As the Amazon fracas continues...

[truepenny]

jaylake has an open letter to Kindle readers.

John Scalzi has a suggestion about a response. Don't boycott Amazon: buy books from other retailers.

And I want to talk about something that makes me uncomfortable: how EXTRAORDINARILY LUCKY I am.

Let's take my luck piece by piece.

1. I'm married to someone I love. That's not a given or an inalienable right. I got lucky.

2. Because I am straight, I can get married and have my marriage legally recognized in every state in the Union. Again, I got lucky. This shouldn't be a matter of luck, but as things stand today, it is.

3. My husband has, from day one, whole-heartedly and enthusiastically supported my work--he reads my stories in draft, he is fiercely partisan, and he recognizes and respects my writing AS WORK. This isn't a given or an inalienable right, either.

4. My husband is employed.

5. His salary is sufficient to support us both.

6. He is willing to let his salary support us both. I'm not going to talk about how much he makes, but for the past several years, I've made between $10,000 and $15,000 a year--and that $15,000 a year is contingent on my continuing to get contracts, because--like most writers--most of the money I make, I make on advances, not on royalties.

7. His job includes excellent health benefits. Yes. Writers do not have health insurance unless they either (a.) have a second job with health benefits or (b.) are married (or in a recognized domestic partnership) to someone with health benefits. If you oppose HCR, please consider the possibility that you are condemning one or more of the writers whose work you love to being unable to afford adequate dental care. And God forbid they should become seriously ill.

So yeah. I'm a full-time writer with health insurance and financial security. The writer part is inalienable, but all the rest of it is because I GOT LUCKY.

As John rightly notes, the people who are getting screwed by Amazon's, ah, dramatic response to Macmillan are the authors. And most of those authors are not as lucky as I am. So if you're boycotting Amazon, make it active rather than passive: go buy books from someone else.