Amazon’s POD Push: From Squeeze-Out to Poach?

By Ron Hogan on April 1, 2008 12:05 PM

Andy Heidel offers another take on the battle lines being drawn by Amazon.com between its Booksurge program and the rest of the print-on-demand publishing world:

“PW has reported that ‘BookSurge, Amazon’s print-on-demand subsidiary, is making an offer that most publishers would like to refuse, but don’t feel they can. According to talks with several pod houses, BookSurge has told them that unless their titles are printed by BookSurge, the buy buttons on Amazon for their titles will be disabled.’

“Is this a monopoly? Some PODs are balking at the prospect. PublishAmerica announced it ‘will not comply with Amazon’s ultimatum, and will not allow that company to dictate who will print PublishAmerica’s books, and at what conditions.’ Angela Hoy, co-owner of booklocker.com, said ‘Two words have been racing through my head since this all began: monopoly and blackmail. I don’t like it when somebody tells me I have to pay them to do something or they’re going to hurt my sales (and my authors). That, in a nutshell, it what is happening right now to us and many of our competitors.’”

The Amazon Booksurge might even be going beyond monopoly and into the realm of poaching. According to a post by Hoy at writersweekly.com, ‘Amazon/BookSurge representatives have been approaching some Lightning Source customers, first by email introduction and then by phone.’

“But what does this all mean to the author? Before Stuart Schult of Gradspot.com read yesterday’s news, he was on the fence between using Amazon’s Create Space andLulu Publishing for the Gradspot.com Guide to Life After College, but between Create Space’s author discount, and the knowledge that their buy button won’t disappear on Amazon.com, the choice was clear for him to go with Create Space.