Amazon putting the squeeze on POD publishers!!

If your POD book appears on Amazon, your 'buy ' button has probably disappeared. Read about it here:


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Thanks for the link Zada! It was very informative!

I just checked Mr. Planemaker's Flying Machine on amazon.com and the button has been removed but the book is still being sold directly from amazon.co.uk. Booksurge isn't available to non-US residents, so I guess amazon.ca, .fr, .de etc. won't be affected ... yet!

This is disturbing news! My book still has a buy button so will start digging and send off some emails. Particularly disturbing too, since PublishAmerica makes a very clear case on their own site about how they are NOT a POD publisher in the sense they are not a vanity or "pay to publish your own" like iUniverse and others are. Weird.
With Mr. Planemaker Sheilagh, do you think it could be related to them pushing the Kindle productions; that is the version that appears at the top of the list when I do a search for the book.
Let's keep each other in touch with what happens on this.
I think I need to refresh my tea first.

Just received an email from Publish America concerning their dispute with Amazon. I'm sure every author received it.
I'm wondering what other think about this. To even suggest that the author be cut back in payment is so absurd it is not even worth discussing. We already receive the least amount of royalty based on the high retail price.

Abe I have not published through PA so did not receive the email. Would you mind forwarding a copy to me so I can have a look?

PA recently installed their own printing machine. I guess this is the basis of the dispute between the two companies.

I did not receive an email from PA yet, but the message board has a posting about it. They are not about to let Amazon get away with this if they can help it.

Here is the email message:
Dear Author,

PublishAmerica is intensifying its ties with BarnesandNoble.com as its primary online vendor. At the same time, we are devaluating our relationship with Amazon.com. Unfortunately, we are doing this under pressure.

Amazon has informed us a few days ago that they are insisting on printing every PublishAmerica book they sell, in their own recently bought in-house digital printing facility. We have been given just over two weeks to comply. Their ultimatum implies that PublishAmerica must submit almost 60,000 separate book files (text and cover), and redo every single one of them so they conform to the complicated technical specs that Amazon's in-house press requires.

They also demand a huge increase of their own profit-per-book, which would lead to dramatically lower royalty payments for our authors on all books sold through Amazon.com. Amazon's threat: if you do not play ball, we will disable the "Buy" button for your books.

Not surprisingly, PublishAmerica refuses to be swayed by anyone's strong-arming tactics, big name or otherwise, especially given the fact that budging would mean an additional expense on the publisher's side of tens of thousands of dollars, on top of the unacceptable royalty losses for our authors.

When they tried to force our hand in the past, Amazon representatives have suggested that PublishAmerica should simply pass on its Amazon-caused expenses to its authors. Of course we have refused this. PublishAmerica never charges its authors as much as a single penny, ever. We are not going to change this winning policy under the threat of anyone's intimidation, nor are we willing to involuntarily accept any royalty cuts on behalf of our authors.

PublishAmerica's almost 30,000 titles remain available to Amazon, and we will continue to also make all future titles available to them. Amazon continues to be able to access our books the same way they, as well as all other retailers, have always accessed them, through at least four separate venues. One of those venues is LightningSource, a daughter company of the world's largest book wholesaler Ingram, which prints our books for retailers. (Amazon was attempting to take away a portion of this printing volume from Lightning Source until we prevented it.) If they want to obtain any PublishAmerica title, they can at all times, as they always have.

PublishAmerica's books will furthermore continue to be available to just about every other book retail venue as well, including all Barnes and Noble, Borders, Waldenbooks, Books-a-Million and many other chain and independent bookstores, and to online outlets such as BarnesandNoble.com.

Barnes and Noble remains PublishAmerica's number one customer: more of our books have always been sold through Barnes and Noble and that company's online store than through any other vendor. Given the new circumstances, we now fully anticipate significant sales increases through BarnesandNoble.com and other places.

Thank you for your support. If you feel inclined to let Amazon.com know what you think of their actions, we encourage you to contact them at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] or call them at 206-266-1000 or 1-866-216-1072.

Thank you,
PublishAmerica Author Support Team

I haven't received an email from PA yet, and I've just checked on amazon.com and the buy button has been removed. I'm darned annoyed, because I subscribed to Amazon's search inside programme!

I don't wish to get into the PA bashing argument, but I don't think this is something that PA will win. It a widely publicized fact PA's books aren't of the best quality and the company is not recognised by the industry big guns such as Robert Hale, Penquin, etc, etc. I realise Amazon has done this because they have their own publishing company, but there will be many in the industry who will be cheering and saying this is another nail in the PA coffin.

Thank you for posting that, Abe. "Strong arm tactics" is exactly what Amazon is employing in this instance, and I for one appreciate PA's stand on the matter.

This 'nail in the coffin' may be quite an apt statement, Jenny. But I think it just boils down to good, old fashioned Greed. Many authors will be seeking new publishing venues because of it. Good or bad, only time will tell.

Hi Zada,

And I think I may be one!

Well, I don't know if they can "not let them", actually.

I don't know that much about how the POD/amazon hookup works, but I do know this, from financial dealings with them, from being in their offices in Seattle and talking to management people.

Amazon is not a "nice guy". Their coporate culture is arrogant, untrustworthy, and dishonest. They are totally capable of screwing people and not feeling bad about it because they're AMAZON and their executives wear nose rings and ripped jeans so they're right.

When I first posted the llink to the article here there were not yet any comments. Now, there are comments galore under the article. Seems that there are many authors quite upset over this who are writing to Amazon directly, and there are some unflattering comments about Amazon's previous dealings with people.

My impression from the start has been that they are evil. As evil and Microsoft and Starbucks or worse.

What is it about Seattle that spawns these evil empires? Used to be there was just Boeing and they were Good Guys.

The question has to be asked - will this stop with PA or will other POD publishers have the "buy" button removed from their author's books on Amazon. My guess is that it won't.

My understanding of that article and some of the others is that they are trying to force people to get off lightningsource and onto BookSurge or else.

Abe thank you so much for publishing the email. Unbelievable what can happen in a short time. I have been really keeping my fuse under wraps the last couple of days (had a bit of a spew on my blog mind you, but in a nice way, reflecting the anger management stuff that I glutted the forum with), however, still percolating I think it may be time for a rant.
My sister found a neat little book binding press that I could set up in the garage but I really hate the thought of taking time away from writing to print books...maybe I'll skip the books and just print money, like Starbucks and Microsoft have done.

I received a similar email from one of my publishers. I have three Print on Demand novels on Amazon from two different publishers. I have already written an email to Amazon expressing my anger over their thug tactics.

I have pulled all Amazon promotions from my websites and am directing people to Borders and B&N.

I also have three short stories on the Amazon shorts program which were on the top ten best sellers for over a year, which I told them to pull, if they can't sell my books they damn sure can't sell my short stories.

Here is another email address for anyone wanting to complain to Amazon about their high pressure tactics.

'jcliffo@amazon.com'

It is probably an exercise in futility, but I for one will not be bullied!

Don

Power corrupts.
Many get to the top by stepping over other people and in the process, many are hurt.
In my humble opinion, it will take a different power source to challenge Amazon and expose them. Who might that be?

and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I had another thought too, about Shelagh's Mr. Planemaker. How many kids are going to receive a kindle for Christmas some time and so read their books that way? What malarky, and I am happy to be a part of a revolution.
I think that perhaps we need a very large voice, one that is bigger than all the individual authors would certainly help, but gets tricky in and of itself.
For starters I am going to do some blogging on the subject...then I think get hold of some about to be acquaintances. Ever hear that expression "are you ready to rumble" :pirat:. And if any of you sponsor my activities (in writing or voice, no letters of royal consent required at this point), then I can do it as a privateer as opposed to pirate...

Pam,

Kindle is fine IF you live in the US. It's not available here in the UK and to sign up to Amazon digital, you need a US mailing address and bank account. I know, I've just tried. So not only are Amazon exluding POD publishers from their site, they are also prevent POD authors living in the UK taking advantage of Kindle. In other words, its a no win situation all round!

We also posted this article and others on our group blog at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] if anyone wants to read more.

Vodka corrupts.
Absolut vodka corrupts absolutely.

(Rimshot)

This brings to light something we don't often think of about amazon and POD publishing.

Everybody realizes that the advent of high speed toner-based "printing" has led to an explosion of small presses and individual expression. But what they often overlook is how much that whole phenomena owes to the fact that such books get listed on amazon.

Amazon has become a sort of definition of what "published" means...of what constitutes a "real book". Let people quibble as they will... if you're on amazon, you are an author out there in people's face.

Now they're messing with that. Which could chill the "thousand flowers bloom" we've seen. Or not. It depends on what happens about this.

So...what can writers do about it. THAT's the big bell-the-cat issue, isn't it? And they have a huge cat vs mouse advantage.

Amazon has been arrogant and corrupt from jump. And obviously are into using whatever leverage they have to freeze people out.

(The kindle was mentioned...a book reader that only works with amazon and costs twice as much to have an exclusive wireless hookup to the Mother Ship)

But beyond how evil they are, and this ploy is.... what can writers do about it?

Amazon is immune to public opinion and their global status makes them unboycottable.

I've been mulling it over and the only thing I could come up with is this: the formation of writers' co-ops to engage in "third party" sales on amazon.

They aren't keeping POD-generated books off, just pulling the BUY button. And there's a "Buy new or used" button right there.

There are fees to sell third party. But a group of 20 or 100 writers (or a larger small press like Bewrite or Whiskey Creek) could split those costs...and almost certainly sell enough volume to qualify as amazon's equivalent of "Power Sellers". And could undercut the list price.

This might become a major movement. Spread the idea. (I get 10 percent of net)

Of course, there's a good chance some beancounter dickhead up in Seattle would end up seeing this as detrimental to fiscal performance against leveraged expectations of increase in the decrease of BookSurge projected revenues and get rid of THAT, though.

This is pretty serious. I hope to see some center of organized resistance and coping that might deal with it.