Audiolark recently posted on their blog: Self-Publish and Still Have it All. As best as I can understand, what this means is that they are not going to use Kindle for their ebooks, but the author can use the finished ebook, cover, blurb etc and self-publish it on Kindle.
This is framed as a gift to the author, which I suppose it is. However I suspect there is another reason perhaps relating to Amazons pricing structure for Kindle editions and requirement for matched pricing in all other sales channels?
When I submitted to Audiolark they were an audiobook publisher. Now they seem to produce audiobook, ebooks, offer fee-based audiobooks and editing services and, of all things, help students write college application essays. Now they are phrasing their passing of the Kindle channel to the authors as a form of self-publishing--rather than just a retraction of the rights taken and expansion of the rights given to the author--probably for reasons of mutual benefit (if they are a canny business, I would certainly hope so).
Warning: I am probably going to sound like a bitch now. But how about an publisher just being a publisher? Agents want to be publishers, publishers want to be bookstores, bookstores are going broke. Whatever happened to a company doing one thing, or at least one thing per website, and doing it well?
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