Amazon Update
Dandelion has suggested in my comments box that bloggers could stand together and campaign over the issue of Amazon's dodgy commercial tactics. Scroll to the bottom of this post for things you might be able to do. Meanwhile here's an update on the Amazon thing (full details here (http://tinyurl.com/4gocsg)).
Amazon have removed Pay Now and Pre-Order buttons from selected titles published by Hachette Livre, in an attempt to force the publisher to sell stock to Amazon at even lower rates than they already do. They've also removed HL stock from Recommended Reads lists and various other (obviously not as impartial as you might think) sections of the site.
Hachette Livre is a large umbrella organisation, which encompasses the following publishers:
Little, Brown Book Group (includes Abacus, Virago, Sphere, Piatkus, Orbit, Atom)
Orion Publishing Group (Orion, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Gollancz)
Headline Publishing Group
Hodder & Stoughton (includes Sceptre)
Hachette Children's Books (includes Franklin Watts, Orchard, Hodder, Wayland)
Hodder Education Group
John Murray
Octopus Publishing Group (includes Bounty, Cassel, Conran Octopus, Hamly, Gaia, Mitchell Beazley, Miller, Philips)
They also have subsidiaries in India, Aus, NZ...
This isn't the first time Amazon has used this tactic. Earlier this year Amazon.com removed Buy buttons from selected books of publishers who refused to switch their Print-on-demand publishing to Amazon's newly bought POD company (see Bookseller story here (http://tinyurl.com/3efuy5)). They really are bullies.
Amazon and the supermarkets have consistently been putting the squeeze on publishers in this way, making it harder and harder for independent publishers to operate, not to mention small bookshops (who don't have the same muscle and can't compete). The ultimate losers are the authors, who get a smaller and smaller slice of the pie. I got 70p per book with a cover price of £10.00. When books are sold at a discount, the author gets significantly less than that (percentages vary according to contract, but they're typically less than 10% of cover price).
Things you can do to help:
Contact Amazon (http://tinyurl.com/4skfzf)
Copy this post, or write your own, on your blog / website / via email
Boycott Amazon (alternative book sources: localbookshops.co.uk, abebooks.co.uk, bookdepository.co.uk, Waterstones.com, Play.com, actual physical bookshops, or where possible buy through authors' and publishers' own websites).
Write to newspapers
Contact the competition commission (email: info@cc.gsi.gov.uk)
___
Amazon have removed Pay Now and Pre-Order buttons from selected titles published by Hachette Livre, in an attempt to force the publisher to sell stock to Amazon at even lower rates than they already do. They've also removed HL stock from Recommended Reads lists and various other (obviously not as impartial as you might think) sections of the site.
Hachette Livre is a large umbrella organisation, which encompasses the following publishers:
Little, Brown Book Group (includes Abacus, Virago, Sphere, Piatkus, Orbit, Atom)
Orion Publishing Group (Orion, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Gollancz)
Headline Publishing Group
Hodder & Stoughton (includes Sceptre)
Hachette Children's Books (includes Franklin Watts, Orchard, Hodder, Wayland)
Hodder Education Group
John Murray
Octopus Publishing Group (includes Bounty, Cassel, Conran Octopus, Hamly, Gaia, Mitchell Beazley, Miller, Philips)
They also have subsidiaries in India, Aus, NZ...
This isn't the first time Amazon has used this tactic. Earlier this year Amazon.com removed Buy buttons from selected books of publishers who refused to switch their Print-on-demand publishing to Amazon's newly bought POD company (see Bookseller story here (http://tinyurl.com/3efuy5)). They really are bullies.
Amazon and the supermarkets have consistently been putting the squeeze on publishers in this way, making it harder and harder for independent publishers to operate, not to mention small bookshops (who don't have the same muscle and can't compete). The ultimate losers are the authors, who get a smaller and smaller slice of the pie. I got 70p per book with a cover price of £10.00. When books are sold at a discount, the author gets significantly less than that (percentages vary according to contract, but they're typically less than 10% of cover price).
Things you can do to help:
Contact Amazon (http://tinyurl.com/4skfzf)
Copy this post, or write your own, on your blog / website / via email
Boycott Amazon (alternative book sources: localbookshops.co.uk, abebooks.co.uk, bookdepository.co.uk, Waterstones.com, Play.com, actual physical bookshops, or where possible buy through authors' and publishers' own websites).
Write to newspapers
Contact the competition commission (email: info@cc.gsi.gov.uk)
___
Labels: Amazon Outrage, Politics, Writing About Writing
4 Comments:
How dos Amazon make it harder for small independent publishers to operate? Surely it is much harder for them to get their books into Waterstone's & WHSmiths? whereas they can deal direct with Amazon and sell their books to all customers worldwide. Why does nobody every compain when either Waterstone's & WHSmiths refuses to stock a book by a small publisher because they 'don't think it will sell'? Amazon sells everyone! You'd think small publishers and authors would be grateful for Amazon, but the way the trade media report this story almost gives the impression that being sold by Amazon is a RIGHT, a GIVEN. And you conveniently forget that Hachette (Headline in particular) were the first company to sell huge quantities of boosk through Supermarkets. Go into your local tesco and check if you want to. Helay Huctchison is a hypocrit!
The problem is the terms. Amazon, and the supermarkets, demand extremely preferential terms - i.e. they won't stock books unless the publishers sell them at such a low price that it's hard to make any profit or pass anything on to authors.
This hits independents particularly hard, and my previous publisher - who were a small indie who have since ceased trading because they didn't make enough money - did not encourage people to buy their books from Amazon. They had their own online outlet, and it was better for them if people used it.
As for HL selling books to supermarkets... er, why is that a problem? I never said that supermarkets were inherently evil and that no publisher should use them as an outlet. Obviously if you're in the business of selling books, you want them to be distributed via all outlets possible. The problem is that supermarkets refuse to stock books unless they get them on ludicrously preferential terms. They also expect extra bungs for promotional offers, etc.
Small bookshops, on the other hand, can't demand similar terms cos they have no muscle. This often results in the same book costing twice as much, or more, in the small indie bookshop than it does on Amazon.
Illustration here.
What does the terms between Amazon & Hachette go to do with small publishers? Are they going out of business because of Amazon? I thought the point of Amazon was that they sold every book, or are you telling me they only do it if they get extremely preferential terms? is that why you don't seell yur book on Amazon?
The reason Amazon are able to sell books at such low prices is that they insist on only paying very low prices for them in the first place. That goes for all publishers, including the indies. For those publishers (very few) who don't play ball, Amazon will not place their books on recommended reads lists, or in perfect partner pairings, etc.
My book isn't for sale on the main Amazon site because it's officially out of print (because the publisher ceased trading). I'm not sure if they'd sell it on there if I was selling them stock (I have copies I bought up from my publishers when they went under), because as far as I know they normally use large distributors to source stock, rather than individuals.
The alternative would be for me to sell my book via Amazon Marketplace, which is actually a different thing. Amazon Marketplace is in fact several independent retailers piggy-backing off the Amazon site, and has very little to do with Amazon themselves.
If you look my book up on Amazon, what you actually get is the option to buy from Amazon Marketplace, and the reason I don't do this is that there are several people on there offering copies of my book for a penny (yup, £0.01) at a time, and obviously I can't compete with that without making a loss.
The people selling my book for a penny a throw will have bought remaindered stock very cheaply indeed when the publisher went under. Because the book is officially out of print, I don't receive any royalties from those sales.
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