Hachette Book Group says Amazon is deliberately delaying shipments of their titles
Amazon is reportedly embroiled in another battle with a publisher.
Titles by Hachette Book Group, including such bestsellers as James Patterson鈥檚 鈥淎lex Cross, Run鈥� and 鈥淎merica Again鈥� by Stephen Colbert, are being listed as requiring between three and five weeks to ship if ordered from Amazon. (As noted by the , other titles by Patterson that were published by Hachette aren鈥檛 delayed.) Hachette says the company is supplying the books to Amazon in a normal timeframe and that there isn鈥檛 any reason for such a delay.
Hachette spokesperson Sophie Cottrell told the NYT that Amazon is doing this 鈥渇or reasons of their own.鈥�
鈥淲e are satisfying all Amazon鈥檚 orders promptly,鈥� she said.聽
An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment when contacted by the NYT.
According to Publishers Lunch, Hachette and Amazon are currently involved in "revised terms of sale" agreements. PL says publishers and agents have told them Amazon has proposed "a complete reset of terms, on both print and ebooks" during these discussions
Publishers have accused Amazon of taking their titles off the Amazon site or taking other steps to make it difficult for consumers to buy their books at times when the publishers having been involved in a disagreement with the company. In 2012, as reported by Monitor writer Husna Haq, the "buy" button users would click to purchase a title in the Kindle store vanished briefly from all titles linked to the 鈥渂ig six鈥� publishers, although no other publishers鈥� titles were affected. That came after publishers Penguin and Random House announced their merger, which, as noted by Haq, 鈥渃reate[d] the world鈥檚 largest publisher and provide[d] a more united front against the growing power of retailers like Amazon.鈥�
In 2010, Amazon took 鈥渂uy鈥� buttons off Macmillan titles on their site after Macmillan established a model in which the publisher would decide the price of an e-book, not Amazon.
