back to weblogWTF, Amazon?

So, last night the Twitterverse nudged me and said, “Hey, did you notice all of Macmillan's books have been removed from Amazon?” I hadn't, but I jumped over to my Amazon app and established that it was true, if I wanted a book from any of Macmillan's imprints (like, say, Tor or Saint Martin's), I could only get them through third party sellers.

“Huh?” I said. “Yo, Twitter, what's up with this?”

Twitter sent me to a blog entry on the Wall Street Journal confirming this has happened and quoting an anonymous source at Amazon who said this is part of an argument over the price of e-books.

This bothers me for several different reasons.

The first question I would like answered is, “Why is Amazon letting us figure this out like this instead of issuing a statement?” Why are they not stating their case? It seems at best immature and is definitely something that pisses me off as a customer. Simply not providing me with the items I desire without respecting me enough to tell me why is obnoxious. I don't know if the PR department wasn't warned, wasn't listened to when they said this was a mistake, or is in severe need of firing, but at least one of those three things is true.

The second question I have for Amazon is, “Why drag all editions of Macmillan's books into this?” Yeah, it makes the debate more noticeable. But is that in Amazon's interest? Because I'm not sitting here thinking that Macmillan's been cut out of Amazon because Macmillan's full of greedy bastards, I'm sitting here thinking that Amazon is punishing me because publishers are getting tired of being ripped off by them. Amazon looks like the bad guy, an aggressive bully. They'd be better off doing this in a dark alley somewhere, not on a brightly-lit plaza.

The debate on e-book pricing has been going on for a long time. The LA Times touches on this in their article on the situation. Publishers admit digital editions of books cost less to get to the consumer than print editions. However, they claim cost difference isn't nearly as big as the public appears to think. According to Bob Miller, president of Harper Studio, the savings is as little as $2.50 per copy. Paper and ink aren't free, but they also aren't the major expenses involved in publishing a book.

This leads into my third question for Amazon, which is, “Exactly what's so bad about allowing publishers to set their own prices for their products?” Amazon doesn't say, “All paperbacks are worth $8, all softbacks $12, and all hardbacks $17.” Those products are all priced according to what the publisher put down as the MSRP. What's different about e-books? The only thing I can think of is that Amazon wants people to think e-books are cheaper than print books so that the public is willing to shell out money for Kindles.

Personally, I don't own a Kindle. I don't want to own a Kindle. The DRM and the EULA both offend me far too much for me to be willing to give Amazon a dime for a Kindle. If I was given one, I'd sell it. But I've always been able to separate my feelings for the Kindle from my willingness to frequent Amazon. Last night, Amazon decided to yank that freedom away from me.

I think Amazon assumed their customers would be on their side in this. I'm sure some are. But I'm not. I think they're being arrogant and heavy-handed. I think they need to stop. And I think they damned sure need to explain themselves.

 

UPDATE: John Sargent wrote an open letter to all Macmillan authors/illustrators and the literary agent community. It ran as a paid advertisemenmt in a special Saturday edition of Publishers Lunch. Read it for the Macmillan side of this issue.

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