Is Amazon Seeking to Dominate Small Presses?
Thanks to Fiction Scribe, I discovered an article which details the attempts by Amazon.com to use their dominant position in book sales to force independent publishers to contract with a POD provider Amazon owns, one which seems to generate a lot of customer complaint.
The expansion of opportunity provided by the Internet and POD (Print-on-Demand) technology aids small presses, offers more alternative titles to readers, and expands publishing opportunities for writers. Competition is the only way this expanded opportunity can continue to thrive, benefiting everyone. Now, all this opportunity appears to be threatened by Amazon.
Should a huge corporation be allowed to squeeze larger profits out of the crushed hopes and dreams of small press owners, authors, and readers everywhere? I don't think so. I have already contacted both of my US Senators, asking them to pass on this information to the United States Department of Justice for investigation as a possible violation of anti-trust laws. I have also asked them to pass this information on to the appropriate committee members who may be able to initiate hearings into the matter.
I encourage all of my readers who agree that a free press is a healthy press to contact their own elected representatives to express their concerns. Amazon is a multi-national company, and should be investigated in any country in which it does business. In the meantime, remember, there are other places to obtain books than Amazon.com.
In fact, thanks to Amazon's own efforts, Amazon is no longer the best place to find any book - only books published by those who will concede to Amazon's unjust demands. So, please, forgo convenience, forget free shipping (although Barnes & Noble often offers this as well), and get your books anywhere except Amazon.com! You can also sign this petition to protest Amazon's tactics.
And spread the word! If you have a blog, write a post about this yourself. Tell your friends. Amazon is seeking to do this in secret; they seem to have an aversion to putting this policy in writing. Let's do it for them; get the whole story on record, across the Internet, so everyone knows the truth about Amazon and what they're trying to do. Don't let this happen quietly, unless you want a single corporation to dominate publishing and control what you can and cannot read.
The expansion of opportunity provided by the Internet and POD (Print-on-Demand) technology aids small presses, offers more alternative titles to readers, and expands publishing opportunities for writers. Competition is the only way this expanded opportunity can continue to thrive, benefiting everyone. Now, all this opportunity appears to be threatened by Amazon.
Should a huge corporation be allowed to squeeze larger profits out of the crushed hopes and dreams of small press owners, authors, and readers everywhere? I don't think so. I have already contacted both of my US Senators, asking them to pass on this information to the United States Department of Justice for investigation as a possible violation of anti-trust laws. I have also asked them to pass this information on to the appropriate committee members who may be able to initiate hearings into the matter.
I encourage all of my readers who agree that a free press is a healthy press to contact their own elected representatives to express their concerns. Amazon is a multi-national company, and should be investigated in any country in which it does business. In the meantime, remember, there are other places to obtain books than Amazon.com.
In fact, thanks to Amazon's own efforts, Amazon is no longer the best place to find any book - only books published by those who will concede to Amazon's unjust demands. So, please, forgo convenience, forget free shipping (although Barnes & Noble often offers this as well), and get your books anywhere except Amazon.com! You can also sign this petition to protest Amazon's tactics.
And spread the word! If you have a blog, write a post about this yourself. Tell your friends. Amazon is seeking to do this in secret; they seem to have an aversion to putting this policy in writing. Let's do it for them; get the whole story on record, across the Internet, so everyone knows the truth about Amazon and what they're trying to do. Don't let this happen quietly, unless you want a single corporation to dominate publishing and control what you can and cannot read.
Labels: Amazon, boycott, publishing, writing
posted by The Wandering Author | Permalink: 9:20 PM
3 Comments:
I was shocked when I heard about this as well. I think it's a case of Amazon getting a little too big for its britches and going mad with power. This is almost worse then the tactics employed by Indigo/Chapters CEO Heather Reisman here in Canada.
Just more examples of how powerless we can be in the face of these corporations.
It often seems to be about control and power doesn't it, Ray. It was a big story last week in the UK version of The Bookseller as well.
And besides, I suspect that POD costs will surely rise.
At Bookhabit.com we also agree that large corporations should not dominate creative media.
We set up a community website for writers and their readers that allows authors to upload an e-book to the site and test the market for it.
In this way aspiring authors receive the benefit of aggregating a global audience for their book, but without losing ownership of their work.
If I can be of any assistance, please do contact me.
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