Comments on: Publisher’s Exclusive Arrangement with Amazon Comes With Price

By: veinglory

veinglory — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 20:57:38 +0000

I looked into it a little more and see the critics point now. To get the advance POD copy you have to buy from Amazon. Indy stores lose those sales, people who avoid Amazon have to wait. I can see why they are annoyed.

IMHO the owner of the press has rather missed the point here: http://www.chelseagreen.com/company/contactus/an_open_letter_to_booksellers_regarding_obamas_challenge/ . She seems to imply the critic are anti-POD (rather than anti-Booksurge) and silly to be anti-Amazon (there are plenty of good reasons to hate them).

My question for her would be: if POD printers were presidential candidates, would Booksurge be Obama?

By: Bev Stephans

Bev Stephans — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 20:20:07 +0000

Books-A-Million is selling it as a pre-order. This is sad for the author!

By: veinglory

veinglory — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 17:39:40 +0000

That link didn’t work for me. I see it is a Booksurge book, that is now effectively Amazon’s in house printer–rather than a small press. I am not sure what all the surprise is about?

By: theo

theo — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 14:14:59 +0000

What is really unfortunate for this author in the long run is, if it’s being published by Amazon’s BookSurge subsidiary, they have the right to pretty much do what they want with the book. I don’t think some authors who are desperate to get published are considering that.

And for these authors who are using any of Amazon’s subsidiary services, they may never have their book seen on more than that site. No in-store displays, no small bookstores, no online sales if they’re not done through Amazon.

Let’s face it, we’re all aware by now of the antitrust suit going on over Amazon’s desire to take over the small print and POD market, starting with the PODs.