Amazon.com's new policy

[helwen]

Was just made aware of this today, and am posting information from lupabitch and a writer friend of mine, who isn't personally affected by this, but knows of people/presses that would be.

In order to be more customer-friendly, Amazon is changing some of their rules. These rules supposedly don't affect the customer except in a positive way. BUT --

Succinct list and comments from lupabitch:
--Amazon wants all their POD books to be printed by their own in-house printers

** This means that publishers who use other POD (print-on-demand) presses would have to change over to Booksurge POD (which is owned by Amazon)** (helwen's comment)

--Booksurge printer is more expensive and Amazon keeps more of the profit

--Amazon/Booksurge's distribution sucks

--The Amazon Advantage program also sucks, since again it asks for a bigger chunk of the publisher's profits, enough that many publishers simply can't afford it

--POD books that aren't from their printers will lose sales, enough that some publishers may go out of business unless better alternatives are found

Their letter talks all about the convenience--for the CUSTOMER. It doesn't say a thing about the inconvenience for publishers. They're trying to placate customers into thinking this is all well and good because it benefits them--and customers may be less likely to speak up if they stand to lose their newly-found convenience just because a few little publishers get inconvenienced.

*** End list/comments from lupabitch ***

Apparently Booksurge requires a different format for the books than other PODs too, and the print quality isn't as good -- and yet, they cost more.

One way this affects the customer is that the quality of the books would go down, and I like a book that is readable and will last a good long while, myself. Also, if the smaller presses go away, small print-run authors may lose access because they may already be at the limit of what they can afford. Amazon either wants the other POD presses to sell the books (the elec. format) for Booksurge to print or send them some printed books to keep stocked in the warehouse.

Keeping stock in the warehouse means faster delivery for the customer, but more upfront cost for the small presses, with no guarantee that the books will be bought. In our dicey, changing economy, there simply isn't as much margin for loss as there use to be. For small businesses for that matter, there never is much margin.

So, another way this affects the customer is that some unique and special books may never see the light of day. And we're talking all sorts of books: science, fiction, spiritual books, historical research (I got a medieval cook book just last year that came off of Lulu), and more.

***
Just doing my little part to stand up for independent press/thought!

Comments

[prince-hring.livejournal.com]

I'm vexed. From all accounts, Booksurge carries an inferior product with a difficult font-end. As it is, I've been struggling for a couple of weeks with the "easy" POD supplier, lulu.com

I've finally gotten to the point where I'm ready to print out a proof copy of one of my books via lulu to see if I like it. If I do, I have a mountain of work ahead of me, re-engineering my organ book to be POD ready.

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Good luck with the POD, I hope the difficulties resolve soon! That would certainly make things easier, no worries about form of payment or shipping anymore. They even have comb-bindings at Lulu (the cookbook I ordered is how I know).

[prince-hring.livejournal.com]

My "first crack at POD" is:

http://www.lulu.com/content/2176241

I'll let you know how the proof copy turns out.

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Looking good so far. Yes, definitely want to hear about how the proof copy looks.