Looking Ahead!
Amazon Puts the Squeeze on Small Local Book Publishers
30/05/08 09:45
AMAZON TO
REQUIRE POD PUBLISHERS TO PRINT WITH BOOKSURGE
Amazon has notified some print-on-demand publishers that if they wish to continue selling books directly through their site, they must use the Amazon-owned BookSurge to print their books. Amazon currently places orders through the POD publishers' distributors. But soon, publishers will be required to convert their files to a format compatible with BookSurge, which will then print the books in-house, so they can be "married" with other products for faster and less expensive shipping for the customer. So far, one site reports, no books have been taken off Amazon's "shelves." Amazon released an open letter, explaining the move: "Simply put, we can provide a better, more timely customer experience if the POD titles are printed inside our own fulfillment centers. In addition, printing these titles in our own fulfillment centers saves transportation costs and transportation fuel." We aren’t sure yet how this might effect books produced through Lula, Lightning Source or other POD printers. We will keep you posted as this develops to see how it may impact us at the local level.
Amazon has notified some print-on-demand publishers that if they wish to continue selling books directly through their site, they must use the Amazon-owned BookSurge to print their books. Amazon currently places orders through the POD publishers' distributors. But soon, publishers will be required to convert their files to a format compatible with BookSurge, which will then print the books in-house, so they can be "married" with other products for faster and less expensive shipping for the customer. So far, one site reports, no books have been taken off Amazon's "shelves." Amazon released an open letter, explaining the move: "Simply put, we can provide a better, more timely customer experience if the POD titles are printed inside our own fulfillment centers. In addition, printing these titles in our own fulfillment centers saves transportation costs and transportation fuel." We aren’t sure yet how this might effect books produced through Lula, Lightning Source or other POD printers. We will keep you posted as this develops to see how it may impact us at the local level.