This report from The Guardian had me baffled. It roughly goes like this: George Walker is the author of the children's book Tales from an Airfield, a book that has been doing well at the bookshops. But George Walker " ... was horrified to find that his new title was featured on the site without his permission." Then he is quoted as saying, "What they are actually doing is getting the independents to do their market research ... When a book gets a certain amount of attention, they will attempt to stock it and cut the independents out. Not with my book".
An Amazon spokesman is quote as saying: "It's an incredibly unusual situation. We usually find that the millions of authors and many thousands of publishers who have books listed on the site are absolutely thrilled to see them".
Then Mr Walker, who self-published Tales from an Airfield says: "We take a very long-term view of this ... We have taken a stand to support local bookshops - that's how we want to sell our book."
The Forum of Private Business (FPB) has congratulated children's author George Walker for standing up to Amazon.com.
Hmm. I still don't get it. What am I missing here?
The argument that the Author is standing by is this: In ten years time we are not going to see an independent bookshop survive due to the buying power of the big companies. Thus the book 'Tales form an Airfield' is given to the indipendent retailers to give them some buying power over the large stores. George Walker states that if the book doesn't sell over a long term period, he will fold his end of the business rather then sell it to the likes of Waterstones and Amazon. It may be a moral/ethical argument rather then a business one, but one to make a person think about who gets our hard earned cash in the end.
ReplyDeleteActually being sold by big companies mean that you'll get big reputation and of course the bigger your reputation is then more big companies are willing to sign you. In other words, you make millions baby!
ReplyDeleteThis Baby doesn't need millions to make a point! It's about time people started to think out side their box and make a stand against companies who want to rail road small businesses. Take care Honey!
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