Quote:
Originally Posted by avantman42
I suspect it's the publishers rather than Amazon that are insisting on the geo-restrictions.
In the case of Spycatcher, the UK government did try to stop people getting it in the UK, but didn't actually tell customs to seize it at the border. |
It is the publishers doing the restrictions. In some cases they don't have the author's permission to distribute (the author may have wanted to sell foreign rights separately.) When I upload a book to Amazon, as the author, I set the distribution (which is worldwide because I'm not crazy...I read these threads. What would I be waiting for???
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Publishers never had to worry much about demand in other countries because they controlled the flow--they decide what got shipped and when and negotiated different payments and rights. 'Instant' is not in their vocabulary and they aren't used to customers "seeing" a book in another country and saying "hey, why can't I read that..."