Amazon takes 'buy' buttons off upcoming Hachette titles
The battle between Amazon and publisher Hachette apparently isn鈥檛 over yet.
Amazon has now taken the Buy buttons off the pages for upcoming Hachette titles 鈥� including 鈥淭he Silkworm鈥� by Robert Galbraith (pseudonym of J.K. Rowling), the highly anticipated book that will be the sequel to Rowling's successful mystery novel 鈥淭he Cuckoo鈥檚 Calling.鈥�
As we previously reported, some Hachette titles such as 鈥淎lex Cross, Run鈥� by James Patterson began showing longer shipping dates than usual on Amazon. Hachette said the delay wasn鈥檛 on their end 鈥� Sophie Cottrell, a Hachette spokesperson, told the New York Times that 鈥渨e are satisfying all Amazon鈥檚 orders promptly鈥� and that the company was delaying shipping of some of their titles 鈥渇or reasons of their own.鈥�
According to , Amazon and Hachette were negotiating 鈥渞evised terms of sale.鈥� Meanwhile, in 2012, buy buttons on Amazon performed a similar disappearing act 鈥� books published by the 鈥渂ig six鈥� publishers were nowhere to be found for a brief time after publishers Random House and Penguin announced they would be merging. In 2010, buy buttons for Macmillan titles vanished after Macmillan went with a model in which the publisher, not Amazon, would set the price for an e-book.
Right now, Amazon customers can sign up to be notified when the Hachette titles, which also include 鈥淭he Girls of August鈥� by Anne River Siddons and 鈥淭he Doubt Factory" by Paolo Bacgalupi, become available.
However, as noted by , if you already pre-ordered one of those titles, you should still receive it. Those who haven鈥檛, however, are out of luck for the moment.
