The ongoing dispute between Amazon and the publisher Hachette Book Group has gone even further. Amazon has finally decided to tell their side. The dispute originated over pricing. Amazon has been putting pressure on Hachette to renew their contract by delaying shipments and reducing discounts by not taking preorders on any titles.
Russ Grandinetti, Amazon’s senior vice president of Kindle content, spoke with The Wall Street Journal claiming that the online retailer is merely acting “in the long-term interest of our customers.”
Yeah. Sure, Amazon.
Grandinetti added,
“This discussion is all about e-book pricing,” he continued. “The terms under which we trade will determine how good the prices are that we can offer consumers.”
Amazon continues to piss off authors everywhere with their tactics even high-profile authors such as James Patterson and Stephen Colbert. Patterson said in May that “Amazon wants to control book buying, book selling and even book publishing.”
Colbert went even further to encourage viewers to buy books from other places such as directly from publishers websites or vendors and to also print out stickers saying “I didn’t buy it on Amazon.”
Grandinetti did not comment to the WSJ about the current state of negotiations with Hachette.