The standoff between Hachette and Amazon drags on while the rest of us turn to other things. (As Anne Lamott points out, “The last two weeks have been about as grim and hopeless as any of us can remember.” And none of those things include Hachette/Amazon.)
However, my friend Evelyn brought this New York Times article to my attention, and it occurs to me you’d be interested in an update.
Douglas Preston, who summers in this coastal hamlet, is a best-selling writer—or was, until Amazon decided to discourage readers from buying books from his publisher, Hachette, as a way of pressuring it into giving Amazon a better deal on e-books. So he wrote an open letter to his readers asking them to contact Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive, demanding that Amazon stop using writers as hostages in its negotiations.
The letter … spread through the literary community. As of earlier this week 909 writers had signed on, including household names like John Grisham and Stephen King. It is scheduled to run as a full-page ad in The New York Times this Sunday.
Amazon, unsettled by the actions of a group that used to be among its biggest fans, is responding by attacking Mr. Preston, calling the 58-year-old thriller writer “entitled” and “an opportunist,” while simultaneously trying to woo him and his fellow dissenters into silence.
Amazon also likes to refer to the Justice Department’s 2012 antitrust lawsuit against Hachette and other publishers, but many found it shocking, really, that an antitrust case came out in favor of the monopolist. (Read here before you start bandying about words like criminal charges. Here. Or here. Snake-oil salesman indeed.)
If you’ve chosen sides, I don’t expect you to be swayed; if you can see that there are two sides to the story, you’ll want to fit this piece of the puzzle in to what you already know.
Tweet: The news is grim. And that doesn’t even include Hachette/Amazon.
Tweet: Hachette/Amazon: If you see both sides, you’ll want to add this to what you already know.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”