Amazon to muscle the publishing on demand industry

Lee Stephen writes:

I thought I’d pass this on to you. I’m not sure if you’re aware of the controversy brewing with Amazon.com right now, but it’s fairly significant (and under-reported). Before I give you the summary, here are some reference pages:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120667525724970997.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
http://blogs.computerworld.com/amazon_pulls_a_microsoft
http://www.booktrade.info/index.php/showarticle/14395
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/04/07/backlash-forms-against-amazon

In short, Amazon is attempting to monopolize the Print On Demand industry by forcing retailers to either go with their POD service, Booksurge, or face having the “buy” option removed from their books’ Amazon pages. I’m not kidding. There’s more to it than that (such as their generous offer to allow non-Booksurge PODers to still sell through Amazon, for double the royalty, a yearly fee, and the cost of S&H for each book sold), but I’ll let you read for yourself.

This would absolutely decimate the POD publishing industry. It’s a direct attempt to cut out their main competitor, Lightning Source, which is the top-rated POD company used by many small publishers, including Epic’s Stone Aside Publishing. This would put a lot of us immediately out of business, unless the masses suddenly start book shopping on Barnes and Nobles.com.

Small booksellers like Lee are in trouble with this move. Amazon is trying to leverage their marketing position to form a de facto monopoly on the print on demand service. For many authors who fill a niche market, publishing on demand allows them to practice the art with the maximum amount of market penetration.

You can register a question/comment with Amazon’s customer service department over this, but you must have an account to do so. You can start the petition/complaint process by clicking here.