This article only hints at it vaguely:
Quote:
|
their budgets will be under further pressure if they have to concede larger discounts to Amazon and pay for 'services'.
|
"Services" in quotations is the key item. A subtle attempt to dismiss the things Amazon wants to be be compensated for as imaginary, or not really services at all.
This article from Melville House takes a similar approach (and claims to have even
more anonymous "insider" details): calling things like the pre-order system "standard." Amazon's inhouse dedicated Hachette employee is also apparently "standard."
You can't have it both ways. Either the pre-order system (and other services) provided by Amazon is vital, valuable and negotiable; or it's not and you can live without it. Judging by how authors and pundits on social media have been
screaming about just how important Amazon's preorders are for the welfare of a new book, I'm going with valuable.
If you
can't live without the service, and someone else is providing it
for you, they're eventually going to ask you to pay for it.
Clearly, Hachette relies heavily on Amazon's preorders to get an idea of how many initial copies to print. That's not an imaginary service. It has value. A value that's negotiable. So negotiate it. Don't scream "we needs it, but we're not going to pays for it!"