Court Denies Amazon's Motion to Booklocker Complaint

As PW and other media reported several days ago, the court denied Amazon's motion that the Booklocker complaint be dismissed. (This is the antitrust suit Booklocker began when Amazon announced it's policy of forcing POD printing for Amazon sales to go through BookSurge.)

For those of you interested in the complicated case, here's a link to the court's decision (a PDF file):

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Malcolm

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Offhand I can't think of another blatant power grab to equal Amazon's.

While some PA authors still have a ''buy" button; when mine disappeared with the conflict, so did my royalties. I had a steady little income from Amazon.com until then. After that, purchasers bought from third parties. I know it's said that third parties buy from somewhere and the royalties should still drift back. So maybe my sales just plain stopped at Amazon. However, the drop in the buy button made those books seem "less than." Since sales at Amazon were not PA's bread and butter, PA was better off to print their own and sell them as they are now, to authors. However, there were other small presses that want to sell to the public that were hurt, too.

I've read both sides of this and think both have a point. Amazon wants to control POD book quality and timely delivery (so they say). Sounds reasonable. Of course, maybe they are just trying to grab all the POD business for themselves. If they pull this on the big pubs (who do some POD printing), I guess we'll have our answer.

I agree with Dick about the blatant power grab. Like DK, my sales have fallen off since the "Buy" button was removed and the price of the book went up. I was pleasantly surprised, though, when I opened my royalty check last night. It still wasn't as high as it had been during 2007 and -08, but was considerably higher than the February check.

Thanks, Malcolm, for posting the link. This will be one to follow.

Ann

I don't think quality entered into Amazon's thinking. They do a good job of producing a book but no better than Lightning Source.

We know the effect on writers, but this also affect printers.

Carol

At the time the controversy arose, I heard that Amazon was also leaning on traditional publishers (including university presses) to force them to also use BookSurge for the POD part of their lists.

LC, I can't buy the idea that Amazon was trying to control POD quality, partly because at the time, BookPurge was known for doing a bad job. But even if BookSurge were perfect, why would Amazon demand to control POD quality any more than a large bricks and mortar book store should force all publishers to use its printing company in order to place their books in the store?

Malcolm

BookPurge, lol.

Malcolm, I'm not defending Amazon's practices. But I can see where they'd want to control quality and timely delivery more than a bricks/mortar store, because customers can't see the product before buying it. The more a customer knows about a product before buying it, and the less wait he has, the less chance of returns/cancellations.

I ordered some books printed by Lightning source from my publisher. I also ordered some from Amazon.com. The Lightning source books were better quality by far. It may have just been a fluke, but one Amazon cover was cut with jags. Another was off sides with the book itself.

I'm not sure printing anywhere puts out consistent quality. It's like carpet. If you want them all to look the same, better get an extra piece because later the die lots change.

I heard PA printing horror stories; yet, all my PA books were excellent. Again, it's the luck of the draw.

I believe the quality of Amazon's BookSurge has improved considerably, but all I know is what I'm told.