Dear Amazon, What are You Thinking?

Posted by Monica Valentinelli on Mar 28, 2008

My fellow writers, as you know I’m a constant advocate that we need to stay on top of changes within the industry in order to move forward with our careers. Today, a major change occurred within the industry through the internet’s largest retailer, Amazon and you need to know about it. Updated: March 30, 2008

A rumor has been circulating that Amazon has been using bullying tactics to attain exclusivity through a small, print-on-demand publisher that they own called “BookSurge.” For your information, there are several POD publishers accessible online who range from Lulu.com to Lightning Source and Ms. Hoy’s co-owned Book Locker. Beneath the cut, I posed the question as to whether or not Amazon is violating anti-trust laws by doing this; my question is an open one, for I am not a lawyer. The following quote is from writer Angela Hoy at Writer’s Weekly.com

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.”

Ms. Hoy, in the spirit of what journalism should be, called BookSurge directly and posted the results of her conversation. Here are some shocking comments that were included in their exchange:

He (Mr. Clifford) stated several times that books not converted to BookSurge’s system would be “taken down.” Since that wasn’t exactly what we’d heard, I asked about books that perhaps weren’t selling well, that aren’t good candidates for converting to BookSurge (books that would remain for sale through Lightning Source, but would never be converted to BookSurge due to the time/expense involved).

Contrary to what he stated at the very beginning of our conversation, Mr. Clifford finally admitted that books not converted to BookSurge would have the “buy” button turned off on Amazon.com, just as we’d heard from several other POD publishers who had similar conversations with Amazon/BookSurge representatives.

Mr. Clifford said authors of those books could participate in the Amazon.com Advantage Program, meaning they would have to pay Amazon $29.95 per year PLUS 55% of the list price of their book, as well as buy and then send those books to Amazon directly for them to warehouse and ship to customers.

I explained to him that we had more than 1500 books in print and that it would take quite awhile to convert all of those over to BookSurge’s system. He said as long as the relationship was “moving forward” that the “buy” button would remain active on our authors’ books that had not yet been switched.

Another comment Mr. Clifford made was that their eventual desire is to have no books from other POD publishers available on Amazon.com.

Amazon “THE AMAZON”?

Well, much of what I have to say about this topic is speculative, because there are a lot of “what ifs.” IF Amazon states that exclusivity is key and “wins” the fight against print-on-demand publishers, I’m going to take a guess that both authors and small presses like Permuted Press, Fantasist Enterprises or non-profit publisher Sarabande Literary Books will get hit hard. What readers sometimes don’t realize that “small press” often goes through POD like Lightning Source, and sometimes purchase stock books for conventions and inventory in addition to utilizing the POD service. If Amazon says “Hey, only me!” I can imagine things will get expensive very quickly. Here’s a quote about the potential financial effect from the article.

Amazon/BookSurge would make money two ways on Amazon.com sales - first the fee for printing the books, and then 48% of the list price of each sale through Amazon.com. Lightning Source allows its customers to set their own discount rate for Amazon and other retail sales, and does not force POD publishers or authors to pay “48%.”

Furthermore, it could take the larger POD publishers months to submit their book files to Amazon/BookSurge, at a considerable cost and number of man-hours. This makes the deal even less attractive. Finally, while the initial list of books submitted by POD publishers could be submitted to Amazon/BookSurge for free, the contract states future books would cost $50 each to process. The cost for individual authors to publish through BookSurge is considerably more, with an average publishing package cost of more than $1,000.

All money aside, Amazon is a proprietor but have they gotten too greedy? Already they dominate the book-selling space, often buying books at cost or less to resell even before brick-and-mortar stores get their inventory. By saying, “POD is ONLY ME,” this is just another step in the direction of ridiculous corporate greed. I’m sorry, but a company that doesn’t treat it’s customers or affiliates well is just plain stupid; a company that knows how megalithic they are and squeezes more out of its producers (i.e. authors) without promises of increased sales or promotions to compensate losses is insanity. Not to mention, if someone hasn’t asked this question already, I’d be VERY curious to know if Amazon is violating any anti-trust laws by going down this road. Is anyone a lawyer?

I wish Amazon would just come out and say precisely what they were trying to say without the cloak-and-dagger stuff. Don’t they know that authors *gasp* blog, write and communicate? Don’t they know how powerful the blogosphere is? Don’t they know that the customer is always right? So without further ado, here’s my letter:

Dear Amazon,

Before we Kindled, before we visited Askville, we came to Amazon in the hopes of finding a book. More than words thrown on a page to us, we read and treat our books with care and smiled as we discovered new stories and visions through your company’s book-selling service. When you added Lawn and Garden to your company, we were there. When you provided Wish Lists, we filled ours out. When you encouraged us to review books, we gleefully added our voices to the masses, singing the praises of authors unknown, peers and best-selling tomes.

Some of us bibliophiles turned to the written word, pouring for hours over books that may never see the bestseller’s list, stories that have cobwebs on them by the end of the day. We turned to self-publishing in the hopes of fulfilling that dream, that one shining moment where we gain a fan or a reader who enjoys what we write. We are authors, not because we think we’ll be gods–but because we tell their stories. Avenues and doorways closed, as the price of paper keeps shooting up and online content becomes more and more accessible, many of us (big and small) turned to self-publishing. The quality good and bad, we exercised our liberty to choose what company we want to publish through. And we sold through your business, Amazon, because once we were customers, too.

To take that liberty away from us, without rewarding our hard work and continued support, will betray what we do as writers. We work for whatever we can get, not because we want to, but because we are writers; it’s what we do. Take that ability away from us, and as you trim our bottom line, you’ll undoubtedly trim yours.

You see, Amazon, when you create a monopoly in this day and age, you’ll create fear and paranoia. If you didn’t want us to have the freedom to choose in the first place, you never should have given it to us.

Now, we don’t want to give it up.

Yours truly,

Your Customer

Why Would Amazon Attack Print-On-Demand Publishers?

I’ve been thinking a lot, over the past couple of days, about why Amazon would take such an approach to print-on-demand publishing. By changing the fees (as listed above, authors would end up PAYING AMAZON to sell their books to customers), Amazon is changing their business model from print-on-demand to vanity press. The difference? Market.

Per Wikipedia, they claim that the audience for vanity press is:

While a commercial publisher’s intended market is the general public, a vanity publisher’s intended market is the author himself or herself.

I think that distinction is essential to readers, writers and businesses alike who have participated in, what I dub, as the “basement of the publishing industry.” Small press and print-on-demand services ARE intended for larger audiences. More authors than I can name have taken flights of stairs through to this “basement,” dissatisfied with publishers who are not Web 2.0 savvy, who have not been able to keep up with technology, who cut editing staff to account for the rising costs of paper and printing and who, undoubtedly, rely on agents and existing, established authors to sell more books. Yes, the marketing rules still apply. Authors who make books need to market and sell them, and some do it rather well.

I’m going to take a shot in the dark here and guess that a disproportionate amount of print-on-demand authors who have listed their books with Amazon believe that that one listing is enough to sell their books. I’m also going to guess that the die-hard, conservative publishing industry still believes that you can not be successful as a small press or as a print-on-demand published author.

Unfortunately, several authors fall into this vein as well. Instead of trying it to see what works for them, they’re stuck on the “I’ve gotta get an agent.” Unbeknown to so many writers, an agent doesn’t make a writer’s problems go away. Who’s to say that the quality of that agent will be A++? That your book will be published within a year? That you’ll get more than the standard, opening rate for “no-name” authors who have never published before? I’ve given up trying to convince fellow writers that an agent isn’t everything, but when Amazon pulls something like this, it’s just proving their point all over again.

The reasons behind the Amazon-BookSurge fiasco may not be clear, but I think one thing is. And that is, if Amazon is allowed to belittle those that are reinventing the publishing model to sell books, then the rest of us are going to have a much harder time trying to force our way through a locked door into that basement.

Petition to Amazon to Make Your Voice Heard

Petition to Amazon to Protect Print-On-Demand Publishers

Links to Other Publications Upset with Amazon

Other Posts You Might Enjoy Reading

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This entry was posted on Friday, March 28th, 2008 at 5:30 pm and is filed under Marketing and Selling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “Dear Amazon, What are You Thinking?”

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    March 30th, 2008 at 5:55 am

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  4. Author Says:
    March 30th, 2008 at 11:15 pm

    A good case can be made that what Amazon is attempting to do violates anti-trust laws. Waiting for federal anti-trust action would take many years–years to get the Justice Department to act, years of trials, years of fussing over what the court decision means. Notice how long it took to deal with Microsoft’s tactics, despite the fact that the corporations they were bullying were large and powerful. None of us can afford that long a wait.

    Action at the state level, however, could move much faster, particularly if it involves off-the-record contact and a somber warning from those who can make trouble for Amazon. Amazon is headquartered in Seattle about a ten minute drive from the office of the Antitrust division of the Washington state attorney general. Here’s the contact information:

    Office of the Attorney General

    Antitrust Division

    800 Fifth Avenue, Suite 2000

    Seattle, WA 98104-3188

    http://www.atg.wa.gov/Antitrust/default.aspx

    Telephone: 206-587-5510

    Fax: 206-464-6338

    Note the remark on that web page that “The Antitrust Division only processes complaints that involve either Washington State residents or businesses located in Washington State.” Amazon is in Washington state, so it matters not where you are. You might also want to raise the issue with your state attorney general’s antitrust office, asking them to get in touch with their colleagues in Seattle. If you’re a publisher, encourage your authors to write. If you’re an author, encourage other writers to contact them.

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