The Awfulness of Amazon toward authors

[karadinart]

Amazon’s troubles began in early May, when David Streitfeld of the New York Times first reported that the retailer was hampering its customers’ access to Hachette titles, as well as trying to deflect them to other books, all as a means of forcing the publisher to agree to new wholesale terms. (Although neither party is supposed to discuss the details of the negotiations publicly, it’s quite clear by now that they involve the price of e-books.) Amazon had applied similar strong-arm tactics in negotiations with publishers before, such as pulling buy buttons from all Macmillan titles during a dispute over e-book prices in 2010, but those actions were short-lived. As the standoff with Hachette dragged on, the Times published story after story, recounting how Amazon’s punishment of Hachette was hurting authors and inconveniencing its customers by making them wait as long as three weeks to receive the Hachette titles they ordered.

One of those authors, TV personality Stephen Colbert, made the sins of Amazon against authors a running theme on his popular late-night comedy series. “Watch out, Bezos, because this means war,” he announced. And it was. Colbert took the impasse as an opportunity to promote lesser-known Hachette writers like Sherman Alexie, who came on the show to accuse Amazon of trying to amass a “monopoly,” and he directed would-be book buyers to the Portland, Oregon, independent bookseller Powells.com. Like Streitfeld, Colbert devoted multiple stories to the issue, all with Amazon cast as the baddie.

http://www.salon.com/2014/08/20/amazons_awful_war_of_words_how_an_iron_fisted_pr_strategy_went_off_the_rails/