LitNews: Delayed Books, Boycotts, and Good News for Independents
I used to work in the book business. People would always say how lucky I was and that they would spend all their paycheck if they worked there! “Don’t you just love it, being surrounded by books all day?!” Well, yes… and no. It’s kind of like working at a movie theater or Disneyland… yes, the magic of it can still capture you, you can have all sorts of perks and be surrounded by something you love all day, but you also see the not-so-nice side of all the inner workings.
That’s what is happening now, but it’s more than the people IN the book biz that are seeing the underbelly… it’s 100% public. Amazon and Hachette Publishing Group are arguing (we all believe, though neither side is talking publicly about specifics) about e-book pricing, both retail and wholesale. The larger conflict is about the publishing ecosystem and Amazon’s role in it. Amazon seems to be targeting many books from Hachette to artificial purchase delays, meaning books that had been available on Amazon for next-day delivery (and still are on sites like bn.com and independent powells.com) now take 2-5 weeks to ship. Some titles don’t surface in an Amazon search as they should or at all.
Then there are the upcoming Hachette books that are no longer available for pre-order, including the next J.K. Rowling/Robert Galbraith mystery The Silkworm. Regarding obtaining Hachette books already in print, Amazon’s message board statement reads, “If you do need one of the affected titles quickly, we regret the inconvenience and encourage you to purchase a new or used version from one of our third-party sellers or from one of our competitors.” (Pre-orders are vital to the publishing business. They help generate buzz and increase sales, just as pre-sales and publicity are crucial to film… many times if you don’t make a splash right away, you won’t sell. Period.)
Amazon explained that Hachette was one of its 70,000 suppliers and stated the two had been unable to reach acceptable terms. It has defended its stance, stating its actions aren’t any different from what other retailers do when negotiating with their suppliers. Now, if Hachette is one of 70,000 suppliers to Amazon, why is this such a big deal? Well, Amazon is the single biggest book retailer in America, selling over 40% of all new books that are sold. Read that again… over 40% of ALL NEW BOOKS SOLD… not just Hachette books, but also those from the other four major publishers, all independent publishers, and self-published books, both e-book and print.
This isn’t new news… it stems from the Apple e-book case brought by the Department of Justice, in which publishers were accused of colluding over e-book prices, which was settled. The judge’s final order in the case, issued in 2013, laid out a schedule for the various publishers involved to renegotiate e-book prices with retailers, Apple and Amazon both. Hachette is up first.
READ HACHETTE’S PUBLIC STATEMENT HERE
READ AMAZON’S PUBLIC STATEMENT HERE
Now you may have never really heard of Hachette. Heck, I worked in books for over a decade, and everyone there called it “hachet” like a small axe… it was only when this whole brouhaha started that I heard it pronounced /hash-ay/, or even the more correct French pronunciation of /ahsh-ay/! Oops! Our bad! So you may not even know what literary imprints and authors are affected. Well, it includes at least 23 divisions and imprints, including the sci-fi imprint of Orbit, Mulholland for supernatural, Yen for graphic novels and manga, and Little, Brown, and Company. And authors? It’s not too shabby of a list, including James Patterson, David Foster Wallace, David Sedaris, Janet Fitch, Michael Connelly, Sherman Alexie, Scott Turow, Malcolm Gladwell, Mitch Albom, Iain Banks, Emma Donoghue, Robin Roberts, Brad Meltzer, Mariano Rivera, Marcia Clark, David Baldacci, Jeffrey Deaver, Kim Stanley Robinson, Robert Galbraith (pen name of J.K. Rowling) and many, many more.
Many authors are weighing in. Non-Hachette author John Green (The Fault in Our Stars) is currently Amazon’s No. 1 bestseller, and he said this: “What’s ultimately at stake is whether Amazon is going to be able to freely and permanently bully publishers into eventual nonexistence. The breadth of American literature and the quality of American literature is in no small part due to the work that publishers do, and it’s very unfortunate, in my opinion, to see Amazon refuse to acknowledge the importance of that partnership.”
So what are many authors and others suggesting? Simply, a boycott of Amazon. Not just for books but for everything. Last night, Stephen Colbert and Sherman Alexie (both Hachette authors) spoke about the situation and offered a test… a deal with Powell’s Books of Portland to sell the dystopian novel California by Edan Lepucki through the Colbert Nation, with Colbert challenging his viewers to show Amazon that he can sell more books than Amazon. Colbert also encouraged consumers to download a sticker reading “I didn’t buy it on Amazon” and affix it to any books they buy elsewhere. (Powell’s is an independent bookstore. After the “Colbert bump,” Lepucki’s novel hit the top of the sales charts at Powell’s.)
Others, including authors for the Amazon imprints and literary reviewers and bloggers, question the boycott, wondering if it’s just a bid to keep the publishing status quo… though this does seem to be the minority view.
“What I don’t understand about this particular battle tactic is how it is in the best interest of Amazon customers,” James Patterson, the best-selling author, wrote in a post on Facebook. “It certainly doesn’t appear to be in the best interest of authors.”
What do you think? Will you look elsewhere for your books? Or is this just a natural evolution for publishing in the digital age? Share your thoughts with us on Facebook, Twitter, and in the comments below.
http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/videos/t1nxwu/amazon-vs–hachette—sherman-alexie
