SoylentNews

Amazon Changes the Way it Sells Books -- May Hurt Publishers

posted by on Sunday May 21 2017, @09:41PM   
from the amazon-would-never-be-underhanded dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Very recently, Amazon made a small, barely noticeable tweak to the way it sells books. And that little tweak has publishers very, very worried.

The change has to do with what Amazon calls the "Buy Box." That's the little box on the right-hand side of Amazon product pages that lets you buy stuff through the company's massive retail enterprise.

[...] It used to be that when you were shopping for a new copy of a book and clicked "Add to Cart," you were buying the book from Amazon itself. Amazon, in turn, had bought the book from its publisher or its publisher's wholesalers, just like if you went to any other bookstore selling new copies of books. There was a clear supply chain that sent your money directly into the pockets of the people who wrote and published the book you were buying.

But now, reports The Huffington Post, that's no longer the default scenario. Now you might be buying the book from Amazon, or you might be buying it from a third-party seller. And there's no guarantee that if the latter is true, said third-party seller bought the book from the publisher. In fact, it's most likely they didn't.

Which means the publisher might not be getting paid. And, by extension, neither is the author.

Understandably, both publishers and authors are deeply unhappy about this change.

-- submitted from IRC

---

Original Submission

• Re:Same old, same old Re:Same old, same old (Score: 2) by davester666 on Monday May 22 2017, @07:21AM (1 child)

  by davester666 (155) on Monday May 22 2017, @07:21AM (#513375)

  So the problem of the Vox article is physical copies of books that were under publisher control and now are in the hands of third parties. This causes the author not to profit from that particular sale. The particular gripe is that Amazon made it now the default, and that the actual offer from the publisher is lower / hidden away.
  Honestly: as long as the customer knows he's buying used books, I don't see the problem.

  Correction: This causes the author not to make any additional profit from that particular sale.

  The author/publisher made their profit when they sold the book the first time. And when the author/publisher sold the book, they knew the copyright laws as well as the first-sale doctrine, and declared "What the hell, I'll sell it anyway. Now give me my money!"

  Parent

  Starting Score:	1		point
  Karma-Bonus Modifier		+1
  Total Score:		2

• Re:Same old, same old (Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Monday May 22 2017, @08:21AM

  by FakeBeldin (3360) on Monday May 22 2017, @08:21AM (#513388) Journal

  Exactly, which is why I don't particularly mind.
  Now the Vox article points out a few (legal) cases where a heap of books ends up with a third-party reseller. But since these cases still amount to a legal transfer of ownership from the publisher to the third party, I don't see the problem.

  Parent