Doug Preston is an author who has mobilized many hundreds of other authors to sign a petition to stop Amazon’s monopolistic practices. Here is the letter that Preston wrote to the Amazon board of directors, along with the names of the authors who signed the letter. As you may have read, Amazon is in a dispute with publisher Hachette. To break Hachette’s will, Amazon has been raising the prices of its books and delaying shipment. But when the author of a Hachette book was Republican Congressman Paul Ryan, none of those punitive tactics were applied. Most of those who signed his petition are not Hachette authors; they are authors who hate to see Amazon harassing a publisher, even as it drives physical bookstores out of existence. The owner of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, is also owner of the Washington Post.
Doug Preston’s latest letter:
Dear Author,
I wanted to bring your attention to an important piece written by Franklin Foer, editor of the New Republic, which will be the cover story in the magazine this week. This article puts the Hachette/Amazon dispute in the broadest historical and humanistic context.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119769/amazons-monopoly-must-be-broken-radical-plan-tech-giant
Our own letter to the Department of Justice is still in preparation. This is a critical initiative involving a number of people and a lot of research. We are partnering with the Authors Guild in this effort. Working together, we hope to present a viable argument, citing law, of why the Justice Department should at least look into Amazon’s market practices. We have already had several conversations with attorneys at the Antitrust Division of the DoJ, and we’ve been assured that they welcome any information we can provide. The letter we give them is a serious step and we have to make sure it is right.
When the letter is done, I will post it on our website and send you a link so you can review it. If you wish to withdraw your name, you can email me at any time, now or when the letter is posted.
Something many of us feared Amazon might be doing has now been documented–see this piece in the Times:
If you’re a powerful Congressman, it seems, Amazon will cut you a break. At least one Hachette author–Paul Ryan–doesn’t have to worry about delayed shipping, manipulated “search” results that hide his book, and short discounts.
All the best,
Doug Preston
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I am glad you are publicizing Amazon’s monopolistic agenda. While Amazon has provided access to low-cost e-books and more for many of us, it has also had unfair advantages over, and exerted unjust pressures on others, driving many retail booksellers out of business and harassing publishers that do not bow to its will. As Amazon has extended its products far beyond books, it threatens to become the Walmart of the online marketers.
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As a member of the Author’s Guild, I am aware of the Guild’s efforts to keep Amazon from harassing publishers and the spillover of those marketing practices for authors. I am patronizing my independent bookstore, a great venue for kids, seniors, and families with a quirly staff and a small cafe. I order books from them. I urge others to do the same.
An unhappy development from my point of view is that some “print on demand publishers” have signed contracts with Amazon, making that behemoth the only source for a volume.
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It’s not just Doug Preston who has an issue with Amazon. There is an article in the Opinion section of Sunday’s NY Times entitiled “Why Germans Are Afraid of Google”
By ANNA SAUERBREYOCT. 10, 2014.
“The true origin of the conflict lies in the economic culture innate to those former Silicon Valley start-ups — now giants — that are taking the European markets by storm. To create and grow an enterprise like Amazon or Uber takes a certain libertarian cowboy mind-set that ignores obstacles and rules.”
“Silicon Valley fears neither fines nor political reprimand. It invests millions in lobbying in Brussels and Berlin, but since it finds the democratic political process too slow, it keeps following its own rules in the meantime.”
She describes the Silicon Valley business model as “disruptive” and a form of capitalism that must be tamed.
Doug is facing a tsunami of corporate power and influence in his efforts to stand up to the likes of Amazon and Google. He will need perseverance and support if his efforts are to succeed.
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http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119769/amazons-monopoly-must-be-broken-radical-plan-tech-giant
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Do not buy from Amazon.
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As an author/publisher, I have been at odds with Amazon since 2002. They play that “raise the price so no one will buy the book” game very well. It’s one of the things they do if an author asks to have their book(s) removed from Amazon. (I know from personal experience.) Then they proceeded to make an ebook of that specific title without my knowledge or permission. One of the authors I represent ordered a copy of her book from Amazon to see how it would look and found that her contact information had been removed from the back of the book. That’s just the tip of the iceberg.
I already receive blog posts by Diane Ravitch via e-mail. Thank you.
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Authors and publishers aren’t the only ones being oppressed by Amazon
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-free-online-shipping-warehouses-labor?page=3
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The New Republic article is great.
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Amazon is not raising prices and delaying shipments, Hachette is. How can you expect a retailer to discount and deliver a product for which they have no guaranteed access?
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Janine, can you explain why Hachette would have any motivation not to ship books to Amazon?
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Is that what has happened? Or do you think Amazon is sitting on boxes of books refusing to send them out? But unless Amazon is the actual printer, I don’t understand how you can blame them for delaying shipping on something they don’t physically have.
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Janine, how do you know Amazon doesn’t have the books? Have you checked with them? Have you been to the warehouse? What’s the source of your certainty? If so, Hachette certainly pulled the wool over the eyes of hundreds of authors.
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“Hachette certainly pulled the wool over the eyes of hundreds of authors.”
This is true but they’ve had a lot of help from the NYT and others who have a stake in traditional publishing. Amazon does appear to be discounting Hachette titles less than other publishers’ titles. I do not think this is outrageous at all, however, since the central dispute in the negotiations is that Hachette wants to *keep Amazon from discounting ebooks entirely*.
Amazon isn’t keeping large stocks of Hachette titles. When you order a Hachette hardcover, Amazon may have to order it from Hachette to deliver it to you. That is the additional delay.
None of what Amazon has done is unreasonable in my opinion. Amazon doesn’t have a contract with Hachette. It is under no legal obligation to sell Hachette titles at all.
The dispute would be settled very quickly I think if Amazon simply delisted Hachette titles.
FYI: Foer has a book that is being sold on Amazon. Apparently his outrage does not keep him from making money there.
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CW,
Amazon is destroying bookstores across the nation as well as most other retailers. Except for ice cream.
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Why are you so convinced they do have them? Amazon has thin margins, do you really think they would purposely lose sales and pay extra storage if they didn’t have to? They are discounting and shipping Prime on some books, they are listing used books where available.
Honestly, they should just set Hachette up as a third party seller. Hachette could then directly control their own pricing and fulfillment. But then that too would require a contract.
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I find this discussion an intriguing aside to the usual more education specific content. Readers I believe will find a lot of differing opinions about the Amazon-Hachette dispute being expressed over on “The Passive Blog (A Lawyer’s Thoughts on Authors, Self-Publishing and Traditional Publishing)” (http://www.thepassivevoice.com/). Individuals there bring up the points of traditional book publishers having their own monetary interests, contract arm wrestling, and less than stellar concerns for authors. Traditional published authors also have a huge stake in maintaining the status quo.
New authors have so many hoops to go through that the new era of self publishing via Amazon, etc is the only way they can break in to the market. All of these issues, in many ways reflect the concerns that are being brought up here re money, power, and “I know the best way” that Pearson, Duncan, Gates, etc. believe is the way forward in education. At the same time, the education reformers are ignoring the real needs of children and those who have been providing for them over many years. These experienced educators can give the reformers insights that could be utilized to improve the education of all children.
Let’s hope that whether it is Amazon-Hachette, common core, or value-added model, we will be able to come up with paths through the thickets, that will resolve as much of the discontent on these issues as is possible.
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Here is the latest NYTimes article on this subject……http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/12/amazon-and-its-missing-books/?hpw&rref=technology&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpHedThumbWell&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well
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The Rest of the Story…
“If you love books then you should be rooting for Amazon, not Hachette or the Big Five”
https://gigaom.com/2014/07/02/if-you-love-books-then-you-should-be-rooting-for-amazon-not-hachette-or-the-big-five/
“If Amazon is bad, the Big Five are worse
As a number of authors have pointed out, including Hugh Howey, the biggest competitive threat in the book business isn’t the electronic retailer, it’s the Big Five publishers. They’re the ones who have tried desperately to keep book prices high — especially ebook prices — and yet continue to pay their authors a fraction of what Amazon does. As Howey says: “The culture of the Big 5, which was built by gobbling up successful small presses and rolling them into imprints, left the door wide open for Amazon, a company that dared to sell direct to consumers, innovate the way we read, and pay authors a living wage.”
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