It seems like Amazon.com is always in the news. Is Amazon the AntiChrist? What is it doing today to/for writers and small publishers?
For a long time, I’ve been putting a note on my newsletter for readers and writers suggesting alternative places to buy books (the unionized Powell’s for example, and all the local brick-and-mortar book stores).
A while back, Jonathan Greene, publisher of Gnomon Books, made the point that, on balance, Amazon has done more positive than negative for small presses. On her blog “ReadWriteRed,” Shelley Ettinger has several posts offering thoughts on monopolies and Mom-‘n-Pop books stores from a left perspective: See http://readwritered.blogspot.com/2009/11/neither-mom-nor-pop-nor-monopoly.html and http://readwritered.blogspot.com/2009/11/sorry-mom-pop.html. She also talks about the essential selfishness of many of the Big Writers , with more here.
And finally– only because it’s the most recent post chronologically– I have a post about why International Octopus is what you get under our politico-economic system, but at least Amazon carries my books.
Let us know what you think.
