Lawsuit Filed against Amazon for BookSurge policy

[Caprice]

The following is reprinted (with permission) from "The Book Marketing Expert newsletter," a free ezine offering book promotion and publicity tips and techniques. www.amarketingexpert.com

The Amazon Battle, Continued: An Interview With BookLocker's Angela Hoy
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Amazon is a big piece to our success and as they continue to change their model, how we market and sell our books needs to change as well. For those of you who are new subscribers and don't know the origin of this Amazon situation, you can check out an interview on my blog that should help bring you up to speed on the issues surrounding the Amazon battle: amarketingexpert.com/ameblog/?p=245

It's no secret that Angela Hoy of BookLocker and WritersWeekly has been very vocal about the recent move on Amazon's part to get all their POD publishers to print books through BookSurge. You can see some of her past posts on this topic by clicking over to her WritersWeekly site: www.writersweekly.com/the_latest_from_angelahoycom/004701_05212008.html

Amidst the media firestorm Angela is in, she's taken some time to answer our questions related to this topic:

1) You just filed a lawsuit against Amazon. Why did you decide to do this?

We believe what they're doing violates anti-trust laws and puts us and other POD publishers and authors at risk. Somebody had to stand up and cry foul.

2) Can you discuss the nature of this lawsuit?

There is a link to a PDF file of the actual lawsuit here: antitrust.booklocker.com/.

3) Do you think you can win against this giant?

Yes, I absolutely do.

4) Many people have talked about Amazon being a monopoly, do you feel the same way and is there anything that can be done against this giant?

The only way to stop this type of action by a company that dominates the online book selling market is to take them to court. That's what they have forced us to do.

5) There's been some scuttle recently that Amazon might have aspirations on being a publisher. Do you think that will ever happen? What are the ramifications of this if it does happen?

Amazon already is a publisher. They not only became a publisher when they purchased BookSurge, but Amazon also admits in its 10-K filing with the SEC, www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6550867.html&&refPage=http://, that publishers are their competitors.

6) So many individual authors with their own imprints have been affected by this decision, many of them don't even realize the ramifications of this BookSurge push. What can one book author do to fight this giant?

What many authors don't realize is that some POD publishers may already be working with Amazon (the confidentiality clause in the Amazon/BookSurge contract appears to prevent them from disclosing the relationship) and that those authors' books may soon be printed by BookSurge without their knowledge. Authors who have researched BookSurge online may have grave concerns about the quality of BookSurge books that have the author's name printed on it.

I, personally, would never let BookSurge print a book with our name on it. We have a history with BookSurge that involved quality problems.

Just to check up on them, I purchased a book from Amazon/BookSurge last month and the quality was horrible. The back cover was off-center, some of the photos were so dark the people were completely unrecognizable (black shadows is the best way to describe it), there was a gross glue glob on the cover, and more.

7) What else can we do to fight this online giant?

Authors and POD publishers need to speak out about this situation now, and need to keep speaking out about it. Amazon may be hoping things will just simmer down and that people will forget all about this someday.

Unfortunately, when that someday arrives, some POD publishers and self-publishing authors may be out of business because of Amazon's actions today.

8) If Amazon is allowed to do this, what do you think will happen in the future? Will their next announcement be a roll-out of their publishing model?

They've already rolled out their publishing model and they've already taken action. The buy buttons for Publish America books (estimated at 30K titles) have already been turned off by Amazon.

9) What has surprised you most about this process?

It didn't take any forethought at all for us to decide to fight this. It's wrong and somebody has to do something about it. We expected some press in the writing and publishing industry publications and blogs. What we didn't expect was the overwhelming support we received on a global scale from authors, publishers and book buyers. People are furious with Amazon. I've done more interviews in the past six weeks than I've done cumulatively my entire life. In addition, we've received far more emails about this topic than about any other topic we've covered in the past 11 years in WritersWeekly.com.

Every voice counts and you CAN make a difference! Believe me. Amazon is reading what people are saying! Please post your comments regarding this situation to the bottom of this page: antitrust.booklocker.com/booklocker-files-class-action-lawsuit-against-amazon#respond.

[cyn]

Thanks for posting this, Caprice.

I am glad that someone is going ahead with a lawsuit -- and that takes guts against a big corporation like Amazon. I wonder if she is going to need financial or other types of support? Even though TWCP isn't directly affected by this particular action, I would certainly be willing to lend my support.

If amazon gets away with this, then who knows what they have planned down the line that might affect me? I don't imagine they will stop at printing books.

Over at the LGG, we discussed methods of battling amazon's plans. Most folks didn't like the idea of lawsuits or government intervention -- laissez-faire seemed to be the consensus of many. People suggested that the "best" way was to boycott amazon.

I thought at the time, yeah right. Me boycotting amazon won't do a darn thing. The LGG boycotting won't be effective. In order for it to be effective you need large numbers of consumers, not a handful of authors and publishers . . . and readers by and large are not going to understand or even care.

Just last week on CNN they reported that amazon had increased their Wall Street rating (along with last month's profits). So much for boycotting.

c

[Caprice]

To me, what Amazon has done is NOT wrong because they are the "only" retailer or even that they are the "main" retailer. The unfairness is who is targeted by their policy. They did not tell ALL publishers that they had to use BookSurge or be cut off, they only told some[/b] publishers they would be subjected to this restriction. TWCP and Random House can print their books any way they please, but Lulu may not. THAT is what's unfair and wrong. Okay, so Lulu caved to Amazon's demands to stay in business, but who lost the most when that happened? Not Lulu, but Lightning Source. LS could easily be put out of business if Amazon is allowed to get away with this, and it's sad because LS delivers superior quality AND service to BookSurge. I wish Lulu and Xulon had given me the option to reject the BookSurge offer and simply have my Amazon buttons disabled. I'd much rather my readers got quality bidings somewhere else than to buy my book on Amazon and get a crappy binding with MY imprint. BookSurge's name doesn't appear on the books at all. They hide behind the imprints whom they have blackmailed into using them.

GRRR. Makes my blood boil every time I think about it.

[cyn]

Many folks in self-publishing benefitted greatly because of amazon's policy of several years ago -- amazon was the first retailer to accept books printed by POD technology.

They were lauded for their efforts by all the small publisher associations, and rightly so.

How sad that in 2008 amazon turned around and hit this very same group with its new policy.

Is it because it is the most vulnerable group?

I wonder if amazon will hit publishers who are small and don't use POD tech?

If they do, then larger publishers such as the ECPA ones who are small fish when compared to the big New York houses, will be hit next.

I wouldn't put anything past amazon at this point.

[Caprice]

Exactly, Cyn. They hit the smallest and most vulnerable first. Then when they have crushed all competition in that market, they move on to slightly bigger fish. I totally expect that TWCP and other small independents will be next. They'll say something like, "If you have fewer than x titles or if you sell fewer than x number of books across your entire line, then you're causing us too much paperwork/wherehousing/bandwidth/(whatever). We need you to get in under our BookSurge umbrella (or by then maybe they will own a big offset press that's not POD, and demand you use THAT) in order to have your books featured here. And you're right, soon thereafter it will be niche pubs. If this trend goes unchecked, eventually, when you buy a book from Amazon, no matter who wrote it or who bought the rights, Amazon will do the physical printing, but covertly, with the publisher and copyright owners names appearing on the spine instead of theirs, so consumers will not understand why books are suddenly so badly constructed.

Ingenious really. By the time they get to fighting the big pubs with big guns, they'll have set precedent that this way of doing business is legal and that any who tried to defy them just died by the wayside.

[cathikin]

Greed.
For what it's worth, I am going to alternative sources when i buy books right now. It usually costs more, but it isn't usually enough to matter. and i've been passing the word along to my friends.

[Frank Creed]

Good for you Cathi. A grassroots effort may be small, but perhaps one by one we can make a difference.

[Caprice]

I am rather sneaky about spreading the word about this. I take a jab everytime I post a review, but I also have a chance everytime I do a transaction in a store. (This does not work with online transactions or gasoline vending machines, it has to be in-person with a live register operator.) You see, I have the Amazon Visa. I used to use it EXTESIVELY to get the points, which got me free stuff on Amazon. Rather than cut up the card and send it back in disgust, I came up with the following "spread the news" campaign.

In my wallet, I keep the Amazon Visa right next to my new preferred card (Discover or HSN Visa) and I pull out BOTH cards when I go to pay. I hand the Amazon card to the clerk first. Depending on how busy it is, I will stop myself before they take it, or perhaps let them hold it and look at it while I say, "Oh wait, that's the Amazon card. I don't want to use that since Amazon became greedy bullying weasels." Now I try hard to gauge whether the clerk is really interested in hearing more before (or while) I switch out credit cards. If it's busy or the clerk appears not to care, I just switch and let it go at that. If there is time and interest, I am quick to mention exactly WHY I am now boycotting Amazon.

Does this strategy make a difference? I seriously doubt it. But it makes me feel a semblance of control. One problem: you've really got to try to remember who you've pulled it on before. I am terrible with faces and names, and it's not as effective if you pull the same stunt on the same cashier every three days. They look at you and frown and say, "Yeah, you told me already. Why don't you just cut up the card so you won't keep using it accidentally (you stupid woman)."