POD Braces Itself Against Amazon

OMNIpotusCOM writes "As we've previously discussed, Amazon is in the process of taking the 'Buy' buttons off of published on demand (POD) books that were not created by Amazon's in-house publisher, BookSurge. PODdy Mouth has been reporting reactions throughout the week (including an open letter from Amazon), culminating today in letters to Amazon and their board by the Author's Guild, Small Publishers Association of North America, and the Publishers Marketing Association. Possible lawsuits are looming ... is it enough to change Amazon's mind?"

Comments

Amazon or ebay incognito?

[sakdoctor]

What is up with Amazons latest strategy?

In the past there was always products sold by amazon, and then a link to 'used & new' which I never touched because when I go to amazon, I'm looking specifically to by a NEW item from amazon themselves, and for amazon to take direct responsibility if there are any fuck ups.

Now they are trying really hard to blur the lines between their own products and those of other vendors.
I only noticed this after I bought an item which I had no reason to believe was *not* coming from amazon, when I got an email saying:

Would you like to leave RIP_U_OFF_4_THE_LULZ feedback on your recent purchase?

This is not a good direction, but hey, they practically have a monopoly on cheap online books so what am I gonna do.

Re:Amazon or ebay incognito?

[CRCulver]

In the past there was always products sold by amazon, and then a link to 'used & new' which I never touched because when I go to amazon, I'm looking specifically to by a NEW item from amazon themselves, and for amazon to take direct responsibility if there are any fuck ups.

That's funny, because I always go straight for the "Used and new listings". For CDs, third-party sellers like Caiman or NEWBURYCOMICS are better value than than Amazon itself. To give an example appropriate for this week, Messiaen's opera Saint François d'Assise is over $10 cheaper by choosing Caiman than ordering from Amazon itself. Yet, the product is exactly the same: a nicely wrapped, brand-new CD (and Caiman doesn't ship cut-outs).

If I could deal directly with these third-party sellers and cut out Amazon, I would, and maybe I'd save a dollar more. But getting them from Amazon is convenient. And if you are worried about a third-party seller screwing you over, from the community feedback you can get a good idea is the third-party seller is reputable. For CDs, I've never had any problems with either Caiman or NEWBURYCOMICS, while a couple of minor sellers have disappointed me on occasion.

For books, the high cost of shipping from third-party sellers often cancels out the savings, unfortunately.

Re:Amazon or ebay incognito?

[Oktober Sunset]

Ahhh, good old RIP_U_OFF_4_THE_LULZ, now there's a good old fashioned bookseller you can really trust.

*duh*

[theaceoffire]

I am gonna go way, WAY out on a limb here and say "No".

No major company would willingly piss off this many people and customers without carefully considering how it would affect them (Not if it plans on remaining a major company).

They probably have estimates of how many lawsuits are likely, their probability of success, how many donuts they are gonna eat during the trials...

That said, SHOULD they change their mind? I think that forcing your customers into one path tends to piss them off, especially if your forcing them into a path that is extremely profitable for you (AKA MS Vendor lockin).

It might work in the short run, but it could damage Amazon's brand name.

Re:*duh*

[$RANDOMLUSER]

No major company would willingly piss off this many people and customers without carefully considering how it would affect them (Not if it plans on remaining a major company).

Microsoft, Sony, and eBay leap to mind...

Re:Thin end of the wedge

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Also, what about authors who already have POD contracts with other publishers. They are condemned never to appear on amazon searches, which a lot of people use to find books on esoteric subjects thinking they cover most available material.

Amazon are pretty dominant in the on-line book sales market at the moment, but moves like this won't keep them that way. It seems to me that they are creating a big opportunity for one of their rivals to get ahead with the small/independent publishers. If I were an executive at, say, Barnes & Noble or Bookpool, I would be rubbing my hands together with glee, contacting the kinds of industry body mentioned in these blog posts, and talking about new ways to promote these markets more aggressively.

This is a problem for the Nmap book

[fv]

This is a major problem for my upcoming book documenting the Nmap Security Scanner. I was planning to print Nmap Network Scanning with Lightning Source POD and sell it through Amazon. Now Amazon says I need to use their own BookSurge company instead. Leaving aside the anti-competitive nature of this, there is the issue of BookSurge's terrible quality reputation. They are known for missing pages, printing covers upside-down, etc. So people who buy my book through Amazon will be stuck with the shitty BookSurge version, and they will surely blame me for this. I really hope Amazon relents, or I will have to rethink my whole distribution plan. I'm now against using BookSurge on principle. If Amazon keeps playing these anti-competitive games, at least there is always online distribution. Almost half of the book chapters are already online for free:

• Nmap Reference Guide
• Nmap Install Guide
• Nmap Scripting Engine
• Remote OS Detection
• Version Detection
• Zenmap User's Guide

And I hope to free more chapters in the coming week. Amazon may not care about losing my Nmap book, but I hope enough people stand up to Amazon that they really feel the effect!

-Fyodor

Re:This is a problem for the Nmap book

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't this only apply to POD? If you're printing more than 500, which I assume you will be, then this isn't a big deal. You can use your favorite local printer and ship them in batches of 50 to Amazon who then redistribute them to their supply depots. Amazon aren't saying you must only use their printers for everything, just low volume print on demand.

Besides, this is only limited to the "Buy now" option on their website pages. You can still list a book with Amazon as a reseller, link it to your own web page and then sell them from there. In fact you would make a greater profit by doing that because you wouldn't be paying Amazon 30%-40%.

Finally, do some research and you will see that there's a pattern amongst all authors like you Fyodor. Because I like to give the author the maximum money for their efforts I always buy direct from them if I can. O'Reilly, McMillan, Elsevier etc have all scaled back their production of textbooks in the last few years so recently I've noticed a pattern where for numerous books on niche technical subjects the author does:

1) Write a quality textbook
2) Publish it on your website and do the marketing yourself (people buy the book from where _you_ tell them to)
3) Once you pass the 2000 mark and students start ordering through bookshops a distributer like Barnes & Noble _come_to_you_ !!!
4) You are in a position to negotiate a non-exclusive distribution and continue to sell from your website in competition
5) Now you're in a win-win situation, you get the Amazon listings via the distributer and the larger profit for the 20-30% of
customers who still come through your website
6) Once you pass the 5-10000 mark you will find publishers start to serenade you, again you can negotiate a non-exclusive deal
because you've done all the work/marketing and the publisher can offer no real consideration, you have them where you want.

So, the first step when you finish the book is to register a company as a small publisher, buy a small block of ISBN numbers (10), print 500
or 1000 (not POD) and list yourself on Amazon as an traditional independent producer, ship some to Amazon on return and place a link to your site.