Jules Jones

Charlie Stross analyses the Amazon Macmillan fight

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 21:34:54 GMT

I linked to a short draft of this yesterday, but Charlie has now posted the expanded version of Amazon, Macmillan: an outsider's guide to the fight. This is really worth your time to read, if you want to understand what's been going on in the lead-up to this weekend's uproar, and why Amazon is *not* working in the long-term best interest of readers.

Charlie also has a link round-up of other useful posts on the Amazon Macmillan stare-down.

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More on the Amazon Macmillan fight

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 09:16:32 GMT

Charlie Stross has a lucid explanation of what Amazon has been doing and why what Macmillan was proposing is likely to be to the long-term benefit of both readers and authors.

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Amazonfail #3

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 21:10:00 GMT

Just in case you haven't seen it -- Amazonfail #3 is in progress.

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/012148.html
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/01/30/a-quick-note-on-ebook-pricing/
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/01/30/its-all-about-timing/

My view on this is fairly similar to Charlie's. However, I simply stopped adding links rather than pulling all my links last time round, and was willing to forgive when they fixed the last one. The reason for that is that Amazon, for all its faults, was even throughout the LGBTfail willing to sell anyone pretty much anything, so long as they could actually track it down in the catalogue.

It's different now. They've deleted an entire publisher from their catalogue. Not made it hard to find them, but pulled the entries altogether. And that takes away my reason to put up with assorted nonsense over the years, which was that Amazon was a lifeline for a lot of minorities, because it really would send you anything legal to buy, in a nice friendly brown box.

I won't have time to sort out my website and blogs until I get home in a couple of weeks, but my Amazon links are going bye-bye.

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