Now, come to find that my book has been pulled in...

23rd February 2012

Quote reblogged from ami with an i with 7 notes

Now, come to find that my book has been pulled in a dispute between Amazon and my distribotor, IPG, which distributes Joyland eBooks and ECW Press in the U.S.

At last, I am catching Amazon blowback, and — frankly — it serves me right.

I’ve never been an anti-Amazon radical. I usually remain quiet when people discuss the great lengths they go to not to buy from Amazon…

But now what? I don’t want to make any heated edicts or promises I can’t keep, but Amazon seems bent on forcing me to reconsider my agnosticism.

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From Jim Hanas’ post: “Chickens, Roosting.

Go read all of Jim Hanas’ take on Amazon’s latest move, this time delisting IPG distributed ebooks. If you’re unfamiliar with the situation, please read the Publishers Lunch piece. Still have questions? Please email me or contact me on Tumblr. This is HUGELY important to digital publishing and you need to understand it.

(via amiwithani)

Ami is absolutely right. We need to talk about this.

Amazon’s big stick is delisting. When they removed the buy buttons on Macmillan titles,the uproar from fans of Macmillan authors was huge. But in a situation like this, where IPG represents mostly small independent publishers without big name authors, the pushback from readers may be more muted. If you support independent book publishing, you should lend your voice.

What makes this even more galling than the Macmillan debacle a few years back is that on IPG ebook titles, they didn’t just remove the buy buttons - they made it look like the ebook simply doesn’t exist.

If you look at an IPG title like Boardwalk Empire, they have the “Tell the Publisher! I’d like to read this book on Kindle” message. It insinuates that the publisher doesn’t have an ebook file to provide. But they do, and it’s not the author or the publisher’s fault. That “Tell the Publisher!” message shifts the blame to a party that had nothing to do with these negotiations.

If you search “Boardwalk Empire ebook” on Google, your first result is Amazon, but there is no ebook available. You can get the Boardwalk Empire ebook from Nook, but that’s the third result. How many readers will click the first result and never get the titlethey wanted?

Now that publishers compete in an online environment for book discovery, if you can’t be found on search, you just don’t exist. And the person who controls the search to a large part controls the message.

Source: amiwithani

Matt Mullin