Who’s The Bully Here?
Originally published at Insert Witty Title Here. You can comment here or there.
So you guys may not have heard the latest publishing kerfuffle, which was reported here: Amazon Pulls Macmillan Books Over E-Book Price Disagreement
Cory Doctorow commented pretty extensively on what this means, here: Amazon and Macmillan go to war: readers and writers are the civilian casualties
John Scalzi comments, here:
A Quick Note On eBook Pricing and Amazon Hijinx
Writers and readers discuss this over at Making Light: http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/012148.html#012148
And author Jay Lake gives a very personal perspective on what this is doing to Macmillan authors, here: Bug off, Bezos. And take your damned bookstore with you.
Over my first cup of caffeine, I’ve been thinking about this. And here’s what I think:
Amazon is messing around with authors and consumers. And that’s not cool.
Sure, I get that Amazon and Macmillan - one of the publishers who signed onto Apple’s iBook, which allows publishers to set their own prices - are negotiating ebook prices. They’re allowed to do that. Macmillan, the content provider, is allowed to tell Amazon what price it should set Macmillan ebooks. Amazon, the hardware provider, is allowed to tell Macmillan “no way.” They can do this. They can fight it out. This is business. Got it.
But by Amazon removing all Macmillan books (that is, not allowing the titles to be purchased via Amazon) - not just the ebooks but print versions as well - Amazon is acting like a schoolyard bully.
Now, I don’t like that Macmillan is demanding that Amazon raise its ebook prices. I think it’s ridiculous for an ebook to cost the same as a print-version trade paperback. But you know what? I bet consumers would come to that **same** conclusion and either (A) buy their ebook editions elsewhere or, if they can’t do that, (B) they would buy the print edition, or even (C) take it out of the library. And if none of those options worked and consumers chose (D) not buying the ebook at all, Macmillan would lower the price to something more reasonable.
But there’s no excuse for Amazon to remove all Macmillan books, print and electronic editions. That’s messing around with authors and readers. This impacts the livelihoods of many of my author friends. And this shows readers that Amazon is not concerned about the consumer.
Save the bullying tactics for the boardroom. Huge BOO to Amazon.