text: Amazon vs. Publishers – Round Two | Publishing/Writing: Insights, News, Intrigue
  Amazon vs. Publishers – Round Two
  Filed under: Amazon,Amazon vs big publishing,John R. Austin,print-on-demand,printed books,publishing — gator1965 @ 12:05 am
  Tags: Amazon, Brad Stone, John R. Austin, POD, printed books on Amazon
  Amazon vs. Publishers STILL
  Amazon still has mucho shelves full of print books for sale. And they want desperately to clean up that stock with their print on demand capability. But, the publishers are reluctant to allow Amazon to use POD.
  Do you know the reason ? Can you guess ?
  Brad Stone, Business Week, explains :
  The book industry isn't eager to embrace any more wrenching changes. The introduction of the Kindle in 2007, and Amazon's insistence on a customer-friendly $9.99 price for new releases, has set off a multifront fracas. Efforts by the largest publishers to sidestep Amazon's pricing strategy attracted the attention of the U.S. Department of Justice, which recently filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple (AAPL) and five book publishers over their alleged collusion to raise e-book prices. (Three publishers have settled the lawsuit.) The issue of print on demand has taken a backseat as this e-book drama plays out.
  Print on demand has been around for more than a decade. In 1997, the largest book wholesaler in the U.S., now known as Ingram Content Group, started a division called Lightning Source to serve publishers who wanted to print limited copies of certain books. In 2005, Amazon acquired a rival print-on-demand provider, BookSurge, and began offering publishers the option of supplementing inventory with print-on-demand copies when physical volumes of a title sell out. Now called CreateSpace, the Amazon subsidiary mostly caters to small publishers and self-published authors. The technology has gotten better over time, and print-on-demand books are now indistinguishable from most paperbacks.
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