Tuesday, April 08, 2008

The Problem with Booksurge

Optimizing Amazon wants authors and publishers to "simmer down" over the strong armed tactics being used by Amazon to promote their POD publishing service... BOOK SURGE.

Here's the story:

Amazon bought POD publisher Booksurge a few years ago and Amazon has been quietly "pushing" the Booksurge PO service.

POD stands for "print on demand". Instead of publishing a book "traditionally" and printing 5,000 or more copies of the book, POD allows publishers to print books as they're sold. There are two "wholesale" options for POD publishing... INGRAM and BOOKSURGE.

Publishers who use INGRAM's services are able to offer POD books for sale via traditional book stores. For example, if you went into Barnes and Nobles and ordered my book Beyond Niche Marketing, Barnes and Nobles could order the book from Ingram and have it delivered to your local Barnes and Noble store in a relatively timely fashion.

Had I chosen Booksurge as my POD printer, that would NOT be an option. Any book buyer who tried to purchase my book through Barnes and Noble would be told it wasn't available. UGH!

That's one problem with Booksurge. The other problem is actually bigger. Authors and publishers who have used Booksurge are often barraged with complaints about the book quality. Frequent issues include pages being printed upside down, pages which fall out of the book and covers that are printed off center are frequent complaints.

Now remember, when Booksurge prints your book, their name doesn't appear ANYWHERE on the book. Your publisher's name appears and some readers will voice their complaints about the book's quality there... but the number one place to complain about a book's quality is... you guess it.... to the author whose name appears LOUD AND PROUD on the book's cover.

Which is why authors and publishers, in general, have chosen NOT to use Booksurge for POD publishing.

The beauty of a free market is that publishers and authors have a CHOICE in the POD publishing service they used.

However, Amazon has decided to embrace "strong armed tactics" to force publishers to use their POD publishing service. Angela Hoy reports on her Writer's Weekly website
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."
So that's the deal. Booksurge does a CRAPPY job of providing POD publishing services. Instead of fixing the problems with Booksurge, Amazon has decided to flex it's retail muscle and threaten authors and publishers with the removal of the buy button if they don't use Booksurge.

There is no promise of better service or better quality... just the threat that your number one sales channel will be shut down if you don't use the service.

Here's a list of over 100 sites reporting on the story. Visit the post at Easy Author Websites to add yours to the list.

  1. A New Amazon Mandate? Say it ain’t so, Jeff by Morris Rosenthal
  2. Amazon Forcing POD Publishers to Make a Hard Decision, Virtualbookworm
  3. Amazon Tightens Grip on Printing by Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, Wall Street Journal
  4. Amazon Tightens Noose on Print-On-Demand Publishers; Insists They Use Company’s Own Service by Rafat Ali, The Washington Post
  5. Amazon to Force POD Publishers to Use BookSurge by Jim Milliot, Publishers Weekly
  6. Amazon changes rules for print-on-demand publishers by Linda Rosencrance, Computerworld
  7. Amazon pulls a Microsoft by Robert L. Mitchell, Computerworld Blogs
  8. Amazon Puts the Squeeze on Publishers by Betsy Schiffman, Wired Blog Network
  9. Amazon Gets Demanding with Print-on-Demand Publishers, O’Reilly Radar
  10. Amazon.com puts the screws to small publishers, Valleywag
  11. Amazon’s POD monopoly, booktwo.org
  12. Is Amazon Getting Greedy? , open…
  13. Oh, REAL nice, Amazon.com, Beatlegirl’s Blog
  14. Market Report — In Play,MSN Money
  15. Amazon Muscles Print-On-Demand Services by Duncan Riley, TechCrunch
  16. Amazon & BookSurge, words count
  17. Urgent News for Authors, The Holistic Writer
  18. Monopoly - It’s Not A Game by Jean-Marie Hershey, Print CEO Blog
  19. Of oil lamps, Print on Demand, and e-book machines: Amazon’s Bezos as a would-be Rockefeller by David Rothman
  20. Deal Breaker? Amazon - BookSurge - POD - No Choice?, Workboxers
  21. Amazon.com’s POD land grab, BookFinder.com Journal
  22. Amazon Changes POD Tactics, Removes Velvet Gloves by Kassia Krozser, Booksquare
  23. Amazon The Monopoly, PersonaNonData
  24. Amazon Muscles Print-On-Demand Services, web2bite.com
  25. Use BookSurge or Die? by Victoria Strauss, Writer Beware
  26. Amazon/Golliath takes on the little guys by Helen Gallagher, Release Your Writing
  27. Amazon Bullies POD to Use Booksurge — or Else., Shadowhelm’s Journal
  28. Amazon Says It Will Only Sell Print-On-Demand Books That It Gets To Print, Techdirt
  29. Amazon deletes competition, LibraryThing
  30. What’s Amazon Up To Now? by Tawny Taylor
  31. Amazon Shaking the POD World Big Time, Juno Books
  32. A hearty “F$%k you!” to Amazon by Elf M. Sternberg
  33. A Call to Bloggers: Stop Supporting Amazon, Inhabitatio Dei
  34. Amazon to Force POD Publishers to Use BookSurge, Media Mensch
  35. Self Publishers and Amazon, Writerly Stuff
  36. Amazon Tightens Grip On Printing, booktrade.info
  37. Amazon to Block Other POD Services from Using Amazon Marketplace, Dear Author
  38. Amazon trying to screw small presses?, lupabitch
  39. Dear Amazon, What are You Thinking? by Monica Valentinelli, Words on the Water
  40. Will Amazon Hurt Small Pagan Publishers?, The Wild Hund
  41. Amazon and us by Gill Polack
  42. Will Amazon Become the Google of the POD Industry? by Deborah Woehr
  43. Down with The Zon! by Celia Kyle
  44. Beyond the POD grab: The IDPF should fight Amazon’s new eBabel, look for anti-trust violations, and reach out to Google by David Rothman, TeleRead
  45. Amazon blocking books of competitive publishers?, electronista
  46. We are not amused–veinglory, PODPeople
  47. Bully on the block?, The Pearlsong Letter
  48. The monopolists: You need to worry about Amazon too by Eion Purcell
  49. Amazon owns the marketplace: return of the distributor, Thudfactor
  50. Is Amazon trying to monopolize the empowering Publish-On-Demand market?, Chris Boese’s Weblog
  51. 500 pound gorilla, Idle musings of a bookseller
  52. Bye-Bye “Buy Buttons” for POD Authors?, The Backroom at Dehanna.com
  53. Amazon Making a Big Mistake by Cheryl Pickett
  54. Amazon to force POD publishers to use Booksurge, Murder by 4
  55. Amazon.com’s dirty little deed, pds_lit
  56. Amazon’s Stupid Anti-Competitive Move, Principled Profit
  57. Amazon Bullying POD Writers and Publishers Unfairly, A-ha
  58. A Call to Bloggers: Stop Supporting Amazon, Resurrection Life
  59. Amazon.com Is On Drugs, Thought Patterns
  60. Amazon launches their weapon of mass destruction, steps on the long tail of independent authors by Mark Riffey
  61. Amazon puts the Squeeze on POD Publishers by Easy Author Web Sites
  62. An Important Lesson from Amazon on How NOT to Treat Your Customers by Virtual Impax
  63. Backlash Over Amazon Monopoly Tactics by Deborah Woehr
  64. Amazon plus BookSurge WTF?, by AuthorNation.com
  65. Just Remember Amazon.com that karma is a beautiful thing, by Jupiter Gardens
  66. Amazon Trying to Screw Small Press by Lupabitch
  67. Amazonian bullying, Satima’s Blogspot
  68. Amazon May be on Receiving End of Internet Justice, Small Business Trends
  69. Amazon Situation Continues and Lesson #1, The Publishing Answers Blog
  70. Amazon Chaos by Marshall S. Thomas
  71. That Amazon decision, PETRONA
  72. POD Publishers Told to Sell Directly Through Amazon, They Have to Use Booksurge, PublishersLunch
  73. Maybe Amazon’s problem is obvious?, The Snoozeletter
  74. No longer an Amazon customer, The Books of My Numberless Dreams
  75. Are They Nuts? by Heather S. Ingemar
  76. Amazon not playing fair, Synthstuff
  77. Amazon attempting to squeeze POD industry, Terry Heaton’s PoMo Blog
  78. Amazon.com Takes On Digital Book Printers, Graphic Arts Online
  79. Boycott Amazon!, PlainTalk
  80. Amazon.com Hates Small Press? by JM, Fiction Scribe
  81. Telling the 900-pound Gorilla Where not to Sit, Quaker Pagan Reflections
  82. Dear Amazon, What are You Thinking by Words on the Water
  83. Amazon punishes Bloomsbury on terms Publishing News
  84. POD Publishers Outraged by Amazon’s New Restrictions by Law X
  85. Amazon to Force POD Publisher to Use BookSurge by Publisher’s Weekly
  86. Do Not Panic…yet by DIY Publishing
  87. Calls to boycott Amazon over greedy, bully-boy tactics on POD by the Red Ferret Journal
  88. Amazon to force POD authors to use BookSurge by WWG Blog
  89. POD Publishers Outraged by Amazon’s New Restrictions by Law Librarian Blog
  90. POD Publishing by Tim Wordstall
  91. Amazon coercing publishers to use Book Surge? by right reading
  92. Amazon.com’s New POD Policy by Forensics and Faith
  93. Is Amazon Seeking to Dominate Small Presses? by Wandering Author
  94. Amazon puts squeeze on book self-publishers by Social Media
  95. Amazon/BookSurge Issue by Vixen Writer
  96. Amazon.com Telling POD Publishers… by Pete Ashton
  97. The Eight Hundred Pound Gorilla by Daily Brief
  98. Amazon May be on Receiving End of Internet Justice by Small Business Trends
  99. BookSurge: The Good, The Bad, and The Downright Ugly by the Writer’s Buzz
  100. POD hardball … by Prester Frank
  101. Continuing to Update the Amazon/BookSurge Story by Julie’s Web Journal
  102. Amazon Flexes Its Market Muscle by Dear Author
  103. Amazon.com Telling POD Publishers - Let BookSurge Print Your Books, or Else… by Red Wolf
  104. Amazon as Standard Oil: Jeff D. Rockefeller’s telephone crew in action against POD competitors by Teleread
  105. Amazon not playing fair by Synthstuff
  106. Amazon attempting to squeeze POD industry by Terry Heaton’s PoMo Blog
  107. More on Amazon and POD publishing in More Words Deeper Hole
  108. Amazon Deals Blow to POD Companies by A Writer’s Life



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