Why Amazon’s Purchase of Goodreads Is A Good Thing

[longknife]

David Gaughran|davidgaughran

The doom-mongers have been running wild on Twitter with the news that Amazon is to acquire Goodreads. Much of that nonsense is typical (hysterical) Amazon bashing, or reflexive defense of the status quo.

I’m not going to deal with the Chicken Little stuff. I have less and less patience with people who claim that Amazon has or is striving for some kind of evil monopoly that will subjugate authors and readers when all the evidence to date is that they will treat authors better than any publisher and provide readers with cheaper books, a bigger selection, and a better customer experience than any other retailer.

There are some more reasonable fears about what this purchase entails. I would like to deal with these in turn, then discuss how I think this acquisition will be beneficial to writers – particularly self-publishers. I respect the fact that this is a hot-button issue for many, and that reasonable people will disagree with my perspective.

I welcome any (respectful) discussion on these points, and I’m open to being convinced by the opposing side.

As I see it, some of the more reasonable fears about this purchase include:

Read the full piece @ http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2013 ... ood-thing/