...hang on. So, because this lady self-published a completely unrelated book, she lost her book deal with a major publisher? I mean... isn't the point for the publisher to sell books?

Is there nobody on there that realizes the potential that this e-book offers? Is it just a threat?

Good freaking lord.

There go my plans to distribute this year's NaNoWriMo project as a free e-book. It's not even my best work and I'd be happy to give it away otherwise.

And here I have compilations of short stories waiting for Fur Planet to publish them.

I never understood how publishing works... If one wants to tell people something, why not post the story online for free. If it's for the money, why not have a day job instead. Dunno.

Yea, publishers have never liked self-publishing of any stripe. Before e-publishing, it was the self-publish warehouses, with a reputation of 'they will publish anything, even trash, so if they publish you, then you must be trash and not worth bothering with'.

Here's the thing, the 'big 6', as she calls them, are horrid snobs when it comes to 'quality', whatever their definition of it might be. It's not a matter of being 'threatened' by Amazon, which is completely absurd since the majority of THEIR sales are through Amazon, but the specter of self-publication equating trash.

To provide further evidence of this, I point you to Baen Online Bookstore and even the Baen Free Library. They've been the leading edge on this front, making the transition from traditional publishing to e-publishing, but they aren't the only one of the Big 6 to have done so.

In short, it's not a matter of e-publishing, it's a matter of self-publishing, which is so anathema to them. As I was told fifteen years ago, before e-publishing ever existed... 'If you ever self-publish a book, you can completely write off any chance you ever had of being a 'real' published author'.