Update: Barnes & Noble requiring authors to link to the B&N website

Sep 30 2009

One of the more disturbing stories I’ve covered over the last few days was a seemingly new policy implemented by the large bookstore chain Barnes & Noble requiring authors to place a link to the B&N website, or risk the large not ordering their books.

My first post on this story Why is Barnes & Noble dictating what authors should have on their website was fairly cautious, as I wanted to avoid adding fuel to a possible rumor (and there are plenty of them on the web). But this story has gained a lot of traction and is disturbing both in its truth and implications for authors.

After my original post on this subject, I was alerted via email from the PulsePoint Design blog that according to a top literary agent, authors must link to the B&N website for them to even consider ordering their books:

If an author or publisher wants their book to be considered for purchase by these major chains, a link to the bookseller must be featured on the author’s web site.

A threat like this is a classic case of blackmail. And we’re not talking small cookies either. Barnes & Noble has huge buying power and any publisher and author who want a national presence for their book/s, must deal with this chain. The real question now is, can a demand like this stick?

In fact, the trade sales manager at one publishing house laughed when I told him what I knew. He claimed the policy is completely unenforceable, a flagrant violation of antitrust laws, and that booksellers can never make this initiative stick.

I’m a little skeptical about any government agency stepping in to stop a practice like this. Unless an author and/or publisher files a lawsuit, there’s little chance the government will step in.

Even more disturbing however, is that Barnes & Noble is not alone. I have often criticized Amazon.com for some of their draconian tactics as well. There’s an article on Booklist.com that details how Amazon is requiring sites like LibraryThing to remove links to competing sites on their primary pages:

According to social networking site LibraryThing, Amazon now requires affiliates to “remove links to other booksellers on work pages,” or risk losing access to book data that the massive online bookseller provides to LibraryThing. LibraryThing, which has a community of 700,000 people, said it disagreed with the move, but was forced to comply because ultimately the disadvantages were stronger.

Since Amazon and Barnes & Noble are so big in the world of books; authors, publishers, and all these different websites have no choice but to comply, or face serious financial consequences. Even a boycott could mean financial ruin. Whether or not anti-trust laws would apply to either of these cases I don’t know. But one thing is for sure, this is a very sinister form of censorship because it’s imposed by private industry.

As usual, I’ll keep track of this story and anything new I find out I will be writing about here. Likewise, if anyone out there has anything useful to add to this story, either leave a comment below, or contact me privately.

And in the interest of full disclosure, I will say that anonymous sources have been used to verify the Barnes & Noble story. It’s important that these individuals remain anonymous because their careers can be ended very quickly if they are ‘outed.’ On that same note, I think anonymous sources are a critical part of reporting stories, especially ones that are likely to be controversial.

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