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Comment by dzolob | Hacker News Reader

At least in my country, publishers get a bigger cut when you buy your books in indie/local than amazon. They demand bigger discounts, are relentless with penalties, accounting maneuvers and all sorts of schemes to undermine payments, and authors get the same royalties whether the book is sold by amazon or other channels. So, yes, it makes a difference.

Please support your local bookstores and your indie publishing houses.

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> authors get the same royalties whether the book is sold by amazon or other channels

If the authors get the same, what's the problem? Everyone else is a middleman.

Not true. A publishing house is not meddling anything, is creating the “commodity“ along with the author. Creating a book is an art. It involves formation, sometimes translation, concept and design. It also fires a big productive chain that in some cases, for indie publishers at least, goes along with the ethos of the author. That’s why some very successful authors stick along with indies instead of penguin random.

People are putting a lot of heart into this industry.

> A publishing house is not meddling anything

I didn't say they were meddling - I said they were middlemen.

English is not my native language. I think you understand what I meant.

Publishing houses are not a middleman in the same way walmart is a middle man. Before you get your book, it has been edited, formed and designed. Plus, and again, we’re talking indie here, it’s most likely part of a concept. Don’t you have a collection, a compilation or had ever bought a book by its cover?

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