Long Riders seeking protection from Amazon

Those of you who frequent the BookLocker site to follow the company's suit against Amazon will probably have already seen the link there to the Long Riders Press Guild. They're a POD publisher of equestrian books who has been very happy with Lightning Source as their printer.

Like other small presses, they believe the face financial ruin if Amazon turns off the BUY BUTTONS on their books because Long Riders does not want its books printed by BookSurge.

Here's the link for the Long Riders page with its amazon concerns. They maintain, by the way, the Amazon already controls 90% of the book distribution. http://www.classictravelbooks.com/amazon.htm

On a lighter note (from a black humor perspective), take a look at the NEW YORKER cover showing a book store owner going into his shop as a UPS man delivers an AMAZON package to the store next door:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/toc/2008/06/09/toc_20080602/?yrail

Malcolm

That comic is good Malcolm...dark but good!

Bookstores might well go the way of the corner shops.

Yes, recently Barnes & Noble has been sending small presses a form letter stating that they do not want to carry POD based books, even if they are returnable. I don't know why, but I've heard from a couple small presses about this. Indies continue to battle the chains.

Wow, that's disappointing. Those small stores are some of my favourite places to wile away a rainy afternoon!

flashgordon wrote:

Yes, recently Barnes & Noble has been sending small presses a form letter stating that they do not want to carry POD based books, even if they are returnable. I don't know why, but I've heard from a couple small presses about this. Indies continue to battle the chains.

If that is the case that indicates that the major retailors and publishers are closing ranks to plug all sources of revenue leaks that don't flow through major publishing houses. This is a short sighted view that will push buyers to the very competitors they fear - online.

With gas prices at a level that makes shipping charges seem not as bad as before, POD authors will push Amazon, buy.com etc.

Kind of hard to do a book signing at amazon or have a kids' storytime program or see whether the publisher has taken a slim story and made it into a fat book by printing it with extra margins and more than the standard amount of space between the lines.

So it goes.

Malcolm