This post by Jane Friedman originally appeared on her site on 1/15/15.
If you’ve been watching publishing news over the last 24 hours, then you may have seen a flurry of articles summarizing the Digital Book World session featuring a conversation with Russ Grandinetti of Amazon.
These were some of the most memorable takeaways for me:
In describing (with complete sincerity and seriousness) the indie author community: “They’re awesome. It’s an incredibly vibrant community. They like caps locks sometimes—we view that as a feature not a bug. … [Authors are] among the biggest sources of input in how we build and evolve.”
Regarding Kindle Unlimited, Amazon’s ebook subscription service: He was reserved on the matter, and said that Amazon didn’t have any particularly strong “answers” or insights about ebook subscription services, or their long-term effect on “a la carte sales” since it just launched in August 2014. However, he said that if you look at a customer’s buying patterns 60 days before KU and 60 days after, these customers are spending more money on books after enrolling—25% more on average.
Read the full post on Jane Friedman’s site.