Rumors Confirmed: Amazon.com's New Policy Regarding Print-On-Demand Books

As March 2008 drew to a close and April began, the Internet whirled with rumors about a new policy at Amazon.com regarding print-on-demand books. The news broke first on blogs of writers and publishing execs, but anything verified or confirmed was hard to come by. The Wall Street Journal picked up the story but qualified itself due to such sources. Still, the rumors persisted.

Being the author of a print-on-demand book myself ("Following Hope", Xlibris 2007), I was concerned about these rumors. What were they? It was claimed that Amazon.com was shutting off the "buy" buttons on all print-on-demand books not printed through Amazon's POD service BookSurge so that these would no longer be available through Amazon except through third party or used books sellers registered with Amazon.com. The rumors followed swift on the heels of the scandal involving PublishAmerica and some thought the mega-webstore was using that scandal as an excuse to put a monopoly on the print-on-demand industry by thus restricting one of the foremost markets for such books.

There is some merit to this concern. Amazon.com is the premier online retailer of books. POD services and the books they publish rely heavily- sometimes exclusively- on online sales. As much as 80% of such online sales could be from Amazon.com and related companies in some cases. Since more books are
being printed via POD services today than by traditional publishers, the possible losses in that case could be massive to certain POD services and especially the authors employing them.

As the rumors gathered momentum, someone set up an online petition against Amazon's decision. The deadline given for the full-scale shut-off of the "buy" buttons was rumored to be April 1, 2008. Well, April 1^st came and went, and I found that the "buy" button for my book still worked. Was this perhaps an April Fools scam? Because of the implications of such an action on the POD industry and the publishing industry as a whole as well as on my own interests as a writer, I determined to find out the truth.