For those who haven't read my earlier posts on Amazon acting like a bratty toddler (see here and here), a summary to get you up to this point: Amazon wants to sell all ebooks at its price, $9.99. Worried that this would devalue all books in the long-term, a number of publishers resisted. Macmillan was first, and discovered that, as a result, Macmillan titles were no longer available. Amazon eventually restored them, with a long, pouty note that read like Poor little Amazon! Big bad Macmillan has a monopoly!
So now it's expanded: Poor little Amazon! We agreed with HBG/Hachette and Penguin but we've decided THEY'RE JUST NOT FAIR! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! I WANT MY BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOKS...
That is, though HBG and Penguin both came to agreements with Amazon to use a different pricing model, where the publisher sets the price and Amazon receives a percentage--keep in mind that this could be just as profitable, if not more so, for Amazon--suddenly HBG's ebooks aren't available, and some of Penguin's have disappeared.
"If we can get a two day extension from Hachette to continue selling their ebooks under the prior terms"--that is, these companies can either sell on Amazon's $9.99 terms or not at all--"we can have the Hachette ebooks promptly back for sale today. If not, then they will be back on April 3," Amazon said.
They also blamed technical difficulties which, somehow, no other online bookstore has had.
Get your stories straight, Toddler Amazon. You'll need these skills when you have to lie in the future--as you inevitably will--and actually care about not getting caught.
4 comments:
What is wrong with these people getting their knickers in a twist? Chill out guys! Amazon should be put in nappies and told to go back to crawling.
All of this is ridiculous, seriously. I'm normally a regular user of Amazon, but they've lost me from all of their petty tries at pushing publishers around. Jeeze Louise, grow up already.
Technical difficulties? Gimme a break. I agree with your analysis - someone please pass Amazon its binky.
This is an April Fool's joke, isn't it? Please? Much too sad, otherwise.
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