Amazon's New Rules for POD
Amazon Tightens Grip on Printing By Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg Wall Street Journal Amazon.com Inc., flexing its muscles as a major book retailer, notified publishers who print books on demand that they will have to use its on-demand printing facilities if they want their books directly sold on Amazon's Web site. The move signals that Amazon is intent on using its position as the premier online bookseller to strengthen its presence in other phases of bookselling and manufacturing. Amazon is one of the biggest booksellers in the U.S., with a market share publishing experts estimate to be about 15%. Amazon doesn't comment on sales. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120667525724970997.html?mod=djemMM == Just thought I'd pass this along. Any comments? Bayou Bill 8)

Other than that this was predictable based on the Mobipocket monoply on selling ebooks with Amazon? I am currently not making any purchases on Amazon. I hope Borders beta comes online soon to provide a real alternative.

I've not heard yet how this might/will affect the small press publishers I work with. I'd guess if Amazon is a major factor in their online sales, then this will hurt--a lot. However, I've heard different folks in different places at different times say Amazon really only represent about 5% of all book sales so maybe this won't be disabling. My sense is that most e-publishers get the bulk of their sales from their own websites, and any distributor sales are considered icing. For small presses doing print, I'm not sure how this shake out. Maybe time for Powell's to step up and snag some of those Amazon dollars. Does anyone else have any concrete info from a reliable source yet?

Someone posted this link on a Yahoo group: http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-printondemand

Here's my forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=5391>thread on the Self-publishing forum. As for how it affects folks: this is a major disaster for POD self-publishers who depend primarily on Amazon for sales (as many of them do). It means that Amazon can charge any price they want for POD. To give some sense of what that could mean: Amazon's already high discount for e-books (50%, as opposed to the 20% that the POD printer / e-book distributor Lightning Source would have permitted) got hiked 15% the moment that they got the monopoly on e-books sold at Amazon. (A "discount" means the amount of money they ask for to carry the book - a 65% discount means they take 65% of the profit.) So I'm predicting that they're planning price hikes for POD printing (to add to their already overpriced charges), which will be carried over to higher book prices for customers.

It's certainly not a good thing. How bad it is depends on whether you mean for the industry in general or the bottom line. I personally don't seem to be losing a thing, but I still feel my choice to stop buying from Amazon is more than justified.

Somone made an interesting comparison at one of the self-publishing lists between Amazon demanding a monopoly on the printing of POD books that are sold through its store, and Ingram demanding a monopoly on the printing of POD books that are distributed by it. Because, in fact, the only way in which you can get your POD book into Ingram is through Lightning Source, which is owned by Ingram. (Confirming my long-held impression that all big businesses are inherently evil.)

Yes, there certainly is a comparsion to be made. The difference is that one is a fait accompli and they other... not quite yet although its looking that way. Also Amazon does push the hypocrycy button in that they opposed, vehemently, that deal--complete with David and Goliath metphor used