Perhaps you’ve heard. Amazon is strong-arming small publishing who employ POD technology to use their POD program if they want to sell print editions on Amazon. It reminds me of a certain type of “businessman” who used to tell neighborhood restaurants exactly who would pick up their trash and supply their linen service.
Publishers Weekly supplied a response from Ingrams, Amazon main POD competitor, and I have to say, John Ingram certainly has my respect. Not only is he tempered in his response, but his company thought to actively recruit small publishers to the POD model by providing a program that provided meaningful and bottom-line worthy benefits.
I’m not about to tell you whether or not to buy from Amazon, but I’ve provided additional on-line bookstores that carry Inequities — Barnes and Noble, Borders, Powell’s. You can decide how you feel about this matter and how you want to address it.
And as an FYI, let me point you to this Teleread entry. It’s a solid summary and quite elucidating.