“prey on” not “pray on”

I agree with the article. Amazon’s new eBook payment structure (70% to the authors if the price is from $2.99 to $9.99) is very favorable to the author, and it removes gatekeepers who generally only have their best interests at heart when dealing with both the authors (hence the huge numbers of advice articles on why it’s a very bad idea to deal with a publisher without an agent you see in writer’s magazines and writer’s organizations sites) and the public (keeping quality material out of print simply because it doesn’t fit a pre-determined size format for packaging reasons, keeping quality midlist books out of print after their initial runs, thus removing many classic works from the available pool of reading material, and many other business-driven reasons.)

Ultimately, you’re going to see a lot of lower-quality work being published directly, but with the social aspects of the web now firmly established through direct feedback on Amazon, the ability for readers to form communities to recommend books in a large number of formats, and the generally better flow of information on the web, the cream will continue to rise to the top, and good authors who we haven’t yet heard from will start to be seen, and read.