A bombshell dropped over the weekend that has the potential to shake indie publishing to its core.
The troubling development involves mega best selling newpub author, and fellow Dragon Award winner, Nick Cole. This ongoing story broke on Sunday night when readers noticed the popular Galaxy’s Edge and Forgotten Ruin series by Cole and his co-author Jason Anspach missing from Amazon.
Here is Nick’s official statement:
We don’t know anything concrete. This happened on Saturday night on a 3 day weekend.
That sounds suspiciously like a hacker got into Amazon. Also, a few other people have had it happen to them.
But the times are crazy due to the leftists strangling everyone’s small business and acting like some kind of woke mafia within major corporations and so it must be considered, that until Amazon says different, this was some kind of Purge.
We are hoping Tuesday morning sees a resolution. Until then our cash flow has been destroyed, our customers are upset, and potential new customers are being lost forever.
It makes you question being exclusive on Amazon. In the light of this, it seems foolish to have all your eggs in one basket. Galaxy’s Edge has already held emergency meetings to discuss remedies that benefit the reader, and the company, by going in new directions.
Perhaps this is the next evolution in the Indie Revolution.
Of course, Nick is the one best positioned to know why Amazon pulled his books. But even his vantage point isn’t definitive, thanks to the shabby state of the internet.
Was it a hack?
Or Death Cultists in middle management on a witch hunt?
This screen grab from a KDP search for “Galaxy’s Edge” may hold a clue.
It turns out that Disney launched their own Galaxy’s Edge series under the Star Wars banner in 2019 – two years after Cole and Anspach’s 2017 publication date.
Now, those who know a little about publishing may object that you can’t copyright a title. That’s beside the point. Megacorps aren’t concerned with aesthetics. They care about brand. Disney slapped the Galaxy’s Edge moniker on a novel series, a Marvel comic, and a theme park attraction. If you’re in Disney’s marketing department, you want every search for “Galaxy’s Edge” to turn up Disney products. You want that name associated with your brand and only your brand.
Somebody else got there first? Does that somebody have billions to spend on IP litigation? Screw him.
Let you accuse me of reverting to economic reductionism, this isn’t about money. Disney has all the cash and collateral they need. What they care about is uncontested dominance of the cultural narrative. They do not want anyone jamming their signal, especially not a couple of straight, white, Christian men.
Is maintaining narrative control important enough for priests of the Devil Mouse to have their coreligionists at Amazon declare a fatwa against Cole and Anspach?
To ask the question is to answer it.
Whatever the reason for Amazon’s interference in Nick’s business, it looks like he’s right about one thing: Amazon exclusivity is, by fits and starts, turning into career suicide.
If it’s malicious hackers, that means Amazon lacks sufficient security to safeguard their partners’ business.
If it’s Death Cultists conducting an internal purge, that means upper management can’t keep the crazies on a leash.
If it’s malfunctioning algorithms, that means Amazon’s whole system just plain doesn’t work, and relying on it is the business equivalent of playing Russian roulette.
Nick is also right about changing market conditions forcing another newpub evolution. Based on experience and research from me and others, some hybrid patronage system appears to be what’s next.
In the meantime, get your physical copies of Galaxy’s Edge while the getting’s good.
And if you like Stormtroopers in Afghanistan, you’ll also dig MS Gundam meets Tom Clancy.
