Amazon and Distribution Changes
March 23, 2012
Major online retailer, Amazon, is in the process of relaxing its policies regarding its ebook distribution. In the article “Amazon Publishing to Sell Series of eBooks Outside the Kindle Store,” we learn a little more about the decision to spread the wealth.
The recent retaliation of Barnes and Noble and other wholesale booksellers against Amazon has sparked a change in how Amazon will continue to do business. Barnes and Noble, as well as other booksellers, pulled the print editions of books published by Amazon Publishing from their shelves this month in retaliation to Amazon’s “Kindle store only” policy. It is a policy that Barnes and Noble management believes undermines the industry and creates monopoly.
In response to their action, Amazon announced that its latest series of short biographies will be sold outside of the Amazon marketplace. No word on whether the other stores will pick up the books but Amazon has assured the public that they want their books to be distributed as widely as possible.
Amazon has confirmed that its latest addition to the Amazon Publishing roster, a series of short biographies edited by James Atlas, will indeed be sold outside of the Amazon ecosystem in both print and ebook form.
Why is it that Amazon is ridiculed for its apparent lack of availability when Apple has long had a foothold in the marketplace as a “buy here, pay here only” business? Apple products are available at your nearest electronics provider (as are Amazon Kindles). Yet when it comes to content, you must go through iTunes in order to utilize all aspects of your product.
We think that a distribution shift is an important part of access. Are consumers and search lost in the mulcher?
Stephen E Arnold, March 20, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
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