Amazon.com says speedier service is reason for controversial POD decision

Mar 31 2008

Amazon.com is making waves in the world of Print-On-Demand (POD) publishing. Essentially, they are requiring POD publishers to use their own BookSurge subsidiary to print all POD books (you can read my original post here).

The large internet retailer finally responded to the outcry, much of which permeated through the blogosphere late last week. Here’s a snippet of what I read on Publishers Weekly:

In the letter from the Amazon.com books team, the company reiterated that by using machines that are located in its own fulfillment centers, Amazon can have a title ready for shipment quicker than if it needs to ait for a book to be shipped to its facility. The extra time will permit Amazon to "marry" a title with another product that will be shipped in the same box, in most cases hitting Amazon Prime shipping times.

Ah, so their decision for this controversial policy is to keep the shipping time to a minimum. Okay, I’ll play devil’s advocate for a moment. One of the things that I really like about using Amazon is that I can always expect my books in a timely manner. If there is any sort of delay, I know about it when I order – not a week later when I’m wondering where my books are.

Certainly getting products out to their customers quickly is one thing Amazon does well. But, I’m not sure that this new policy will help or hurt the POD publishing community. My first instinct is to think that it’s never good when a giant tries to "stamp out" the smaller guys, no matter what the reason is. Won’t customers mind waiting an extra few days for their books if it means supporting a smaller, independent POD printing operation?

I can’t answer that question for everyone. But the PW article continues:

Amazon further notes that if publishers do not want to use BookSurge for pod, they can still sell their titles through the e-tailer as part of it Advantage Program, provided they pre-produce five copies of each title that Amazon will stock in its warehouse. Publishers can also use Amazon’s third party marketplace option to list titles. Amazon is not requiring that pod titles be printed exclusively through BookSurge.

This is a little different than how I understood the program when this story first broke last week. I understood it that if a POD publisher doesn’t use BookSurge, the "Buy" button would be deactivated and you would only be able to buy books via the third-party marketplace. The requiring five pre-produced books for storage at Amazon’s warehouse doesn’t seem like a big deal to me.

I think Amazon makes a good point about wanting to continue getting books out as fast as possible. But it always seems like a little of a cop-out when a major corporation says "we’re doing this for the customer". When they say that, usually it’s the little guys that suffer.

Amazon Explains POD Move; Ingram Raises Questions

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.

Read More: Publishing News, The Interwebs