POD War
By Kathleen Bolton | April 9, 2008 |
More fallout continues over Amazon’s powergrab in the print-on-demand segment of publishing.
The American Society of Journalists and Authors, the nation’s trade association for freelance nonfiction writers, announced that it “is disgusted with Amazon’s announced move requiring that all print-on-demand (POD) books sold on Amazon’s site be printed by their own print-on-demand house. Authors Guild Looking at Antitrust Issue of Amazon’s POD Plan.”
Writer Beware posts the Author’s Guild position on Amazon’s decision:
We suspect this maneuver by Amazon is far more about profit margin than it is about customer service or fossil fuels. The potential big losers (other than Ingram) if Amazon does impose greater discounts on the industry, are authors — since many are paid for on-demand sales based on the publisher’s gross revenues — and publishers.
Of course it is. Can there be any doubt?
- Publisher’s Weekly on PMA’s announcement to push back:
PMA, the Independent Book Publishers Association, has added its voice to those against Amazon’s move to make publishers print their print-on-demand titles through its BookSurge subsidiary in order to sell directly through the Web site. In a statement released yesterday, PMA executive director Terry Nathan said the policy “imposes a significant financial burden on tens of thousands of small and independent publishers who can least afford it. Without the opportunity to benefit from competitive pricing, small publishers risk at best an expensive and needless overhaul of their manufacturing process, and at worst, the loss of their livelihood.”
Looks like writers and small publishers are taking this to the mat.
More newsworthy links can be found on the WU’s Google Notebook, including who won this year’s Pulitzer Prize in fiction, a writing contest for Harry Potter fans that’ll have them drooling, and the latest on Border’s financial woes.
Kathleen Bolton is co-founder of Writer Unboxed. She writes under a variety of pseudonyms, including Ani Bolton.
She has written two novels as Cassidy Calloway: Confessions of a First Daughter, and Secrets of a First Daughter–both books in a YA series about the misadventures of the U.S. President’s teen-aged daughter, published by HarperCollins, and Tamara Blake, for the novel Slumber.
We can put an end to this big fellow.