Richard Russo interviewed several best selling authors about the recent amazon trickery, and the results were comforting, at least. The authors, including, Scott Turow, Stephen King, and Dennis Lehane all found amazon’s tactics less than a stellar business practice. However, the comments to the article were typical in the ‘oh you elitists’ and ‘poor amazon’ and ‘who cares a crap about indies if I can get a cheaper book’ which isn’t so comforting. The reality is, people are very self absorbed, and sometimes selfish, and can’t bother putting themselves out for the long term welfare of their local communities.
Many of course likened the writers’ criticism to the horse and buggy argument, which doesn’t hold water–no one is trying to keep progress from marching on, just trying to keep the marchers from obliterating everything under their feet.
Take a gander at the article-he was able to articulate far better than I!
Yes, becoming aware of Amazon as an unscrupulous threat at this late date is next to hopeless.
But it is great to see the Bookshop Blog is on board.
Unfortunately the internet sellers, for the most part, still see books as an easy money making device rather than a blessed community resource and will continue supporting whoever has the ability to sell their books. They are another drain on a community.
ABE is a subsidiary of Amazon so one is as bad a choice as the other.
Local brick and mortar stores, if the owner is not already too exhausted to do a proper job, support your best interests and do help your local economy and your culture.