Amazon.com forcing POD publishers to use BookSurge for printing

Mar 28 2008

Since the late 1990s, Amazon.com has been a leader in online book sales. Authors who want to get their books out to a wide audience, usually try and get themselves on Amazon. It just makes good business sense for both the author and publisher.

Or does it? New questions are being raised about Amazon subsidiary BookSurge, a small POD publisher and printer, about how they might be forcing other Print On Demand publishers to use BookSurge, or risk their books not being sold by Amazon. Here’s how Publishers Weekly puts it:

BookSurge, Amazon’s print-on-demand subsidiary, is making an offer that most publishers would like to refuse, but don’t feel they can. According to talks with several pod houses, BookSurge has told them that unless their titles are printed by BookSurge, the buy buttons on Amazon for their titles will be disabled.

This story first broke by Angela Hoy, of WritersWeekly.com and owner of POD publisher BookLocker.com. And according to her, those POD publishers will feel a definite squeeze by not using the Amazon subsidiary for their printing needs:

The book information would remain on Amazon, and people could still order the book from resellers (companies that list new and used books in Amazon’s Marketplace section), but customers would not be able to buy the book from Amazon directly, nor qualify for the coveted "free shipping" that Amazon offers.

So basically, use BookSurge or you are "blacklisted" by Amazon. I’m not sure what percentage of books Amazon sells is from PODs, but I imagine the number has grown over the last several years as the print on demand technology has improved while the costs involved have significantly decreased.

My first reaction to this story is that Amazon/BookSurge is playing a pretty slimy game here. Amazon is still a very "big fish" in online book sales and obviously have a lot of influence in the publishing world. While the large publishing houses will always have their titles readily available, it’s the smaller guys that they are hurting here. And it’d be a mistake for Amazon to think that these "small guys" don’t matter, because in a world where independent authors and publishers are becoming more mainstream, the small guys might one day turn into the "big guys".

Right now I don’t know of any recourse PODs not using BookSurge can take. Maybe launching a grassroots campaign for Amazon to change their ways might work, you certainly don’t want to end up biting the hand you hope will feed you. This is a very tenuous line these smaller publishers have to walk and I hope that they can persuade Amazon to drop this monopolistic practice of making all of them go through BookSurge. Surely Amazon wants to be a fair and responsible member of the publishing community!

I’m writing this post based only on what I have read so far. This initial "reporting" has only been one-sided and I’ll be anxious for Amazon to come out and make a public statement regarding this issue soon.

Read Angela Hoy’s entire article here:
Amazon.com telling POD publishers – Let BookSurge print your books, or else…

NOTE: In the name of full disclosure, I am an Amazon.com affiliate (if you haven’t already guessed by the ads on the side of this blog). Being an affiliate means that I earn a small percentage of your purchases through Amazon if you go through one of my links.

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One Response

Large companies limiting competition. I don’t know of any circumstance where this was good for the consumers or the suppliers. Having no other choice and feeling forced seems like a good reason for a revolution.

Usiku 4/3/2008 7:11 am