Amazon.com Hates Small Press?
Author Gillian Polack is the first person to say her writing isn’t suitable for the mass market. Her writing career thus far has mostly depended on small press.
So when the news came out that Amazon.com is pairing up with BookSurge and the duo appear to be on the track to monopolizing small press, possibly putting small presses and the careers of authors published with them in danger, she was not happy.
According to Writers Weekly, “Reports have been trickling in from the POD underground that Amazon/BookSurge representatives have been approaching some Lightning Source customers, first by email introduction and then by phone (nobody at BookSurge seems to want to put anything in writing). When Lightning Source customers speak with the BookSurge representative, the reports say, they are basically told they can either have BookSurge start printing their books or the “buy” button on their Amazon.com book pages will be “turned off”.”
What would this mean? Book information would stay on Amazon.com, but if you wanted to buy the book you would have to hunt down somewhere else to buy it from.
Amazon.com wants to play the game its way or it’s taking its ball and going home.
I think Victoria Strauss has the right way of it in deciding to reserve judgment. It’s hard to believe something like this is actually happening. We know Amazon has the balls, but does it really have the power (and lack of sense) to do this?
Reserving judgment may be the sensible thing to do, but I’m adding a bit to it by boycotting Amazon.com until this is resolved. (Funnily enough, I was planning on making a fairly large order in the next week.) I loathe monopolies and large companies that feel they can do as they wish.
Join me in the boycott if you like, but please post about this where you can. It’s not only a hot topic, it’s something that could change the lives of small presses and their authors.
*Writer’s Weekly has an excellent post about all this here along with a lot of responses to the news in the right sidebar.
**Help spread the news by digging/stumbling this post.
***Sign the petition for Amazon.com to stop by going here. You do not have to donate to sign.
March 30th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Babe, my Amazon boycott began back when they got all snarky about their co-op and MADE the small presses buy in. And continued when they made publishers buy to be represented in their horrid “Recommended for you” selections.
They got away with all that…
March 30th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Ack! I’m obviously way out of the loop.
March 30th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
Huge businesses do have a way of growing arrogant and thinking anything that enhances their bottom line is good. So I can at least believe it is possible. Is it really happening? I don’t know, but I’m much happier buying from alternate sources whenever I can anyway. If I win an Amazon gift certificate in a contest, I’ll use it (they have the money anyway - I might as well get some books out of it
) but that is the limit of my dealings with Amazon.
Thanks for pointing this out, and I’ll try to gather whatever information I can and post on this within a few days.
March 30th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
Thank you for stopping by. Yes, huge businesses have a way of growing arrogant, but I suppose part of me didn’t expect from Amazon. It’s a shame.
Please stop back and post a link to your post.
March 30th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
I’ve just posted about it myself, here:
with a few suggestions that might help put pressure on Amazon. Especially in the US, where this is an election year, and even Senators not up for re-election are eager not to harm their party’s chances in the Presidential election by ignoring constituent concerns.
April 1st, 2008 at 1:03 am
Thank you.
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