Amazon Tightens Noose on Print-On-Demand Publishers; Insists They Use Company's Own Service

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Rafat Ali

paidContent.org
Friday, March 28, 2008; 3:07 AM

Amazon.com (NSDQ: AMZN), which has brushes with monopolistic tendencies before, is doing just that, this time in the print-on-demand business, where it is asking such publishers that they will have to use its on-demand printing facilities if they want their books directly sold on Amazon's website. POD is a growing business online, especially in the academic books market, where it has been embraced by more than half of the country's university presses, this WSJ story says.

Amazon acquired a POD tech business BookSurge in 2005. Rivals in the business include Lightning Source, a unit of Ingram. Here's how an Amazon spokesperson sees it: "What we're looking to do is have a print-on-demand business that better serves our customers and authors. When we work with some other publishers, it's not truly a print-on-demand business."

The story was first reported on WritersWeekly and other trade sites.. this story explains the issue in detail.