Amazon BookSurge Information Clearinghouse

Amazon BookSurge Information Clearinghouse

Amazon Backs Down; Settles Antitrust Lawsuit Filed By BookLocker

UPDATE: 08/26/2009: Federal Judge Denies Amazon’s Motion to Dismiss in Antitrust Lawsuit

UPDATE: 05/19/2008: BookLocker has filed a class action lawsuit against Amazon.

All the stories, blog posts, comments, and updates coming in from our original story about how Amazon is forcing publishers to use their BookSurge printing company are starting to get unwieldy. So we've created this page to help everyone keep track of what is going on. And help those who are new to the story get up to speed.

What is the story, you ask?

Reports had been trickling in from the POD underground that Amazon/BookSurge representatives have been approaching some Lightning Source customers, first by email introduction and then by phone (nobody at BookSurge seems to want to put anything in writing). When Lightning Source customers speak with the BookSurge representative, the reports say, they are basically told they can either have BookSurge start printing their books or the "buy" button on their Amazon.com book pages will be "turned off."

After we broke this story, the Wall Street Journal and Publishers Weekly got Amazon to admit what they would only confess to in private before - that this is, in fact, now their strategy.

Here's the latest...

Breaking Developments:

Monday, May 19, 2008 - BookLocker has filed suit against Amazon.

Wednesday, April 30, 2008 - WritersWeekly issues call to authors/publishers to send their complaints about Amazon/Booksurge to the Federal Trade Commission. For information on how to do this, click HERE.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008 - The Washington State Attorney General has issued a statement claiming they are not planning further action against Amazon. They claim "it may be more appropriate to refer this matter to one of the federal antitrust agencies for review" and "anyone feeling that they have been harmed and wish to pursue a remedy should consider consulting with private counsel."

Tuesday, April 21, 2008 - PublishAmerica revealed in an email to its authors that they raised the prices on their own website a year ago under threat by Amazon: "Roughly a year ago Amazon forced PublishAmerica to raise the pricing of our own books on our own website. They would not allow us to sell our almost 30,000 titles at sales prices lower than what Amazon chose to charge, and they threatened us with the very same retaliation that followed a year later after all."

Thursday, April 17, 2008: Xlibris appears to still be hemming and hawing. They finally responded to Angela's email of March 25th, saying, "We apologize that we are unable to comment on the subject below as we are still standing by for the official communication from the higher management and our partners. As of this writing, it is still business as usual with Amazon.com." Is it just us or are all of the big POD publishers' statements starting to sound like broken records?

Wednesday, April 16, 2008 - The National Writers Union is also publicly condemning Amazon's actions. "The National Writers Union/UAW Local 1981 strongly opposes Amazon’s new restriction on the print-on demand market and calls upon Amazon to immediately withdraw this monopolistic intrusion, or face our call for investigations by the Justice Department and Congress."

Tuesday, April 8, 2008: Washington State Attorney General has issued a statement about the Amazon situation.

Monday, April 7, 2008: UK's Leading Writers Website calls for Amazon Boycott.

Saturday, April 5, 2008: WritersWeekly is processing numerous emails from angry authors who are asking why their publishers are not telling them the whole story about this situation. One author in particular received this note yesterday from iUniverse: "We are currently handling a high volume of incoming phone calls and e-mail messages. Your inquiry is important to us and we will respond to every message in the order in which it was received. Case #..."

PUBLISHERS! OPEN UP AND TELL YOUR AUTHORS WHAT'S REALLY GOING ON!

Friday, April 4, 2008: Scott Flora, Executive Director of The Small Publishers Association of North America (SPAN), sent THIS LETTER to Jeff Bezos and the Amazon Board of Directors.

Friday, April 4, 2008 - YES? NO? MAYBE SO??? AuthorHouse issued a statement today that doesn't admit or deny they signed the Amazon contract. The statement ends with this line: "We will aggressively fight anything that is done to limit choice, increase cost, or weaken the industry that together we’ve worked so hard to build." However, we have a copy of an email sent by a manager at AuthorHouse on 4/1/08 that says, "AuthorHouse has been in negotiations with Amazon for some time and recently came to an agreement to allow BookSurge to print titles sold through Amazon." Authors deserve to know exactly what's going on, guys!

Friday, April 4, 2008, 6:12 PM - ASJA STERNLY DENOUNCES AMAZON'S STRONG-ARM TACTICS IN PRESS RELEASE; states the company's current actions negate years of goodwill built up with writers.

Friday, April 4, 2008, 3:15 PM - The Authors Guild, the nation's largest society of published book authors, has issued a statement studying anti-trust/legal implication of "Amazon's bold move." Seeking any info. others have that might be helpful.

Friday, April 4, 2008, 2:34 PM - The ASJA just sent a letter to their members regarding this situation. You can read it HERE.

Friday, April 4, 2008, 12:30 PM - Angela just received a phone call from the American Society of Journalist and Authors (ASJA). They will be issuing an official statement shortly.

Thursday, April 3rd, 2008, 1:09 PM - Amazon now threatening publishers who offer customer-direct discounts on their own website.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008, 7:15 PM - We have obtained a copy of the canned email Xlibris is sending out, which pretty much says nothing at all but does imply they have not signed the Amazon contract. Yea, Xlibris.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008, 6:58 PM - Angela just checked the listing on Amazon for the BookSurge printed book she ordered (see new article for details). It is now "out of stock". Gosh, now what does that mean about their "print and bind a book in less than two hours" statement? Shouldn't their POD books never be out of stock?

Wednesday, April 2, 2008, 5:00 PM - Angela's NEW ARTICLE just posted.

Tuesday, April 1, 2008, 7:10 PM - Lightning Source has just issued a statement regarding this matter. You can view a copy HERE.

Tuesday, April 1, 2008, 2:42 PM - AuthorHouse/iUniverse caved in. They signed the Amazon contract.

Tuesday, April 1, 2008, 10:34 AM - According to a statement posted to a Lulu forum by a Lulu employee, it looks like Lulu signed the Amazon contract.

Monday, March 31, 2008, 9:15 PM - A reader has alerted us that the PublishAmerica and Whiskey Creek Press "buy" buttons have not been turned off at the amazon.co.uk site, perhaps because the anti-trust laws are more stringent in the U.K.

Monday, March 31, 2008, 7:53 PM - Ex-Amazon Catalog Developer, Glenn Fleishman, takes a red pencil to the statement Amazon issued today. See his comment under THIS ARTICLE.

Monday, March 31, 2008, 5:10 PM - Angela Hoy tried to reach Bob Young at Lulu this morning. His secretary said he would call at 4:00 PM. She called Angela after 4:00, and said he wasn't available, but agreed to put her through to Gale Jordan, Lulu's Director of Public Relations. Gale Jordan said she would try to have the Vice President contact her. She called back a few minutes later to say he was not available (that he was on a plane). She then basically said they wouldn't be able to give us a statement before Angela's deadline. She asked if anyone could talk to her tomorrow morning. Jordan said no, that they were all out of town at a remote location. Angela asked if they really couldn't talk to her or if Lulu just didn't want to comment. Jordan said, "A little of both. We're just not going to comment."

Angela left a message on John Feldcamp's (Xlibris) voicemail today. He has not returned her call.

Angela left a message on Kevin Weiss's (AuthorHouse/iUniverse) assistant's voicemail today. He has not yet returned her call.

An AuthorHouse author contacted Angela today and said he was told by his AuthorHouse representative that AuthorHouse was in "intensive negotiations with Amazon." I can't, of course, confirm that is true, but the silence from these big three POD publishers speaks volumes.

Monday, March 31, 2008, 4:10 PM - Amazon.com has released an official statement about their actions HERE.

It basically just rehashes what you already know, but puts a pretty spin on things from their end.

They rationalize they can ship books faster. Our printer, Lightning Source, ships books to Amazon's customers directly, even using an Amazon.com return address sticker. They rationalize they can ship items together to save money, and that doing this saves transportation costs and fuel. What they don't tell you is that forcing a publisher to pay Amazon to print their book, plus setup fees for new books, plus 48% of each sale could and probably will mean higher list prices on books and, thus, less money in the customers' pockets, less money in the publishers' and authors' pockets...but more money in Amazon's pocket.

Furthermore, Amazon has, according to Wikipedia, 10 distribution centers in North America alone; and 14 more abroad. Are they currently printing print-on-demand books in each of those centers? I don't think so. So, their "save money/time by packaging POD books with other products" rationale appears to have a few glaring holes in it.

If Amazon can't currently print POD books at all its distribution warehouses, why are they telling POD publishers to sign that contract NOW?

Notice they left out the setup fees ($50 for new titles), the printing costs, and the 48% they want from each sale. In fact, there's no mention of fees at all in the statement. They also don't mention that the average publishing package for authors at Booksurge is over $1,000.

Also, regarding the Advantage Program, they left out the fact that publishers/authors have to pay $29.95 per year, PLUS shipping costs to get the books to Amazon, PLUS 55% of each sale to Amazon. They don't seem too concerned with shipping and fuel expenses for this part of the statement, probably because the publisher has to pay for those.

Finally, they, of course, don't mention the past quality control problems experienced by Booksurge. If a customer gets a book with missing or upside down pages, who's going to get the blame? Not Amazon, that's for sure. The publisher will get the backlash for that.

What do you think about Amazon's official statement, readers?

Monday, March 31, 2008 - We have heard from more than one source that tomorrow, April 1, 2008, is the deadline that some POD publishers to sign the contract with Amazon/Booksurge, or risk having their buy buttons removed from Amazon.com

ATTN: AuthorHouse/iUniverse, Xlibris and Lulu - DO NOT CAVE IN!!! Join the proud and strong POD publishers who have refused to be bullied into paying Amazon to print their books! If you submit to this horrible action, you may hurt yourselves and your authors, and do a grave injustice to the entire industry!

Sunday, March 30, 2008: Somebody started an online petition to combat Amazon's actions here. Please sign it online to show your support. (Note: Donations are NOT required by that site to sign the petition.)

Saturday, March 29, 2008 - Whiskey Creek Press is a traditional publisher that uses POD technology. We were alerted by one of their authors that they appear to be the latest Amazon/BookSurge "buy" button victim. We checked and it appears numerous Whiskey Creek Press print books are now only available through resellers. The Kindle versions are, of course, still for sale directly through Amazon.

Friday, March 28, 2008 - As of Thursday, the "buy" buttons for the vast majority of PublishAmerica books were removed from Amazon.com. The books can now only be purchased by resellers.

PublishAmerica issued a press release today that states, "PublishAmerica will not comply with Amazon's ultimatum, and will not allow that company to dictate who will print PublishAmerica's books, and at what conditions."

New Articles:

(last updated: 05/14 at 6:20 AM Eastern)

Amazon Demands BookSurge by Garrett Edward Godwin

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discussion count - 24 [jump to list]