Amph Amazonfail 2010

So I was just reading Brandon Sanderson's blog, which has links to blogs of other authors - all of whom are pissed off about Amazon. It seems that the company, pissed off at Macmillian upping its ebook prices from $10 to $15, pulled all copies of all books published by the company. Yes, that's right - without any warning, they stopped selling Macmillian books (which includes TOR). See Sanderson's blog for further links and details, and check out John Scalzi's blog too.

What do you guys think? Will this change the way you purchase books, even if all the books come back?

 

I buy almost 100% of my books from actual stores (independent if possible), rather than going online. I expect that it'll have little direct impact on me. The indirect impact could be huge - Tor is arguably the best and most consistent publisher of Big Fat Fantasy there is. A quick look of the authors whose work they publish tells the tale: Poul Anderson, Steven Erikson, Spider Robinson, George R. R. Martin, Elizabeth Bear, Ben Bova, Orson Scott Card, Jacqueline Carey, Gene Wolfe, Philip K. Dick, Tim Powers... and that's before taking into account (often) more popular and (in my opinion) less talented writers like R.A. Salvatore and Terry Goodkind.

Wow.

That's playing hardball.

From what I read on Sanderson's blog, it sounds like Amazon is going to put the books back, but have not done so yet.

 

I worked in customer service during the previous AmazonFail, that was funny

 

Hopefully Amazon changes their minds on this soon.

 

I forget what the previous AmazonFail was about, but didn't they respond to the e-drama and correct it? Or just wait till everyone forgot (sounds familiar). I was in a different department at the time, but I remember the vague lecture we got sorta

 

I normally read John Scalzi's blog and I've been keeping up with things there. It didn't affect Amazon UK - I think it was just the US site.
It won't change how I buy books as the local bookstores don't carry a very large sci-fi range. If I want something that's not mainstream or is older then my choices are either a train ride up to London to Forbidden Planet or getting it on Amazon UK. Since I don't work in London Amazon will win..

Just a language note on Scalzi's blog - you might encounter language there that isn't allowed here, especially in the comments. If you don't want to see it then don't click through.

 

So basically Amazon wants to be a monopoly.... which almost never turns out well.

 

Amazon now has rivals to contend with, at least on the books side, sites like Book Depository - who are primarily UK-based but do free postage - though the price does tend to reflect where you are.

This also may be limited to Amazon US.

Sounds like corporate games to me.

 

It is, on both counts, I believe.