsi, founder of the independent e-book retailer Books on Board, says that customers will change their minds about the $9.99 price once they understand the consequences of the pricing strategy on authors and, we presume he hopes, small, independent retailers, I say don't hold your breath, Brother. Walmart has conditioned shoppers to expect low prices. I could rant all day about the effect that BJ's, Costco, Walmart, Target, Amazon and the like have had on independent retailers but I'd be wasting my time. Better to get another cup of coffee and try to pound out some pages of my book draft. I've given up on focusing on "literary" fiction, opting for "contemporary" (commercial) fiction instead. With all the predatory pricing in the book business, I'll be lucky if I make enough money as a novelist to pay for the printer ink to send off query letters and manuscripts.
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