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LATEST BLOW TO BOOK INDUSTRY


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LATEST BLOW TO BOOK INDUSTRY

 

 

 

Update- 3/31/2020 - “A” has ordered a few books from a publisher I know, one tenth of their usual order.

There is no such thing as a “kind” slave master. Sell your books through your own website.

 

 

 

Hello from Amazon,

 

 

 

We are closely monitoring the developments of COVID-19 and its impact on our customers, selling partners, and employees.

 

 

 

We are seeing increased online shopping, and as a result products such as household staples and medical supplies are out of stock. With this in mind, we are temporarily prioritizing household staples, medical supplies, and other high demand products coming into our fulfillment centers so that we can more quickly receive, restock and deliver these products to customers.

 

 

 

Beginning today you will see:

  • Reduced Purchase Orders: We have temporarily paused ordering for products that are not household staples, medical supplies, or other high demand products.
  • Extended delivery windows for existing purchase orders: We have extended the shipment/delivery windows for some existing purchase orders to give you more time to fulfill the order. Please ship your products toward the end of the extended window.

 

 

 

This will be in effect today through April 5, 2020, and we will let you know once we resume regular operations.

We understand this is a change to your business, and we did not take this decision lightly. We are working around the clock to increase capacity, and on March 16 announced that we are opening 100,000 new full- and part-time positions in our fulfillment centers across the US.

 

 

 

We appreciate your understanding as we prioritize the above products for our customers.

 

 

 

Thank you for your patience,

Amazon

 

 (Okay, Troy and Mel, you were right. It is a tag. But the box with the pull up menu is on this screen, it's not on the other one.)

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You beat me to the punch @Wendy Jones i was gonna share this today.

 

Amazon's effective monopoly over the sale of independenly published Black books is now they can decide when it is important to stock, sell, and ship them. 

 

As long as USPS, UPS, FEDEX, and any number of other delivery services are out there AALBC, nor any other bookseller, has to slow down your book delivery.

 

Amazon stocking fewer books and delaying delivery is only a problem for authors because they put all their eggs in one basket -- Amazon's

 

I'm still doing three day delivery on the books in my store and im getting more customers everyday.

 

 

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I am in complete agreement with you.

 

Why did booksellers, writers, and independent publishers decide to hand their power over to one distributor?

 

When "B" started the business he said that he was going to destroy the book business first.

 

He said it would be easy, because it was full of English Majors.

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16 hours ago, Wendy Jones said:

When "B" started the business he said that he was going to destroy the book business first.

 

He said it would be easy, because it was full of English Majors.

 

Oh Snap!!!

On 3/31/2020 at 10:53 PM, Wendy Jones said:

 (Okay, Troy and Mel, you were right. It is a tag. But the box with the pull up menu is on this screen, it's not on the other one.)


@Wendy Jones and @Troy I don't see it but I will keep looking.

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  • 3 weeks later...

A meaningless gesture. It literarlly takes Amazon less than 30 seconds to generate $250K. Bezos' personal net worth has increased by that much in the time it took me to read the article and write this post.

 

I hope those booksellers are not silly enough to think amazon is their friend. Drug dealers occasionally hand out money to the people in communities they help destroy too.

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A wolf in sheep's clothing is still a wolf.

 

In 1892, during the Homestead, PA, strike against Carnegie's steel company, women and children were killed by Pinkerton guards when they joined the strikers to support  their sons, brothers, spouses, and fathers. Carnegie--in his native Scotland at the time--hired the Pinkertons guards and Henry Clay Frick ordered them to shoot into the crowd. 

 

When Carnegie began funding libraries in small towns, which would then be named after him--the industrialist now turned philanthropist--many would not accept the money. The towns did not want his "blood money" and insisted on raising money for their libraries themselves. 

 

You don't have to be a New Yorker to have heard of Carnegie Hall and the Frick Museum. Even if, as a friend of mine says who worked for the Carnegie Endowment, in later life Carnegie saw the error of his ways, it should not mean that what he did to make the money he gave away should not be forgotten.

 

Tell both sides of the story. The same is true of "A."

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8 hours ago, Wendy Jones said:

When Carnegie began funding libraries in small towns, which would then be named after him--the industrialist now turned philanthropist--many would not accept the money

 

Interesting. I did not know this.

 

Imagine what a powerful statement it would have been if Amazon's money was rejected. I can however understand why'd they would take it. I definitely would have kept them anonymous. Revealing who they were played right into their hands.

 

Amazon made an investment. 

-------

Amazon has a grocery store near where I teach. There are no cashiers. You swipe in pick up what you want and are automatically billed.

 

Amazon has a physical bookstore not too far away. No booksellers, very few Black books, and steps aways from a Borders bookstore that shut down.

 

There are several Wholefoods nearby including one in Harlem...

 

Amazon will not stop until they are the only place you can by anything.

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Today I attended Independent Book Publishing Association's Annual meeting remotely. In the open forum, I asked if IBPA could wean writers away from "A." Considering what happened at Christmas time with delayed orders and the "non-essential" designation during

this time of the corona virus I thought it should be a priority.

 

The head of the organization asked for members to comment before she gave her opinion. There was dead silence from the other 106 members at the meeting. 

 

The head of the organization then said that IBPA had prevented "A" from using Audible caption on books not in the public domain. True, this was a victory. But reacting to each outrage one by one is not as effective as not using them at all. She then went on to say that IBPA  encourages members to "diversify, diversify, diversify" and pointed to an article that one of the members had written. This is true.  She continued that the association could not tell members which distribution channel to use.

 

Another panelist said that if you did business with "A" you were "restricted in the way you talked about them." She added that they had the best lawyers around.

 

The next question was from a member asking if IBPA could set up a committee to study "A"'s algorithms. That did it for me.

 

In the chat, I asked if a webinar could be given to let members know about alternatives to "A." I have taken two webinars in which the presenters stressed that trying to get an appearance on "Oprah" or a review in the "New York Times" is probably not likely, but your local station or newspaper is a more realistic possibility. In other words, there are other options. I didn't stay to have an after discussion with the panelists on this issue because I hadn't eaten and didn't think I could continue to be diplomatic.

 

The head of the organization had not read aloud my comments comparing "A" to enslavement. Probably considering them too inflammatory.

 

As for taking "A''s money, this is the stuff novels and plays are made of. Do you stand on principle and go bankrupt or do you take the money and stay in business?

 

Saying no does not just involve the owner. The business has employees and those employees have families.

Taking the money and letting them stay anonymous means probably not making negative comments about them. You took the money didn't you?

 

What would I do? I don't know. If I were writing this, I'd have a scene where the owner is going to give in because of her concern for the employees and their families, and they refuse to let her. They raise some money, but not as much as if they had taken the "blood money."

 

But they end with their integrity.

 

There is nothing that upsets wealthy people more than finding out that everyone does not have a price, that money can't buy everyone.

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7 hours ago, Wendy Jones said:

I asked if IBPA could wean writers away from "A."

 

I'm not surprised at all by the silence in reaction to this question. Several years ago the strongest critics to to the idea of an all out boycott of Amazon came from indie authors.

 

Many indie authors are beholden to Amazon. In fact they have given Anazon the exclusive right to sell books. Even if they haven't given Amazon exclusivity, Amazon published their book and the terms to other booksellers are so bad it is not profitable for other booksellers to sell their books.

 

Now if you posed that question in a room full of booksellers with physcial bookstores you would not have been able to shut anyone up.

 

I think one solution is helping readers who buy books to buy from anyone but Amazon.

 

The other problem is that too many indie booksellers use Amazon's marketplace to sell books. Unless this stops Amazon's virtual monopoly will grow stronger. They won't stop because these booksellers would be out of business without Amazon's platform.

 

Ultimately, the only solution is a boycott of Amazon. I'm boycotting them and I know others who are too.

 

Talk to you later this afternoon Wendy.

 

I was thinking about creating a drop squad to deal with Black booksellers who sell books on Amazon. 🙂

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  • 2 months later...
On 4/2/2020 at 6:05 PM, Troy said:

OK it must be a feature of a "club" which is slightly different than the discussion forums.

I thought so too @Troy .  When you click on the tag, however, it pulls up all the tagged discussions.   Please share with me how to use the tag feature.  I'd like to use the tags to include topical threads.

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