Candace

Talmadge

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April 7, 2008

Amazon.com Writes the Book on Corporate Greed 

If love can make a person blind, can greed make a company dumb? For sheer stupidity and cupidity, the stunt Amazon.com is trying to get away with is one for the books. 

Amazon.com is trying to coerce all book publishers and authors using print-on-demand (POD) technology into signing a contract with its BookSurge POD printing/distribution unit. If the publisher or author opts to go with a POD competitor like Lightning Source, Amazon.com has threatened to turn off the “buy” button for such books on the Amazon.com web site. 

This move would put some independent book publishers – the ones most likely to use POD technology due to its considerable upfront cost savings – out of business right away. Indies simply cannot afford the costs of shifting hundreds of book files from one POD printer to BookSurge. For other small publishers, a non-working “buy” button on Amazon.com would mean greatly reduced revenues. 

“I consider it blackmail,” said Angela Hoy, publisher of WritersWeekly.com and co-owner with her husband, Richard, of a POD services company that has been contacted by a BookSurge sales representative and told to get with the program – or else. Hoy says publishers originally had an April 1 deadline, but that has come and gone without any sales buttons going off. 

(Full disclosure: I have known Angela Hoy since the mid 1990s, when she sold my writing through a short-lived syndicate. I also have chosen her company, BookLocker.com, to produce my novels.) 

In a statement posted to its web site, Amazon.com claims it is not requiring exclusivity – only that POD titles sold through Amazon.com be printed via BookSurge. If they prefer, publishers or authors are free to use a different POD printer for books sold on other web sites, according to the Amazon.com statement. 

AuthorLink.com, however, sees the situation differently: “In our opinion, the [Amazon.com] policy indeed restricts the sale of POD titles on Amazon to Amazon's own printer, a move that can only prove to be harmful to publishers. Since Amazon.com is one of the largest online booksellers, the policy smacks of a monopoly.” 

Hoy points out that the extra costs of making two sets of POD book files will force many indie publishers to go with BookSurge exclusively. She won’t be one of them. “I’d rather have one-third of my revenues sliced than let BookSurge touch our books,” Hoy says, adding that BookSurge’s shoddy products would damage her company’s reputation. 

Hoy recently bought a book from BookSurge and it arrived with significant print quality issues, such as excess glue escaping the binding in blobs, the back cover drastically off center, paper so thin that the printing on the back is visible, and even BookSurge’s former company name printed on the back. The WritersWeekly website lists similar quality complaints from multiple other BookSurge customers. 

Hoy is not alone in thinking the entire situation stinks. The American Society of Journalists and Authors and the Authors’ Guild are among the publishing-related organizations that have decried Amazon.com’s move. 

Hoy also predicts that Amazon.com will go after larger publishing houses if it succeeds in forcing POD publishers to use BookSurge. She says the University of Pennsylvania Press told her that although its books are printed conventionally via offset press, it was also contacted by Amazon.com and told it would have to start using BookSurge soon. 

“It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Amazon’s ultimate goal is to print every single book they ship,” Hoy states in an article on WritersWeekly.com.  

While Amazon.com gives capitalism a bad name, it may not be able to get away with this. The BookSurge contract contains pricing terms that smack of price-fixing, with price caps and a mandated price discount to BookSurge of 48 percent (on top of other required discounts from publishers). This latter requirement may compel publishers who sign to give all other retailers the same 48 percent discount or risk violating 1936 anti-price discrimination legislation known as the Robinson-Patman Act. Are class-action lawsuits or even an investigation by the Washington state attorney general in the offing? 

Meanwhile, confusion and uncertainty prevail. Due to a strict confidentiality clause in this questionable contract, small publishers that have signed a contract are reluctant to tell their authors anything about their move to BookSurge for POD printing.

“I just wish Amazon.com would grow some balls and make a clear statement to let us know one way or the other what they plan to do,” Hoy says.

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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