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In recent days, I spoke of my #BrandZero initiative, in which I declared that I would not talk about major IPs on this blog or on social media. Such an approach is needed because large brands can easily spread the word about themselves while smaller brands often struggle to gain visibility.
But here’s another reason #BrandZero is important: Big brands can withstand shocks. And the originator of #BrandZero as a concept, friend of the blog Jon Del Arroz, got hit with a massive one.
Del Arroz’s preorder page for Glorified, the third book in his Saga of the NanoTemplar series of Christian sci-fi, got taken down by Amazon for reasons unknown. The same thing happened to another auther, Declan Finn, with the latest book in his Saint Tommy, NYPD series, Deus Vult. Like Glorified, it has a strongly Christian message, and Del Arroz’s series in particular has seen massive success recently (however, all of Del Arroz’s and Finn’s other books remain, including books in the two aforementioned series.)
Russell Newquist, owner of Finn’s publisher Silver Empire Press, suspects a campaign against the Deus Vult book:
It's very hard not to suspect some kind of coordination at this point. pic.twitter.com/KlZ0AMzdbF
— Russell Newquist (@rnewquist) October 29, 2019
Keep in mind that both IPs are minor. I can guarantee that this would never happen to Stephen King, JK Rowling, or even Anne Rice. All three can easily work around Amazon if they so chose.
Small IPs are easy targets for bad actors because those bad actors feel that no one will notice the brands’ removal, and Amazon will ignore the IPs completely. If someone attempted this against even a cult hit, the backlash would be enormous.
By talking about the smaller IPs, you can help remedy this. I’m doing my part via CHI-RHO, where I write one-shot fan-fictions based on these smaller properties. As for Del Arroz and Finn, you can help both of them by buying Glorified and Deus Vult directly through Silver Empire. Bit by bit, we can change things up.
Rawle
This confirms what I’ve long suspected . The need for small/independent publishers to distributetheir own content.
We need to update the samidzat methods for the 21st century
In the future police raids at houses with unusual electrical consumption will discover it’s for printing presses not weed farms
xavier
xavier
It is something we may have to do. Support existing creators on Amazon, but keep an eye out when they mention other distribution channels.
Rawle,
I’ve been thinking. A lot of us have outdated/obsolete phones/tablets lying around.
We should consider using them as media transfer devices where we bluetooth books to each other (I realize that we have to be next to each other) Another way is to create local network acccess sites (NAS) that trusted people can go and download to spread the books.
All this highlights one the biggest problem that’s even Catalan independent publishers face: distribution. Specifically printed books has a real bottle neck. The reasons are strictly commercial not ideological
I’ve advocated direct selling but there may be commercial and legislative factors that I’m ignoring.
TL;DR
We need to start using mirco SD cards, thumbdrives even reviving CDs and DVDs to distribute books and other content to willing customers.
Sorta like a 21st century speakeasy and bootlegging
xavier
All sound like creative ideas worth exploring.