In The New Yorker online, there's a review of a “collection” of climate-change fiction that consists of short stories by some well-known authors, including Jane Smiley. (The article is titled “How Climate-Change Fiction, or “Cli-Fi,” Forces Us to Confront the Incipient Death of the Planet.”) Intrigued by Katy Waldman's review, I clicked on one of the links to check out the anthology. I had decided I would buy it, even if the likely exorbitant price from the trad publisher came with Amazon's snarky remark that anything over $9.99 was “Price set by publisher.”
So. It turns out the “collection” is seven stand-alone Kindle editions, published by “Amazon Original Stories,” each selling for $1.99. You can do the math. There is no paper version or paper anthology. There are audio versions selling for $1.74 each, at least one of which gets terrible reviews.
My question is, Is this a threat or a model?
