Comments on: Publishing changes impact the little guy

By: Doug Wood

Doug Wood — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 05:10:38 +0000

I never thought I’d be defending Amazon on anything, but at least PART of Amazon’s statement explaining their decision make sense. *If* you believe that it is true, and the main reason for the changes. If not, well . . .

Amazon customers often order more than one book per order. So if one is from a traditional publisher, and that one is “in stock” - fine. But if the OTHER book on the same order is a POD from Lulu or some other POD outfit, then Amazon would have to order it, wait for production and shipment from the originating POD company to Amazon, then package the two books to send the order to the customer. Making that order take a week or more, or splitting the order into multiple shipments. Wasted time and/or shipping expense.

By forcing all POD titles to be produced in-house, Amazon saves itself, (and its customers?), days or more on fulfilling these split orders. Makes perfect sense if you are a corporate bean counter. (Note: Amazon heard the rumble, and later stated something to the effect that small presses including PODs may still voluntarily send in about 5 copies of each title to the Amazon shipping centers in advance to get around this new rule. That would cost the publishers upfront, of course, which is what POD is supposed to avoid.)

Also, self-publishers are usually free to make deals with multiple POD companies for the same title. An author could upload their book to Lulu, and Barnes&Noble, and make an Ebay Store, and a Amazon/Booksurge/CreateSpace account, and still make the book available through LSI to get access to the “Books in Print” network used by brick-and-mortar stores. Duplicates WAY to many steps, and only a few self-pubbers will go through all that grief.

As I said, this really does look selfish for Amazon, but selfish companies can win many battles. Whether they win the WAR for monopoly is not going to be decided here, even though it may be indicative.

By: Ed Parrot (Edward G. Talbot)

Ed Parrot (Edward G. Talbot) — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 15:37:49 +0000

I’ve got to disagree with one of the comments here - you CAN blame a monopoly for acting like a monopoly. It is against the law for a monopoly to use its power to suppress competition. Now, it is an open question whether or not Amazon has the ability to use monopolistic power on this segment of the publishing business, but that is the key question. What’s more, the impact of this move is very likely to create something akin to a monopoly, even if it doesn’t exist now. That’s sort of the whole point. Unless other stores like B&N start refusing to accept BookSurge POD books, I would expect most POD publishers to wind up agreeing to have Booksurge print their books. It is - excuse the pun here - a textbook case for the justice department.

It is right? Will it wind up being better for authors in the long run? Who knows. I tend to doubt it. Taking away options almost never is in cases like this, despite the potential innovations that might be stimulated by it. But I don’t see Amazon backing down short of legal action, so I guess we’ll all find out. Me personally, I won’t be boycotting them per se, but I will start looking at Barnes and Noble before I look to Amazon.

By: Teel McClanahan III

Teel McClanahan III — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 22:37:22 +0000

Hey, if Amazon wants to take away the “buy” buttons for my books, that’s fine by me - I get the same % of the wholesale price whether my readers buy through BN, Powell’s, AbeBooks, Amazon, Blackwell’s, their local book store… Whatever. In fact, I’d rather they order directly from me, because then I get the part of the price that would otherwise go to the retailer, as well. Amazon isn’t “the market” and they only have a monopoly within the virtual walls of the “amazon.com” domain. If small press, indie, and self-published authors choose to do business elsewhere, do point their links to other retailers, then Amazon will change its tune. Especially when “amazon sales rank” stops being the metric authors judge their success by.

Actually, with the current policy of leaving the book listings up on Amazon.com. only to be fulfilled by Marketplace sellers, I’m practically better off - Amazon has most of my books at full MSRP, but none of the Marketplace sellers do. If my buy button disappears, the default price on all my books drops!

By: Terry Finley

Terry Finley — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 02:19:19 +0000

We don’t have to take it lying down
or as dead cowards.

By: Joe Cottonwood

Joe Cottonwood — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 17:44:08 +0000

Evo, I agree. You can’t blame a monopoly for acting like a monopoly. The problem for Amazon is that the more enemies it creates, the more likely it is that an alternative business will rise to challenge them (see: Microsoft).

By: Evo

Evo — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 14:32:09 +0000

Stijn,

I don’t see this as monopolization of “the” market. This is Amazon dictating the rules for their market. But I will grant you that Amazon.com has a disproportionate amount of marketshare, and changes they enact inside of their market will without question impact “the” market.

By: Stijn Hommes

Stijn Hommes — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 12:41:04 +0000

What are you talking about? Amazon has NO right to monopolize the market like that. They’re basically putting small printers out of business so they can line their own pockets with money. Monopolizing the competition out of the market by making unreasonable demands is not allowed in any other markets, so why should it be allowed in bookselling?