I'll bookmark this for when I'm buying from Amazon again.

Currently, though, they're on the "do not get my money" list because they've recently pulled a Microsoft-like stunt and are demanding that all POD publishers break the contracts they have with Lightning Source to have their books printed by Amazon-owned BookSurge or they'll turn off the BUY buttons on the book listings on Amazon.com.

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You used too many words on me there. What's with publishing pods and lightning rods? The booksurge is working?

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Heh. POD is print-on-demand. Amazon bought out a print-on-demand company called BookSurge a few years ago, and started using it in earnest last year. Lightning Source has been the major printer for print-on-demand companies to put their books in retail sites like Amazon for years, and almost everyone has contracts with them.

Amazon is now demanding that any print-on-demand company who wants to have their books buyable through Amazon *must* use BookSurge for their printer instead of Lightning Source -- anyone using Lightning Source will have the Buy buttons for all their books disabled on Amazon.com.

Now, BookSurge doesn't put your books on any site *but* Amazon -- Lightning Source still needs to be your printer for Barnes and Noble, etc -- so essentially if you give in you have to pay Amazon/BookSurge *on top of* what you pay Lightning Source -- to get no extra benefit. Just because Amazon decided it could use its position as a bookseller to force everyone to use its printer too.

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Ugh. I hope authors can pressure them to quit. I don't know what kind of leverage could be applied though.

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I hope so too, but Amazon's big enough they think they can get away with it, and they may be right. All I can do is what I am doing -- taking my money elsewhere for the duration. I'm sure Barnes and Noble and my local stores could use the support anyway.

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