This is of interest not just to people who self published or went through lulu or whoever, but anybody published with small presses that use POD technology to print their books and place them on amazon.com
One of the main allures of POD publishing has been the "amazon connection" and it's become almost the definition of what "published" means or what a "real book" is.
Now amazon is starting to jerk the "BUY" button from POD books (meaning those published by lightningsource, the only major POD printer) and only allow direct sales of books published on their BookSurge subsidiary.
I've been in the amazon offices and met execs and middle-management there. I've been screwed out of promised money by them...the kind of deal where you could win in court but it wouldn't be worth a couple of hundred bucks.
They are an arrogant company with very little conscience. Hopefully this idiocy will be reversed, but it's certainly a chilling wind for self-publishers.
Amazon.com Telling POD Publishers - Let BookSurge Print Your Books, or Else...
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