Special Report: Distilling the Amazon-BookSurge Debate

If you heard the earth shake at the end of last month, it was probably the tens of thousands of self-, subsidy and small publishers having a mass heart attack at Amazon's announcement that it intended to turn off its "buy" buttons for all titles produced by small and self-publishers unless they use the Amazon BookSurge printing unit to produce books for direct Amazon sales.

For the publishing marketplace, this was the equivalent of Adobe putting a FedEx Kinko's print button in its Acrobat software, but looks to be permanent. It's not just a matter of publishers and authors feeling strong-armed into working with Amazon's book printing unit. It has a major impact on their business models, as well.

Direct sales through Amazon mean that book orders are ganged and shipped by the printer or publisher to Amazon's distribution centers transparent to the client. Amazon offers other non-direct programs (Advantage and Marketplace), but the cost structures are not as favorable. For some authors and small publishers, it is Amazon's direct selling "zero shipping" and ability to set short discounts (as low as 20 percent) that makes its POD publishing arrangements profitable in the first place.