Strong Dissent from Industry Representatives:The Small Publishers Association of North America (SPAN) (A letter to Jeff Bezos.) Read SPAN's news release here. The Author’s Guild. "What's the rub? Once Amazon owns the supply chain, it has effective control of much of the "long tail" of publishing—the enormous number of titles that sell in low volumes but which, in aggregate, make a lot of money for the aggregator." The American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA). "The contract being offered to print-on-demand publishers, which ASJA officers have seen, also includes a confidentiality clause forbidding disclosure of not just specific contract terms, as is typical, but any discussion at all. Thus, small publishers who have signed the contract may not say so, much less reveal the pressure they were under." YouWriteOn.com (the U.K.’s leading writer’s website), "We are calling for a proactive boycott of Amazon and are encouraging all writers and readers and other writers' sites to join in this by doing the same in their writers' communities..." The National Writer’s Union. "With domination of the POD supply chain, there would be little restraint on Amazon’s capacity to impose monopoly pricing on fees it could charge for the use of BookSurge's POD services or on the discounts it could demand of self-publishing authors and publishers for access to Amazon's share of the on-line POD market—a share that, with this new BookSurge imposition by Amazon, can only grow." |
The Pricing Disadvantages of Amazon's BookSurge Contract
Under the Amazon/BookSurge contract, Amazon controls:
Amazon attempts to control the public’s knowledge of who has signed the And, Amazon controls the golden nugget—that coveted "buy" button that book buyers want (so their order can qualify for free shipping). In a public statement, Amazon offered only one alternative to publishers, which is their "Advantage Program." However, they did not divulge in the public statement that the terms of the Advantage Program are even worse than their printing contract. The Advantage Program requires POD publishers to give Amazon 55% of the list price, pay them $29.95/year, and pay the shipping costs for books going to Amazon. (An excerpt from BookLocker Files Class Action Lawsuit Against Amazon.com (May 19, 2008). Reprinted by permission.) Additional BookSurge Pricing PerspectiveIn an April 9 post on WritersWeekly.com, Hoy explained the most disturbing part of Amazon's BookSurge contract, which deals with pricing: "You must provide them with a list price for each book that will be at or below any list price you offer to any other seller for that work AND at or below the price you use when selling to your customers direct," says Hoy. "It also says they or their affiliates have sole discretion to set the selling price of books they make available to their customers. What this means is that you can't sell your own books for less than the list price you provide to Amazon, but Amazon can sell them for less. It also means that you can't put your own books on sale, or at a discount, on your own website, which Hoy sees as Amazon taking control of the pricing of each publisher's book. "And, remember," she adds, "if you give Amazon their 48%, you have to give other bookstores 48% off, too, or you risk violating The Robinson-Patman Act of 1936 (or Anti-Price Discrimination Act). Are YOU Affected?According to Amazon's public statement, ALL POD books will be affected. If you are a POD publisher (this includes self-published authors who publish their own POD books through a printer), or a traditional publisher using POD technology for some or all your books, and would like more information, please contact: Angela Hoy, Publisher COMMENTS can be posted to the bottom of THIS PAGE.
Copyright © 2008 Amazon BookSurge Antitrust Lawsuit Clearinghouse [to SPAN's news release on this topic] |
