Oh…bad call, Amazon

shilohwalker 30 January, 2010

edited to add… if you want a break down for an outsider pov (somebody not in the publishing biz) here’s a good run down

So Amazon’s gone and removed a bunch of Macmillan books from Amazon.  You can still buy from 3rd party vendors but a lot of those are used.   I tend to buy new, especially if I’m buying to keep, because I want the books in good shape, and I want to support my friends, and the authors I love to read who may or may not be friends.

MacMillan is one of the ‘big’ pubs.

Who does MacMillan publish?

Authors like Lora Leigh.

Her SEAL books?  Gone from amazon. You can buy them from 3rd party vendors, but you can’t preorder the new ones or order the current books new, either.  Like here.

Wildcard

Lorie O’Clare’s

Tall Dark and Deadly, another casualty

Somebody else?

Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dark Hunter books.  Yep.  You can buy them from 3rd party.  But preordering?  Nope.

Other authors include Lisa Kleypas, PC Cast, Janet Evanovich, SJ Day, CT Adams & Cathy Clamp, Cheyenne McCray, Andre Norton, and Charles de Lint, plus many, many, many more.

There’s some sticky business going on now between Amazon and the pub(s), pricing and politics and crap, and if Amazon decides “Well, if we can’t sell the ebooks, then we won’t play at all,” that’s their call.  But I think it’s a bad move.  For one, readers like using them, and readers like preordering from them, and readers like having their books from their fave authors available to them… and now they don’t have the option of using Amazon.  I don’t think that’s a bad thing for the other bookstores out there-I tend to use Borders and BN or a local indie, myself, but still.  If a reader has easy access to the books they want to buy, in the end, that’s what counts.

Witholding the books from the Kindle-no, not surprised, although I don’t think it’s necessarily wise-ideally, a better option should have been found and I guess with some competiton coming onto the market, things are going to get shaken up.

But Amazon’s supposed to be a business… and really, as a business, how does it serve them to remove all MacMillan books from their store?  How does it serve their customers to make it impossible for their customers to preorder the books they want?

Readers want to contact Amazon?  Voice your concerns?  You’re the ones they are going to listen to in this case.

Here’s where you can contact them-you do need an amazon account.  Contact Amazon

Edited to add…
And in the meantime, if you do like to preorder, or you’ve got a book you need and you can’t find it on Amazon? Don’t forget, you can order from

Amazon’s handy, but they aren’t the only game in town.  Hopefully, this mess gets straightened out quick.