back to weblogThe Amazon War of 2010

It's been nearly a week since Amazon delisted Macmillan last Friday night. On Sunday, the company finally got around to issuing a statement on the issue. Personally, I found it extremely lacking. They misused the word 'monopoly', a word that Amazon of all people should be avoiding like the plague, and they proclaimed that the Kindle isn't just a product but a mission. A mission? Really? Do they have any idea how much that declaration scares the hell out of me?

I didn't appreciate the tone of the letter, which most parties agree was very poorly written (check it out here or read it with comments from Jay Lake, one of the authors penalized by all this, here. You may also enjoy Whatever's article The Many Ways Amazon So Very Failed the Weekend) and I really didn't appreciate the implication that the only important thing to Amazon is the Kindle.

The Kindle, of course, is what this whole mess is about. But it's not the Kindle vs Macmillan, and now Hatchette as they've signed on to the agency model as well. (Their statement, made earlier today, is here. So far Amazon hasn't delisted all of their books, which would include names like Stephanie Meyer and Dan Brown.) It's the Kindle vs the iPad. My husband pointed that out after he read the last thing I posted and Mashable wrote a nice article about it.

Despite claiming they were giving in on Sunday, Amazon still hasn't gotten around to bringing back the buy buttons on Macmillan books. This morning it seemed things were escalating when there was an ad in the New York Times for The Checklist Manifesto, which is on all the major best seller lists, in which the book was advertised as “Available at book sellers everywhere except Amazon.” (Image available here.) But this afternoon, Macmillan issued a third ad in which Sargent sent another open letter claiming that things are drawing near an end. He also claims that Amazon has been working really hard with Macmillan and in good faith. I read that as him being political, but think he still gets a point for being classier than Amazon has been.

There was a second big topic in that letter, by the way. He touched on the subject of author royalties, saying that they were going to be higher under the new model. He didn't mention details, but the Author's Guild did here. They're talking about 25% royalty rates. For print editions, the standard is 15%, but the Author's guild has hopes that we will one day be looking at 50-50 splits of proceeds for e-books. Personally, I have difficulty imaging that, but time will tell.

Hatchette slipped a second massive statement in their announcement to embrace the agency pricing model as well. They also committed to release e-books simultaneously to the hardback editions. This may well be based on the ability to increase price on the initial release because even if Amazon's the one eating the difference between what they're charged and $9.99, publishing has long feared that being able to get a $9.99 e-version will keep people from buying the more costly hardbacks and cut into the profit margin.

Anyway... If you're tired of all this Amazon nonsense, you aren't alone. I'm exhausted from it. And sad. I've been an Amazon customer since 1996. I have a travel mug they sent me as a gift December of that year. I keep wondering what happened to those people. Was it too much power? A deal with the devil? The Kindle? A deal with the devil to create the Kindle? I don't know. Maybe they were evil then too but they were being nice to me so I didn't care.

I don't see this resolving happily for me. Most of my spending money has been going to Amazon for years, for books and CDs and movies and even tea. Reworking my shopping habits is going to be hard. But why should I stay loyal to a company that is willing to hurt me over an argument I don't agree with them on? If they hadn't brought print editions into this, I could have handled it. If they'd apologize for being obnoxious brats, it's possible they could earn enough of my forgiveness that combined with the ease of shopping through them and the speed of Prime shipping I'd stay on, maybe express my disapproval by ordering hordes of Macmillan titles when the buy buttons return. But they did the first and I'd be shocked if they did the later.

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