The Nation: the Amazon Effect

[BeccaPrice]

http://www.thenation.com/article/168125/amazon-effect

on the whole, an anti-Amazon piece, including a slide show on 10 reasons not to shop at Amazon.

ETA: well, the link I got said there was such a slide show, but I didn't see the link to it in the article. It seems to be here though.

[morantis]

Last week someone came in the house with something about Chinese cows and why not to eat at McDonald's. There will always be some reason not to shop at some place, in the end it will end up being run your own farm and small manufacturing plant.

[fjtorres]

The Passive voice has a link and a very good commentary on the article:
http://www.thepassivevoice.com/06/20...fect/#comments

One of the ways that Manhattan-based observers of Amazon are blinded to its benefits is that the parts of New York inhabited by the literati are (or were until recently) filled with lovely bookstores. If you’re in the publishing business or are an agent or author or book critic, you go to bookstores a lot and interact with the owners/managers to see what’s going on. Unconsciously, you assume others do the same thing and are as fascinated with book retailing as you are. And, of course, New Yorkers are famously (proudly?) ignorant about the rest of the nation, particularly fly-over states.

The idea that readers in Wichita or Montgomery or St. Cloud or any of thousands of other cities can’t walk a few blocks to a bookstore doesn’t sink in. The idea that, if a bookstore is reasonably available, it’s a horrible store that doesn’t carry the books an intelligent reader may want never rises to any level of consciousness.

The idea that a Wichita reader might not be interested in the same sorts of books that sell like hotcakes on the Upper West Side may be intellectually acknowledged, but probably doesn’t affect a lot of decisions about which books to publish. Who really cares about Wichita anyway?

In essence, the customers who traditional publishing serves best live in New York.

The Comments are also very good.

[plib]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

In essence, the customers who traditional publishing serves best live in New York.

There appears to be at least one who lives in Washington.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by plib

There appears to be at least one who lives in Washington.

The Washington book scene is dead to me since they let MOONSTONE BOOKCELLARS go away.

[Harry_Y]

Well I'll just have to help take up the slack and order more

[xg4bx]

not to get political but from reading some of the other headlines methinks the nation comes from a 'workers of the world unite' worldview and aren't fans of many businesses so their disliking of successful capitalism like amazon is no surprise. when their reasons not to shop at amazon are because they were members of a conservative, pro-business group, they fight unionization, and they're 'too big',that tells me all i need to know about this particular news organ. they have a political agenda against amazon, nothing more.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by xg4bx

not to get political but from reading some of the other headlines methinks the nation comes from a 'workers of the world unite' worldview and aren't fans of many businesses so their disliking of successful capitalism like amazon is no surprise. when their reasons not to shop at amazon are because they were members of a conservative, pro-business group, they fight unionization, and they're 'too big',that tells me all i need to know about this particular news organ. they have a political agenda against amazon, nothing more.

Well, yes; they are a "tad" to the left... six light-years to the left of Dennis Kucinich, say.
But they are "genteel" leftists. No frothing at the mouth, Howard Dean style, is allowed. They don't run at you with axes and molotails; they just let it slip to all proper-thinking well-bred folks that you are an ill-bred money-grubbing alien and no self-respecting person should be caught dead dealing with Amazon. It's just not...correct.

I'm sure that the article has cost Amazon sales, too.
At least six. Maybe seven.

Note that they also despise money-grubbing chain retailers, big publishers, genre readers, and fans of "so-called literary fiction".