Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Sorry, but I disagree. It's Amazon's store - they can set whatever rules they want (within the law) for people who wish to sell their books there. No publisher is being forced to sell their books through Amazon; if they don't like the terms, they can walk away and sell their books elsewhere.
|
And I DIS-disagree! Look, the Kindle format is closely derived from Mobipocket, so there's no 'super-secret' procedure there. Also, the printer does nothing to ensure that the ebooks are properly formatted. Further, Amazon *has* sold ebooks in the past (other than Kindle) and has not demanded that those ebooks be from titles printed by their BookSurge printers. Nor does Amazon insist that the larger publishers give up current printers for BookSurge. Thus Amazon has no real legs to stand on.
Nope, it's just trying to bully the small publishers into giving it a higher profit margin - quite possibly through 'finders fees' incentives from BookSurge if that is a completely separate entity, or through gouging a higher per-copy price from the small publishers if BookSurge is owned by Amazon.
Whatever is the case, this is truly sordid behavior by Amazon.
Yes, we can dress it up in fine clothes, put on beautiful makeup and give it voice lessons far beyond what Henry Higgins would have done, but it's still a warthog trying to masquerade as a princess.
Derek