ATS Reader Mail --
A good case can be made that Amazon is violating anti-trust laws.Waiting for federal anti-trust action would take many years--years toget the Justice Department to act, years of trials, years of fussingover what the court decision means. Notice how long it took to dealwith Microsoft's tactics, despite the fact that the corporations theywere bullying were large and powerful. That would certainly beeffective, as Microsoft's current woes illustrate. But none of us canafford to wait that long and the squabble would not be good forwriters or publishers.Action at the state level, however, could move much faster,particularly if it involves off-the-record contact and a somberwarning from those who can make trouble for Amazon. Amazon isheadquartered in Seattle about a ten minute drive from the office ofthe antitrust division of the Washington state attorney general.
Here's the contact information:
Office of the Attorney General, Antitrust Division
800 Fifth Avenue, Suite 2000
Seattle, WA 98104-3188
Telephone: 206-587-5510 Fax: 206-464-6338
http://www.atg.wa.gov/Antitrust/default.aspx
Note the remark on their web page that "The Antitrust Division onlyprocesses complaints that involve either Washington State residents orbusinesses located in Washington State." The state level is where mostactions against business misbehavior takes place, because it's quickerand cheaper at that level. Amazon is in Washington state, so itmatters not where you live, even outside the U.S. If Amazon can makethis policy stick here, they'll export it to their web stores inEurope and Asia.
If you're a publisher, encourage your authors to contact them. If you're an author, encourage other writers and friends to contact them.Be courteous and factual, explaining what it means from yourperspective. To make clear just how serious this is, you might want tocall, followed by a fax and/or letter.
You might also want to raise this issue with your state attorneygeneral's antitrust office, asking them to get in touch with theircolleagues in Seattle. Lawyers listen to lawyers.
Remember the reason Amazon thinks it can get away with this. A coupleof years ago, they got away with dropping Adobe PDF ebooks,substituting an ebook format they'd acquired by buying out a third-rate company much like BookSurge. Amazon must not merely loose thisbattle, it must get so badly burned it doesn't try this again.
Monday, March 31, 2008
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3 comments:
I'm an author with a small independent press that uses POD technology. I've been spreading the word to my readers and one of them (RoseWelsh on LJ) had a brilliant suggestion that goes beyond a simple boycott.
Her solution was this:
Erynn:
After looking through your posts on this outrageous tactic and realizing that one letter or 10 *saying* that you will buy elsewhere isn't going to hit home. I'm thinking that for the next month or so every time I buy a book elsewhere, I'll let Amazon know: send them a brief letter why I bought elsewhere with a copy of the receipt :-) If enough people do this maybe the bean counters will have something interesting to say at the next staff meeting *wink*.
Rose
I think Rose's idea is great and that it should be passed around as widely as possible to small presses and readers who care about their favorite authors and the niche markets that many of us represent.
This is a great idea! As readers and authors we need to do our best to support our favorite authors and small presses as close to the source as we can. The closer we get to them, by buying from the author's own website, or contacting them directly, the more hard-earned money we can put back in the author's pocket for their work.
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