Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Amazon Courts Independent Booksellers With Faustian Bargain

In what might be construed as helping independent bookstores to further destroy their margins and business, Seattle's Amazon.com has concocted a Faustian offer to independent booksellers: Amazon said it will let independent bookstores and retailers sell Kindle devices and accessories, in exchange for 10% of every Kindle book purchase on those devices for the first two years after a customer buys a device. Amazon.com--which has been looked upon as a major force in the loss of independent bookstores worldwide--said it just wants to let retailers offer their customer "what they want", particularly, both digital and print books with its new Amazon Source program.