Amazon Relations Fray With Authors, Tax Collectors

Posted by Abe Sauer on June 30, 2011 10:00 AM

Amazon.com is a brand that is forever calculating, scheming, trying to find a new business extension or a way to use less to do more with the business extensions it already has.

From jumping into the grocery delivery business to, in its latest news, cutting its California affiliates in order to avoid collecting online sales tax for the state — such is the life of a behemoth online discounter.

Now Amazon Publishing is launching a quid pro quo program with authors: Blurb our books and Amazon will promote yours. But that's not the only Amazon "review" generating news.

Amazon's publishing imprints include the booming romance fiction genre with Montlake Romance. In May, that was joined by a thriller imprint, Thomas & Mercer. In June, its publishing unit released a list of "32 Diverse Books for Late Summer and Early Fall."

Now, in order to support its stable of budding authors — one of its e-book authors just passed the million sales benchmark — Amazon is offering a little online retailing backsheesh.

The Observer obtained an email from an Amazon publicist to a literary agent asking for one of that agent's clients to blurb (publishing-speak for "write a favorable review of') a new book from Amazon. It reads, in part:
"The review would be prominently featured on Amazon.com in customer emails, rotating campaigns in the Amazon.com Books and Kindle stores, and on the Stalina detail page (to which our marketing and PR efforts will be driving significant traffic). This would be a great way to get added exposure on Amazon for [name redacted]‘s backlist or upcoming releases."

Of course, the agent responded in the way one might expect a New York literary agent to respond, with comments about this not being "the way things are done."

In a publishing world that seems more concerned with Bristol Palin's "memoir," that this would be sold as a scandal is not something the reading public will probably care to be buying (which is the publishing world's problem to begin with).

But when it comes to Amazon and reviews, there is legitimate news about "corruption."

First, ZDNet reports that Amazon Vine, the exclusive, invite-only program "that enables a select group of Amazon customers to post opinions about new and pre-release items to help their fellow customers make educated purchase decisions," has changed its user agreement. It seems, the gravy train is coming to an end

ZDNet writes, "In other words, no more getting items for free and then flipping them on eBay. If the item sent to you comes from Amazon, you can get rid of it whenever (but not however) you want"

Even more harmful (if anyone reads it) is PC Magazine's new piece titled, leadingly, "Are Amazon Reviews Corrupt?" It's worth a read and points to a research site called "How Aunt Ammy Gets Her Free Lunch" which hosts reports on online reviews containing sections such as "Who are the Top Reviewers?", "What Makes For a Good Review?" and "Solicitation of Free Products." The report is absolutely worth a look for those selling (or even buying) via Amazon.

As for its tussle in California, Amazon isn't the only e-tailer balking at the web sales tax legislation, as Overstock.com is threatening to stop doing business in the state, too — but Amazon is certainly the biggest online retailer to fight the law. Whether it will succeed in throwing the book back at legislators in California is another matter.

http://www.brandchannel.com/home/post/2011/06/30/Amazon-Book-Battle.aspx
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