Washington AG Says Talk to Feds About Amazon and BookSurge

I got this emailed response from the Washington State Attorney General’s office in response to my concern about Amazon’s change in policy regarding how they will handle books not printed by their own POD printer BookSurge:

Dear Ms. Wayman:

The Washington Attorney General’s Antitrust Division has received many complaints regarding the new “print on demand” or “POD” policy recently implemented by Amazon.com. We want to thank all of those who have brought this matter to our attention and who have provided information and insight into the questions. We appreciate the concerns that have been expressed.

We have reviewed each of these complaints and we have contacted Amazon to explore the concerns that have been raised. Amazon responded to our inquiry by directing us to a publicly posted “Open Letter to Interested Parties” in which they describe their new policy.

The “Open Letter to Interested Parties” is posted on the Internet at http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-printondemand. Some of the complaints that we have received state that Amazon is refusing to sell books printed by Lightning Source or other POD publishers, and will only sell POD books printed by BookSurge. In its “Open Letter to Interested Parties”, Amazon addresses this question:

Do I need to switch completely to having my POD titles printed at Amazon?

No, there is no request for exclusivity. Any publisher can use Amazon’s POD service just for those units that ship from Amazon and continue to use a different POD service provider for distribution through other channels.

Alternatively, you can use a different POD service provider for all your units. In that case, we ask that you pre-produce a small number of copies of each title (typically five copies), and send those to us in advance (Amazon Advantage Program-successfully used by thousands of big and small publishers). We will inventory those copies. That small cache of inventory allows us to provide the same rapid fulfillment capability to our customers that we would have if we were printing the titles ourselves on POD printing machines located inside our fulfillment centers. Unlike POD, this alternative is not completely “inventoryless.” However, as a practical matter, five copies is a small enough quantity that it is economically close to an inventoryless model.

The complaints that we have received have come from across the country. It appears that the markets involved are national in scope. Thus, it may be more appropriate to refer this matter to one of the federal antitrust agencies for review.

For these reasons, and based on the information that has been provided to us, the Attorney General’s office does not plan further action on this matter. However, and as noted before, this is not a conclusive legal opinion and anyone feeling that they have been harmed and wish to pursue a remedy should consider consulting with private counsel.

If you have additional information or have evidence that what Amazon is representing is not true, please feel free to contact us.

Sincerely,

Brady Johnson

Assistant Attorney General

Antitrust Division

Washington State

Office of Attorney General

To tell the truth, I’m not at all sure what this means, if anything. I may have a better idea when I get my own quarterly royalty report on Powerfully Recovered! In the past, Amazon would order 20 or 25 copies a quarter. Since I suspect that means they always have five or so on hand, the whole thing may not apply to me.

I’ll keep you posted as best I can. Meanwhile, in a fit of shameless self-promo, I made it possible for you to buy my book with an Amazon widget thingie.

Write well and often,

Two newsletters:
Abundant Freelance Writing – a resource for freelance writers including 3x a week job postings.
Writing With Vision – for those who want to get a book written.