This whole Amazon/Macmillan fight has been interesting to watch as a former bookseller. It was kind of like watching two huge dinosaurs fighting. Who do you root for? It was hard to tell. I think that the fight about the pricing about e-books was long in coming. But reasonable people could have come to a reasonable solution to this problem. One or two of the proposals that Macmillan made, I thought seemed okay. So why the hell make such a big stink about it? Taking the Macmillan books down off of the Amazon site was really going too far. It looked like a really dumb PR move. (And Amazon was dead wrong in taking down those books.) But this fight was never really about e-books and ethics was not in play here. To understand the PR move from Amazon’s point of view you need to understand who the audience they were trying to reach. It wasn’t Macmillan. It wasn’t any of the large presses. (They can take care of themselves.) It most certainly wasn’t authors. (Notice that the scifi authors were really the only ones saying anything. Hmm???) The target were all the medium to small presses. The ones without Macmillan’s clout. And the message was loud and clear: don’t even think about fucking with Amazon. We can, and will, shut you down. We have the clout—and unless you do, too—play ball or get outta the game.
This is kind of like when the meat industry took on Oprah. Yes, in the end she won the court case. But the meat industry also won because no one in their right mind will take them on again. In other words, if you have Oprah’s clout, you can take on this monster, otherwise shut up and sit down. The message was received, even if people didn’t realize that the message was received.
I, and many other booksellers (that are as out of business as I am), have seen this day coming for a long time. The day Amazon showed us what they are really all about: market domination. Of course, Amazon has the right to make money. What they shouldn’t have is the right to shut you out if you question or offend them in any way. So just how many small presses are going to be willing to stand up to Amazon the next time they do something unseemly? How many will risk having their “Buy” buttons turned off? And one thing I can tell you, I am absolutely sure that this will not be the last time Amazon pulls something like this. You can put money on it.
I wrote this in my old bookseller blog back in 2008 --
Those who have put all their eggs into the basket of a large corporate book distribution system are about to get the beating of their life. Books are not widgets. Books are a part of our culture and should be treated as such. Making them into throw away goods is bound to lead to disaster. The best way to handle books is like how we should handle food: small scale and local. But the corporate entities and the [consumers] don’t want to see it like that. Bigger is always better, right? And so here we go. I’ve got my popcorn, so let the show begin.
As a concept, Amazon is not a bad idea. It’s just too damn big. And the sad part about it is that we, meaning the authors and the readers, made it that big. By never varying choices as to where we link to books on our sites and making Amazon the “Kleenex” of the book world, we handed them all this clout. And as all big business will do once they reach that certain size, they are flexing their muscles. Actually Amazon has been flexing its muscles for quite some time. Back in April of 2009, they started censoring Queer books. It was a shot across the bow.
So where do we go from here. Well, we can try to take back a bit of what we gave away. We can start by linking to other sources on our sites when it is possible—like directly to the publisher. Buying directly from the publishers, especially when they are small, is another good idea. Make it a habit to look for those alternate sources before heading directly to Amazon. I’ve been buying directly from the publishers for years now and it usually works just fine. Think about linking to other bookstores like Powell’s and IndieBound. Support the small presses with your business, not to mention the few remaining independent bookstores. (So sometime you might have to wait a little longer. Is that really a big deal compared to having the entire industry dominated by one or two players who are willing to squeeze you at their whim?) THINK! And then do the right thing.