11.13.12
Rebellion against the Empire of Bezos
From the Washington Post, and others, news that many are as sick of Jeff Bezos and Amazon as this blog:
“Care of Wooden Floors,??? by Will Wiles, is the kind of novel you’d expect to see on a “staff picks??? shelf at an independent bookstore. A slim but sophisticated farce by a relatively unknown author, the book is full of witty asides and snappy comments about modern life; its wry, endearingly hapless narrator feels like he might have stepped out of a Nick Hornby story.
But many local stores, both independents and chains, are refusing to stock it. They don’t want to promote what they see as a predatory publisher. [Amazon].
Earlier this year the two companies signed a licensing agreement whereby Amazon Publishing acquires, edits, markets and publicizes books that are then distributed by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s sales force, according to Alexandra Woodworth, a publicist for Amazon/New Harvest. The partnership was an effort to woo bookstores into stocking Amazon-published books. But many booksellers are balking.
“We don’t want to do anything that will support their publishing venture,??? said Mark LaFramboise, chief buyer for Politics & Prose in Washington …
“[Amazon] pretty much want nothing more than our demise.??? LaFramboise told the Post.
The bookseller boycott of Amazon titles may be working.
The Post reported:
According to Nielsen BookScan, fewer than 1,000 copies of the [Willes] book had been sold as of last week. “My Mother Was Nuts,??? Penny Marshall’s memoir, which New Harvest [the Amazon imprint] published Sept. 18, sold just 7,000 copies in its first month, despite a reported $800,000 advance; Jessica Valenti’s “Why Have Kids?,??? released by New Harvest on Sept. 4, has sold 1,000.
Why you should have nothing to do with Jeff Bezos and Amazon — from the archives.