The Titan: Amazon.com

Just in case you’ve not been paying attention, here’s a crash course for you:

3/28/2008: Amazon.com tells authors and publishers that they must use Amazon-owned POD publisher BookSurge if they want their books to be listed with the “buy if now” option and to qualify for SuperSaver free shipping. Other options include using the Amazon “Marketplace” program (“Marketplace items list for free, but a 6 to 15 percent commission, a variable closing fee, and a $0.99 per-transaction fee are applied when a sale occurs.”) or the “Amazon Advantage” program (“only $29.95 per year plus a 55% standard commission on the sale of your items”). Yes, that’s right, a 55% commission goes to Amazon on top of the yearly fee. Or you could just not list at Amazon at all.

3/29/2008: Some people (noticeably some of those commenting) dismiss this as only affecting scams and self publishers (despite that many small presses use POD technology, and Simon and Schuster thought POD rights were important enough to try to grab.)

4/6/2008: The Author’s Guild issues a statement stating they are looking into the issue of Amazon.com and a possible antitrust case.

4/23/2008: After many consumer complaints the Washington Attorney General Office issues a weak statement that pretty much says they’re too busy to be bothered with this issue, after all if you don’t like it you don’t have to use Amazon. While they’re technically correct (and many other authors/publishing professionals agree) this attitude completely refuses to take into account the current publishing environment.

5/19/2008: Booklocker (a POD self publishing company) sues Amazon.com for antitrust.

6/8/2008: Amazon.co.uk tries the same bullying tactic with Hachette, a UK publisher, disabling their “Buy it Now” buttons in an attempt to get a deeper discount. (Hachette sums itself up with “In one year, HBGUSA publishes approximately 450 adult books, 150 young adult and children’s books, and 60 audio book titles.”) The authors affected this time? Stephen King and James Patterson among others. Still think this is an issue only for scammers and self publishers?

According to UK’s Publishing News:

Bloomsbury rec­ently had a terms dispute with the bookseller which resulted in Amazon removing the ‘Buy Now’ button from certain Bloomsbury titles on its site.

Some people are calling for a boycott. Some people have already been boycotting Amazon. There’s when they trademarked the “one click buy” and tried to prevent any other companies from using it. There’s Amazon.com versus the brick and mortar Amazon Bookstore. There’s a boycott because Amazon.com sells dog fighting books and magazines. Amazon.com also sells books that are pro paedophilia. In fact that pedophilia book was published by BookSurge. There’s also this incident, where a reviewer gave an author a 3 star review and after harassing and threatening the reviewer the author complained to Amazon, who banned the reviewer. So if you Boycott Amazon you’re in some good company.

I stopped buying from them when I found out they demand a 55% commission for their own bank accounts. When they banned the aforementioned reviewer it solidified my choice.

Do I think Maya Reynolds (whom I should thank for some of the research in this post) is correct in saying that Amazon could put the rest of the publishing world out of business? No. I don’t think that will happen, but then, I didn’t think gas would get over $4 a gallon. Somehow I just though people would put down their collective foot and do something about it. But it seems we’re willing to just bend over and take things these days, as long as we can still get our “stuff”.

I DO think that this move on Amazon’s part could put many legitimate small, micro and medium presses out of business. There’s already vicious competition in the publishing world, which is why beginners get discouraged and fall for scams like PublishAmerica or go directly to self publishing in the first place. So if they are less presses then more people will jump to the self publish ship, which is exactly where Amazon wants them. With the publishing world divided (and the dismaying number of people who seem to think that since it would never happen to the big publishers, ie their publishers, it doesn’t matter) amazon is banking on publishers and authors to fold in terror rather than stand up to them, even though studies show that Amazon only has about a 12% market share on books.

I’ve seen a few blog entries where people complain about the “inconvenience” of not using Amazon. I have no real idea where they are coming from (with the exception of those living in other countries where Amazon really is the only option. Of course with Fictionwise having many, many mainstream books available these days that’s even sometimes iffy). I’m not sure if you’re aware, but many other stores have online presences as well. I’ve been happy with Staples.com, Walmart.com, Target.com, Meijer.com, Toys R Us.com, heck even CVS.com.

For book alternatives there’s BooksAMillion.com, Barnes and Noble, the brand new Borders.com, Better World.com (which uses low carbon shipping, US shipping is free and shipping anywhere else is $3), Abebooks.com, Powells.com and even Horror-Mall.com.

I’ve stopped linking to Amazon on BookLove. I’ve stopped buying from them, and I’ll continue to do so. I still post reviews there (as well as on B&N) because I know that others still go there. I keep a wish list there too, but I am slowly transferring to other places.

It really isn’t that hard. I promise. I’m a lazy beast of convenience and I’ve had very little regret about doing it.

As for you authors and publishers, look at your stats. Is Amazon really that big of a boon for you? Is it really a good idea to depend heavily on one store? Those in the horror field remember when Brian Keene warned publishers about putting all their eggs in one basket (Shocklines.com, which many small publishers were counting on to buy a good portion of their print runs and keep them afloat as a business.) What happened when Shocklines and Clarkesworld shut down? How many publishers went out of business? It seemed like there was a new closing weekly.

Consider boycotting, or just buying less from Amazon. They’ve proven themselves to be greedy bullies and really, it’s only a matter of time before they start to think the rules of good customer service don’t apply to them (if it hasn’t happened already). They’re on the path, and do you really want to be on the receiving end?

Reynolds also has this entry about Kindle books pricing, to which I say… $2,386.80 for an ebook??????