Entries tagged with “booksurge” from Tools of Change for Publishing

Amazon Launches UK POD Service; Partner Unknown

Mac Slocum
October 7, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

TheBookseller says Amazon is launching a print-on-demand service in the United Kingdom:

Amazon.com owns POD publisher BookSurge in the US, but the UK business has not divulged who will be handling the printing of POD titles in the UK.

In April, a spokesperson for Amazon.co.uk said the company -- at that time -- had no plans to bring BookSurge to the UK.

Related Stories:

• POD Publisher Files Class Action Lawsuit Against Amazon
• Amazon POD: Friend or Foe to Indie Publishers?
• Amazon Ups the Ante on Platform Lock-In
• Tim O'Reilly: "Publishers Beware: Amazon has you in their sights"

POD Publisher Files Class Action Lawsuit Against Amazon

Andrew Savikas
May 19, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (4) | Listen

On his blog Morris Rosenthal reports on a class-action lawsuit filed today against Amazon by POD publisher BookLocker.com:

Today a class action lawsuit was filed in response to Amazon’s threat to remove the "Buy" buttons of publishers who refuse to sign up with their on-demand printing subsidiary, Booksurge. If certified, the class action will most likely include all publishers who use on demand printing to print their books for distribution. If it functions like the class action lawsuits involving credit card or telephone billing that we all find ourselves party to on a regular basis, publishers will automatically be included unless they opt out. The primary plaintiff in the suit is BookLocker.com, Inc., the company that first broke the silence about the heavy-handed tactics Booksurge was using against Lightning Source's larger publisher customers.

The full complaint is available as a PDF, but I've taken the liberty of posting it here via SlideShare as well (click here if you don't see the embedded doc below):

Essentially, the complaint alleges Amazon is in violation of the Sherman Act by engaging in "tying":

An arrangement whereby the seller of some product or service requires, as a condition to the sale of that product (the tying product), that the buyer purchase some additional product (the tied product). The tying arrangement is unlawful when the seller has some power over the market for the tying product. Tying arrangements are generally per se illegal, assuming that the selling firm has the market power to force the arrangement upon its customers.

The meat of the complaint is in paragraphs 38 and 39:

Amazon forces POD publishers to use BookSurge for printing services when they might otherwise prefer to purchase such printing services elsewhere.

Amazon’s practice of tying printing services to sales in the Online Book Market unreasonably restrains trade and is unlawful per se under Section 1 of the Sherman Act.

In light of recent moves by Amazon (including reports of bullying in the UK), litigation was an inevitability. And this isn't the only pending lawsuit Amazon's involved in (it's not even the only anti-trust lawsuit Amazon is involved in -- Gerlinger v. Amazon.com is still under appeal). Amazon lists seven items in the "Legal Proceedings" section of its 2007 annual report, among them patent infringement and breach of contract, fairly standard for a public company of their size (and they're on the plaintiff side of the aisle against New York State on sales taxes). It will be interesting to see whether other POD publishers join the fray.

Related Links:

• Publishers Beware: Amazon has you in their sights
• Amazon POD: Friend of Foe to Indie Publishers?
• Amazon Ups the Ante on Platform Lock-In

Amazon POD: Friend or Foe to Indie Publishers?

Peter Brantley
May 5, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1) | Listen

An interesting editorial by Lloyd Jassin from the NY Center for Independent Publishing relating to the Amazon print-on-demand (POD) move:

Physical distribution of books is largely the preserve of large conglomerate publishers and a handful of large independent distributors. It’s not a pretty business. It employs the equivalent of Yankee peddlers who hand-sell books to brick and mortar stores, with full return privileges for oversold books. If we extrapolate, the BookSurge gambit may be seen as a relatively painless first step in managing the digital distribution of titles to e-tailers and licensees. Amazon has the amazing ability to manage and organize content. It also offers a painless online experience for the consumer.

Instead of Amazon merely being the recipient of digital assets, it’s easy to imagine Amazon providing comprehensive consultancy services to our members, helping them prepare their content for digital distribution for and beyond the traditional Amazon platform. Is the Book Surge gambit a disguised opportunity for indie publishers? Perhaps. Indie publishes are the small furry mammals scurrying around the legs of large dinosaur publishers. The digital meteor has hit. To survive, indie publishers need to be able to present content in a variety of digital formats. Is Amazon a friend or a foe? Only time will tell.

Related Stories:

• Amazon Ups the Ante on Platform Lock-In
• Publishers and Amazon Locked in Price War
• Publishers Beware: Amazon has you in their sights

Further Thoughts on Amazon/BookSurge

Laura Dawson
April 3, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1) | Listen

I keep turning the Amazon/BookSurge story over in my mind, and decided today that it was worth a deep look at the stakeholders, and their stakes:

Print-on-Demand (POD) publishers: These include self-published authors as well as publishers with tens of thousands of titles. The POD model is cost-effective for many types of publishing. POD publishers choose their printers based on cost, quality of the product they turn out, and other differentiating terms.

Amazon: Not only do they sell books, but through their POD service BookSurge, they print them. They have just mandated to POD publishers that they will only sell POD titles printed by BookSurge. If POD publishers want to sell non-BookSurge books, they need to pre-print copies and send them to Amazon's warehouse. This takes the "OD" out of POD, and defeats the business model entirely.

What Amazon has done, essentially, is force the POD publishers to choose between BookSurge, its proprietary service with a proprietary format, and Lightning Source/Lulu/etc. Amazon says that it hasn't actually forced a choice -- that publishers are free to use whatever service they like and then pre-print five copies to be stored in Amazon's warehouses. For a small publisher, that's pretty demanding, and the fact is, most POD publishers use on-demand technology because it's cheaper. By pre-printing titles for sale, small publishers get into the same business that mainstream publishers do -- the business of pulping and remaindering books that don't sell.

Ingram: Not only do they distribute books, but their POD service Lightning Source prints them. Lightning Source is the largest POD service in the country. They also ship titles for Amazon that aren't carried by other sources. Ingram on Monday said that none of this actually had any impact on Lightning Source, but that's not the case. Amazon has said they will not send true POD orders to Lightning Source. The only way they will sell Lightning Source titles is if they already have those books in the warehouse.

Barnes & Noble: Like Amazon, of course, they sell books. They also have a very close relationship with Ingram. They will not sell any books printed by BookSurge. It may be that Ingram doesn't do anything directly to Amazon in retaliation for this loss of business, but they might suddenly get even closer to Barnes & Noble than they already are -- maybe team for an exclusive digital initiative.

Baker & Taylor: Like Ingram, they distribute books. They are the preferred vendor for Amazon, though Amazon will go to Ingram if B&T doesn't carry the book in question. One issue is, will the non-BookSurge books reside in B&T warehouses? Could B&T find itself carrying Lightning Source books because Amazon will only deal with those as they deal with books from non-POD publishers?

Borders: In trouble. Relaunching a website, purportedly on May 3. This is where Borders could get smart and play Switzerland. They could serve as a POD portal, selling all POD titles regardless of affiliation. But at this point it's asking a lot for Borders to keep its head above water, much less strategize at this long-tail level. So unless they've suddenly acquired some major talent in several divisions of their Web site, that's rather a long shot.

The Customer: He just wants a book -- his mom's book, a how-to book, a book on an obscure topic. He wants a book that may only be available on-demand. How does he know where to find it? Why must he go to Amazon, and then B&N, to see if he can get it? Amazon's not going to sell Lightning Source titles; B&N's not going to sell BookSurge titles. But the customer doesn't know or care who the printer is. He just wants to be able to find and buy the book.

That all said ... it's worth looking at both Lightning Source and BookSurge with a microscope.

Ingram has done some interesting things with regard to book distribution in the last few years. First, they created Ingram Digital Group (IDG), which is charged with exploring content delivery initiatives to both retail outlets and libraries. Second, they acquired VitalSource, an ebook platform heavily in use by college textbook publishers. Third, they acquired Coutts, whose MyiLibrary product is also an ebook platform for the academic and institutional market.

So Ingram has these delivery systems for large amounts of content, ready to package as white-label platforms with subscriptions included. With the digital files that Lightning Source uses, Ingram could conceivably distribute the current POD offerings as ebooks as well, distributed across its Coutts or VitalSource platforms.

Meanwhile, Amazon is scanning books for its "Look Inside" program. Obviously, it has a platform capable of delivering ebooks -- it does so daily. If Amazon insists that its POD publishers stick with BookSurge, and treats other POD vendors as traditional book publishers, then it could conceivably build a feeder system like IDG has with Lightning Source: from BookSurge into the "Look Inside" platform and into ebooks.

And if Ingram's longtime alliance with B&N (10 years ago, B&N attempted to buy Ingram) is threatening Amazon -- if the mere potential of IDG allying with B&N.com to distribute Lightning Source/VitalSource/MyiLibrary content as ebooks is at all threatening to Amazon -- then surely Amazon's sudden focus on BookSurge is a natural one.

Amazon UK Staying out of POD Fray (for now...)

Andrew Savikas
April 2, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

Amid the furor over Amazon's latest maneuver with POD and Booksurge, comes word that Amazon.co.uk has "no plans" to bring Booksurge across the pond.

Then again, that statement shouldn't be as reassuring as it sounds to UK publishers:

An Amazon.co.uk spokesman said there were "no plans" to introduce the BookSurge service into the UK, but added: "We do not comment on future plans."

(Thanks to O'Reilly UK's Graham Cameron for the link.)