The Preston Petition vs. the Indie Petition

This is not a legal document, and I am in no way attached to anything legal. But I like the sound of it, petition vs. petition, as in Kramer vs. Kramer, which stars Meryl Streep, who I adore.

Anyway, as you may or may not know, there has been a business discussion between Hachette and Amazon regarding ebook pricing and a hundred other things besides. Basically, they’re in negotiations with each other, and Hachette has accused Amazon of trying to KILL the book, etc.

While negotiations are going on, Amazon has offered to compensate authors who may or may not have been “hurt” by the dragging on of said negotiations. Hachette has said no to the money for writers, who are under Hachette’s protection. Etc. It’s messy from where I’m standing, and while the cream buns and berry pies have not quite yet started to fly, I’m thinking it might be sooner, rather than later.

I linked to a bunch of other people’s post in a previous post; you can go read about it if you like.

In the midst of this, a man by the name of Douglas Preston had started a petition, to get people together to boycott Amazon until the negotiations are over. This letter got a lot of press from sea to shining sea. And this is because Douglas Preston is a high dollar writer working for Hachette. Naturally he’d want his own interests protected, but to do this, he fling about a great many emotionally-ladened words such the following:

“We call on Amazon to resolve its dispute with Hachette without hurting authors and without blocking or otherwise delaying the sale of books to its customers. “

Hurting authors? Hurting authors? If anyone is hurting authors it’s Hachette. Amazon proposed to contribute 50% to the amount lost by authors during the dispute, if Hachette kicked in the other 50%. Hachette refused.

Actually, Amazon made another offer, that while the dispute was going on, that they would sell ebooks for the price Hachette demanded, and in return, they would send all of the profits to each author. You know, just to be nice to the writers caught in the crossfire. And again Hachette said no.

And on it goes.

In response to this, a group of indie writers, who have positively thrived under the new self-publishing promoted by Amazon, Kobo, B & N, Smashwords, CreateSpace, and so many others, anyway, several of these indie writers started what I call the Indie Petition on Change.org.

This petition has barely gotten any coverage, perhaps because the “big” newspapers are walking hand in hand with Hachette. (New York Times, Seattle Times, Wall Street Journal, etc.) I don’t know that, but it seems odd to me that such venerable institutions would, naturally, based on the very concept of journalism, cover stories about both petitions with equal objectivity. But they don’t.

To be fair, each side wants what each side wants, and in this great country of ours, everyone is allowed to speak his or her mind. So, thusly, the two petitions exist.

But aside from the mere fact of the petitions existing, and the emo-language on Preston’s part, I was sitting at lunch, thinking about this. About the Preston Petition, and the Indie Petition, and wondering at the differences, and why one was getting coverage and why the other one wasn’t.

I came to the conclusion that there’s no answering that, but I did come up with some observations that I wanted to share. Some very interesting observations about the differences between the petitions that demonstrate how the petitions themselves are reflections of which corner they represent.

Let’s look at them, shall we?

Non-Nuetral vs Neutral

Douglas Preston’s petition is held on his own personal website. This is definitely non-neutral territory. He controls the petition. He controls everything about the petition. He can change names, add names, remove names, he can do anything he wants with it. Is this a petition you would trust?

The Indie Petition, on the other hand, is held on a neutral site, Change.org, which is known as a place people can go to rally other people to their cause. It is, however, not owned by the creators of the petition, or by anyone involved in the negotiations, or discussions about the negotiations. It is located in a completely neutral location. Once the petition is created, it is off and running, on its own, and cannot be changed or edited by the creators of said petition. In other words, even if someone makes a negative comment about the creators of said petition, it still stands. Freedom of Speech, you know.

Low Tech vs High Tech

Douglas Preston’s petition displays in a PDF document, which is way low tech, especially with a swank website such as he has at his disposal. Couldn’t he have asked one of his people to create a new page for him? Or maybe he could have used Survey Monkey or something? Anything would have been better than this multi-page PDF. Plus, Mr. Preston has to send his petition to you, for you to know about it. It is not readily available unless you already have the link, or have read among the many pro-Hachette articles out there. In other words, you have to know about it to know about it. Plus, in order to find out how many people have signed the petition, you have to count each and every one of the names. As of this posting, I counted 712, but it could have grown by one or two.

Also, the names are carefully segregated by the letter of the alphabet with which the last name starts. While I’m for a good, old-fashioned alphabetical list, I find it somewhat hard to believe that Mr. Preston has the time to sort through these. Maybe he does it, maybe he has a minion to do the work. But wouldn’t it have been more, oh, I don’t know, democratic to see, by their position in the petition, who were the early signers and who jumped on board towards the end?

But no matter. I’m going to enjoy calculating the amount of money that Mr. Preston and co will spend when they put their full page ad in the New York Times.

Wait a minute. Publishers can’t pay their authors anything more than 12% but these guys can spend $70,000 on an ad? No, that’s not a typo. Check out this link, which discusses a one page ad posted in the New York Times. Where is this ad money going to come from, is anyone asking? Will it come out of Hachette’s pockets? Or will Douglas Preston foot the bill? And if he foots the bill, how much of that money came out of the bazillions that he earned by selling his book at Amazon.com? Inquiring minds would like to know.

In sharp contrast, the Indie Petition is accessible online – you can find it simply by doing a search. You do not have to wait for Mr. Preston to send it to you. You are free to sign, you are free to look at, it’s free to one and all.

In addition, the Indie Petition uses the one of the most up to date web-based petition sites out there. A site that that has a script that counts the numbers for you, an easy to read count of total numbers of the people who signed the petition. The information is clearly displayed in the upper right corner of the petition. The number increases each time someone new signs the petition. Accurate, up to date information. What a concept!

As of this post, there were 6,896 signatures, and there was only $3.55 spent on the whole thing. This is what I’m thinking – Maybe somebody bought a cup of fancy coffee at the local coffee or brewing market and that cost them, say, $3.55 (they got a medium), and that’s it. At any rate, it’s a far cry from spending $70,000 on an ad for the readers of the NYT.

I could not help but see the comparisons between Trad Publishing, represented by the Preston Petition, and Indie Publishing, represented by the Indie Petition. Do you see the similarities there? Trad Publishing is using old-school PDFs and there’s no script to count the signatures. Plus they’re going to spent butt-loads on a full-page ad where they will continue their whining. Also, not everyone reads the New York Times, so I’m not sure who will be looking at his ad. People who have signed the petition, I expect. Well, that’s 712 people who will see it.

Non-Private vs Private

In order to sign the Preston Petition, you have to send Mr. Preston your email. In other words, to sign the petition, you have to go through him. This was the part that hit me the hardest: you have to go through a gatekeeper (in this case, Mr. Preston) to sign his petition. Just as in Traditional Publishing, you have to go through a gatekeeper, usually several of them (agent, editor, publisher), in order to get your book published.

The Indie Petition, on the other hand, allows you to sign the petition free and clear of any encumbrances, gatekeepers, or hoops. Rather like indie publishing itself, in which the author of the book determines who, what, when, why, and who, and again who. In indie publishing, you don’t have to go through anybody.

Additionally, Douglas Preston now has the email address of every single person who signed his petition. He knows exactly who is “on his side,” and by that ruling, he knows who the “bad” people are, the ones who don’t agree with him. What will he do with this information? Who can say? It feels like a kind of control to me, rather like Trad Publishing – they hold the contracts, the keys to the kingdom, the list of people who are naughty and who are nice. But signatures are all you get. You have no idea why anyone signed. Maybe they were threatened with the imminent fall of the status quo, who can say.

The Indie Petition, on the other hand, allowed users to sign in with their emails, but only their names are displayed. None of the individuals who created the petition in the first place has access to the emails of anyone who signed. The person who signed, moreover, can include their thoughts about why the petition is important to them, and also, if they want, they can add other information as well. None of the creators of the Indie Petition can step in (or even would if they could) to police the thoughts of the petition signers.

Again this seems to reflect the difference between Trad Publishing and Indie Publishing. In the former, the writer has almost no control at all, no voice, no say. In the latter, the writer has everything, and, best of all, there are no walls between writer and reader.

Invisible vs Transparent

Douglas Preston does not mention his petition on his website anywhere. I went to check. In spite of the fact that the petition is almost a week old, he’s got nothing about it.

The creators of the Indie Petition, on the other hand, have many, many links and updates about what’s going on, the debate, and their position on it. Here is just one sample among hundreds.

Update July 26, 2014: Cas Bloomberg has kindly pointed that I incorrectly stated that  Mr. Preston was calling for a boycott of Amazon by Hachette authors or anyone. He is, in fact, not calling for any boycott; I put it down to my overexcitement about the issue. Thank you, Cas, for the update!