Wing Tang Wong

Amazon's Buy Button

If you are a writer or someone interested in publishing, either through a vanity press or a print-on-demand publishing house, this is something which might be of interest to you. It certainly is, to me.

Amazon, a company that is nearly synonymous with online books sales, has recently decided to pull the trigger on a business strategy, which has writers and publishing houses getting twisted in private places. Their own POD(Print on Demand) fulfillment printing service, BookSurge. The issue at hand?

This quote from Writer's Weekly best describes the situation:

Reports have been trickling in from the POD underground that Amazon/BookSurge representatives have been approaching some Lightning Source customers, first by email introduction and then by phone (nobody at BookSurge seems to want to put anything in writing). When Lightning Source customers speak with the BookSurge representative, the reports say, they are basically told they can either have BookSurge start printing their books or the "buy" button on their Amazon.com book pages will be "turned off."
- Writers Weekly

Yes, it is somewhat problematic, when you consider that it takes quite a bit of time and effort to convert books. That Amazon's BookSurge might cost more and present less options than other POD(s). There is also the issue of this being a monopolistic move, which some industry groups may not be too happy about.

In either case, it is definitely something that has many small/mid-sized publishing houses in a stir, and the larger publishing houses, quietly considering their legal options:

• Writers Weekly
• Publishers Weekly
• Book Browse
• Amazon Damage Control PR Post

What's Amazon's Version of The Story?

Well, from Amazon's viewpoint, they are doing what is best, for the speedy delivery of goods to the customer. Some quotes, from Amazon's PR Posting:

Speed of shipping is a key customer experience focus for us and it has been for many years. Amazon Prime is an example of a successful and growing program that is driving up our speed of shipment with customers. POD items printed inside our own fulfillment centers can make our Amazon Prime cutoff times. POD items printed outside cannot.

Simply put, we can provide a better, more timely customer experience if the POD titles are printed inside our own fulfillment centers. In addition, printing these titles in our own fulfillment centers saves transportation costs and transportation fuel.
-Amazon's PR Posting

Basically, it doesn't matter to Amazon that it will hurt the publishers or authors of the books that people want to buy. If it helps to shave some time off, then it's good to go.

Another question we've seen: Do I need to switch completely to having my POD titles printed at Amazon?

No, there is no request for exclusivity. Any publisher can use Amazon's POD service just for those units that ship from Amazon and continue to use a different POD service provider for distribution through other channels.

Alternatively, you can use a different POD service provider for all your units. In that case, we ask that you pre-produce a small number of copies of each title (typically five copies), and send those to us in advance (Amazon Advantage Program-successfully used by thousands of big and small publishers). We will inventory those copies. That small cache of inventory allows us to provide the same rapid fulfillment capability to our customers that we would have if we were printing the titles ourselves on POD printing machines located inside our fulfillment centers. Unlike POD, this alternative is not completely "inventoryless." However, as a practical matter, five copies is a small enough quantity that it is economically close to an inventoryless model.
-Amazon's PR Posting

People are free to sell through whatever channels they want, if they insist on using a non-Amazon printer. Basically, subscribe to our supply chain, or sell elsewhere. Want to sell through us? Then let's remove some of the benefits of POD, by having you buy several copies of the book, and sending them to Amazon.

The problem is that this doesn't just incur the cost of the books on the Author, but the shipping charges, as well as the subscription fee to use Amazon's seller service. On top of that, now authors are paying printing costs at their favorite POD in addition to the sales fee for selling through Amazon itself.

Wow. Amazon ends up helping their customers by putting the squeeze on the authors, who produce the books their customers want. So... ultimately, by continuing down this road, their customers will soon not need to bother buying books from their favorite authors, as they will soon be unable to financially support themselves through book sales. Great solution.

As other sites have noted, one can easily surmise that the reason for this change in policy has little to do with packaging or reduction in delivery times to customers. It has to do with making more money. Amazon wants to make money from the sale of the book, the printing of the book, and the right to print and sell the book.

The only real winner in this kind of policy change is Amazon. Well, if you don't consider the PR issues associated with a move like this.

The losers are the readers out there, the publishers, and the authors.

For Those Interested In POD Publishing/Writing

Hey, might as well learn a thing or two and get a book out before there are no more POD(s). :)

• Print-on-Demand Book Publishing: A New Approach To Printing And Marketing Books For Publishers And Self-Publishing Authors
• The Clearly Confusing World of Self-Publishing and POD
• How to Self-Publish Your Book with BookSurge for $99, 2nd Edition: A Step-by-Step Guide for Designing & Formatting Your Microsoft Word Book to PDF & POD Press Specifications
• Aiming at Amazon: The NEW Business of Self Publishing, or How to Publish Books for Less, Sell Without Hassle, and Double Your Profit (or More) With Print on Demand and Book Marketing on Amazon.com
• Perfect Pages: Self Publishing with Microsoft Word, or How to Avoid High-Priced Page Layout Programs or Book Design Fees and Produce Fine Books in MS Word for Desktop Publishing and Print on Demand
• The Fine Print of Self-Publishing: The Contracts & Services of 48 Major Self-Publishing Companies--Analyzed, Ranked & Exposed
• Best in Self-Publishing & Print on Demand: Plus Marketing Your Book on the Internet, Third Edition
• Ask Ron: The Truth About Self-Publishing
• LyX! THE ZEN OF SELF PUBLISHING! Everything You Need To Write & Publish Perfect Paper Books & eBooks And Sell Them On AMAZON & Online Bookstores Worldwide In 2 Weeks Using The FREE LyX Word Processor
• How to Publish Your Own Book: Everything You Need to Know About the Self-publishing Process (How to) (How to)
• Book Marketing DeMystified: Enjoy Discovering the Optimal Way to Sell Your Self-Published Book, Practical advice from the inventor of print-on-demand (POD) publishing
• The Self-Publishing Manual : How to Write, Print, and Sell Your Own Book, 15th Ed. (Self Publishing Manual)
• Release Your Writing: Book Publishing, Your Way
• Sell Your Book on Amazon: The Book Marketing COACH Reveals Top-Secret "How-to" Tips Guaranteed to Increase Sales for Print-on-Demand and Self-Publishing Writers
• The Well-Fed Self-Publisher: How to Turn One Book into a Full-Time Living
• Get Published Today!: An Insider's Guide to Publishing Success