Dear fellow members --

In the last few days, Amazon has confirmed that as of April 1, it is requiring on-demand
authors and independent on-demand publishing houses to have their titles printed through
Amazon's own on-demand facilities, Booksurge -- or they won't be sold on Amazon. The big
red buy-it button will go away.

ASJA is investigating the situation and the possibility of joining any protest actions within
the industry. We will keep you informed. In the meantime, we suggest you read the material
on the links below and consider signing the two petitions, one of which asks the Washington
State Attorney General's office to investigate this action in light of restraint-of-trade
laws. (If you live in Washington state, please take particular note of this.) The other
petition basically tells Amazon "We noticed. We don't like it."

You may circulate this e-mail to non-member friends; in fact, the ASJA Board urges you to do
so.

Sincerely,
Salley Shannon, ASJA vice president and Advocacy Committee chairman

[Note: if you are interested in joining an ad-hoc committee on this situation, please write
me at VP@asja.org]

Wall Street Journal story: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120667525724970997.html

Writer's Weekly page -- information clearinghouse:
http://www.writersweekly.com/the_latest_from_angelahoycom/004597_03272008.html

Petition to stop Booksurge requirement: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/protectPOD/?e

Petition to the Washington State Attorney General:
http://www.amazontroopsurge.com/2008/04/write-government-about-amazons-illegal.html

________________________________________________________
PS from the Cuss: Please repost this statement and spread it around

authorsguild.org said...

Last week Amazon announced that it would be requiring that all books that it sells that are produced through on-demand means be printed by BookSurge, their in-house on-demand printer/publisher. Amazon pitched this as a customer service matter, a means for more speedily delivering print-on-demand books and allowing for the bundling of shipments with other items purchased at the same time from Amazon. It also put a bit of an environmental spin on the move -- claiming less transportation fuel is used (this is unlikely, but that's another story) when all items are shipped directly from Amazon.

We, and many others, think something else is afoot. Ingram Industries' Lightning Source is currently the dominant printer for on-demand titles, and they appear to be quite efficient at their task. They ship on-demand titles shortly after they are ordered through Amazon directly to the customer. It's a nice business for Ingram, since they get a percentage of the sales and a printing fee for every on-demand book they ship. Amazon would be foolish not to covet that business.

What's the rub? Once Amazon owns the supply chain, it has effective control of much of the "long tail" of publishing -- the enormous number of titles that sell in low volumes but which, in aggregate, make a lot of money for the aggregator. Since Amazon has a firm grip on the retailing of these books (it's uneconomic for physical book stores to stock many of these titles), owning the supply chain would allow it to easily increase its profit margins on these books: it need only insist on buying at a deeper discount -- or it can choose to charge more for its printing of the books -- to increase its profits. Most publishers could do little but grumble and comply.

We suspect this maneuver by Amazon is far more about profit margin than it is about customer service or fossil fuels. The potential big losers (other than Ingram) if Amazon does impose greater discounts on the industry, are authors -- since many are paid for on-demand sales based on the publisher's gross revenues -- and publishers.

We're reviewing the antitrust and other legal implications of Amazon's bold move. If you have any information on this matter that you think could be helpful to us, please call us at (212) 563-5904 and ask for the legal services department, or send an e-mail to staff@authorsguild.org.

Feel free to post or forward this message in its entirety.