Wednesday 2 April 2008

Online Petition Against Amazon's Monopolistic Practices

I don't plan to get political very often on this blog, but something that's been hitting the news lately makes me have to speak out. Amazon has recently taken the "buy" button off of some Print-On-Demand (POD) books on their website. They have stated they will now sell only POD books that are made through their own POD service, BookSurge. More on this move can be found here, here and here. This seems to be an attempt by Amazon to take the number one spot from POD printer Lightning Source.

This is a blatantly monopolistic practice. Publishing companies should not be forced to take a service they don't want to use in order to gain access to a retail outlet. Small presses rely on POD technology to reduce overhead, and the cost of switching printers just so they can get into the largest online retailer's website could put many out of business.

There's is now an online petition. I'm signature number 468.

2 comments:

diamondcait said...

And haven't I been telling you for years now how evil Amazon is? Now maybe you will listen to me. Even though I am not a published writer, I'll sign your petition on behalf of your oul' Missouri home.

Sean McLachlan said...

Hi Caitlin! It's actually not my petition, but I signed it as soon as I heard about it. If you check out the links to my books, you'll notice they all lead to Barnes and Noble. That's not a coincidence.

Looking for more from Sean McLachlan? He also hangs out on the Civil War Horror blog, where he focuses on Civil War and Wild West history.

You can also find him on his Twitter feed and Facebook page.