Thursday 18 September 2014

Amazon v Hachette

See authors latest letter to Amazon going to their board members
 
 
Trying to imply that Amazon directors do not know what their officers are doing in such an important issue is in my business experience doomed to failure.
 
The letter does make a fair point  about books and toasters -
Amazon has every right to refuse to sell consumer goods in response to a pricing disagreement with a wholesaler. But books are not mere consumer goods. Books cannot be written more cheaply, nor can authors be outsourced to another country. Books are not toasters or televisions. Each book is the unique, quirky creation of a lonely, intense, and often expensive struggle on the part of a single individual, a person whose living depends on his or her book finding readers. This is the process Amazon endangers when it uses its tremendous power to separate authors from their readership.
 
As there are so many books for sale readers have alternatives. 
 
I am not clear looking at the list of authors whether they are all published by Hachette. There are some notable absentees does this mean they do not share the same view? 
 
Who will blink first?
 
Douglas

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