I love Amazon. I have loved Amazon almost since its beginning, as I was an early customer of the mega-bookseller. And just yesterday I had a conversation with one of the customer service people at Amazon, who helped me quickly and very nicely, thank you, with a problem I had on my Kindle.
But what Amazon recently did with Macmillan Publishing books is just wrong. I’ve been adding links to this blog about the situation, but haven’t really commented on it. I was a bit divided, because I love Amazon, but I believe publishers should have the right to set their own pricing.
And I REALLY believe Amazon has NO RIGHT to remove materials from people’s Kindles after they have downloaded the materials. That’s theft. Amazon also says it has capitulated and will do as Macmillan has asked, but it still won’t let patrons buy all Macmillan books. (Find The Politician on Amazon.)
Here’s a link to today’s Shelf Awareness, which contains several comments and links in regard to the Amazon debacle.
The result of all this seems to be bad PR for Amazon, more sales for Barnes & Noble, and bad relationships with all publishing companies. What a shame.