Cave-In!

Amazon has laid siege to the Print on Demand industry. For all the gory details, there is no better place to go than http://www.writersweekly.com/ and click on the Amazon Booksurge Information Clearinghouse box.

In the corporate world it is a move called vertical integration or, as it usually turns out for everyone from producers of products to consumers, “up yours”.

In a nutshell Amazon is demanding every single book in the country that is printed through POD technology be printed by Booksurge, a company which, good golly, what a coincidence, they own. Refusal will guarantee (warning: evil consequences ahead) they will not stock or sell a book. The “Buy Now” button goes bye-bye. (Yes, there is an alternative but that deserves its own space. Stay tuned.)

And since the bomb landed, blog after blog has ranted and raved about the unfairness of the situation but admitted by the end they have caved because they “have no choice.” That’s because Amazon has done an absolutely brilliant job of brain-washing the POD community into believing the only books sold anywhere, anytime are through them. In actuality, Amazon accounts for 15% of books sold. Hmmm…that means out of every 100 books, Amazon sells 15 and 85 are sold by others.

Frankly, the buttons appearing to be shut off are attached to books with low sales. Is Amazon really going to shut down the button on someone who’s selling several hundred books daily? (And if they do, is that the kind of evil overlord you want in charge of your future?)

So maybe those buttons aren’t really magic. Maybe they are just security blankets; keys to the publishing washroom; proof one is a writer. The button is absolutely meaningless until an effort has been put in to promote a book enough that someone actually clicks through and buys it. (And wanna bet, should a book they don’t produce suddenly become an Oprah pick, they might be willing to bend the button rule just a tad?)

It takes the same effort to sell a book through Amazon as it would through B&N or Borders or even out of the trunk of a car (don’t smirk, James Redfield sold 90,000 copies of the Celestine Prophecy that way), so why do so many think they must sign their future over to Amazon just to possess a red button.