Late Friday night Amazon issued another strange note about its dispute with Hachette, this time in the form of a letter from the "Amazon Books Team" to Kindle Direct Publishing authors with the subject line "Important Kindle request."
The e-mail asked the authors, most of whom are self-published, to support the company and to write to Hachette CEO Michael Pietsch, whose e-mail address Amazon provided. In just a few paragraphs, Amazon reiterated its paper-thin arguments that almost all e-books should be priced at $9.99 or less; gave the usual contextless examples of how lower prices always lead to higher sales; made an inaccurate historical allusion to the rise of paperbacks in the industry; misquoted "the famous author George Orwell"; said it sought better terms only to give lower prices to consumers; and took a familiar page from some other wealthy Americans and corporations by setting up a seemingly grassroots organization to support itself. Click below for full article at Shelf Awareness
The e-mail asked the authors, most of whom are self-published, to support the company and to write to Hachette CEO Michael Pietsch, whose e-mail address Amazon provided. In just a few paragraphs, Amazon reiterated its paper-thin arguments that almost all e-books should be priced at $9.99 or less; gave the usual contextless examples of how lower prices always lead to higher sales; made an inaccurate historical allusion to the rise of paperbacks in the industry; misquoted "the famous author George Orwell"; said it sought better terms only to give lower prices to consumers; and took a familiar page from some other wealthy Americans and corporations by setting up a seemingly grassroots organization to support itself. Click below for full article at Shelf Awareness