Amazon Pulls All MacMillan Books, including Hiroshma book

[ed_the_engineer]

Urgent Message from Charlie:

Subject: Amazon Black-Lists MacMillan Books: Bombs Hiroshima, Middlesex, and Auschwitz
Date: Saturday, January 30, 2010, 6:25 PM

I have just learned today that because of a dispute between executives and lawyers at Amazon.com (the world's largest distributor of books) - a dispute that reportedly boils down to an upper office duel over allowing publishers to sign electronic rights deals with Apple's competing iPad or Amazon's own Kindle system, The Last train from Hiroshima is no longer available. Indeed, many books are no longer being sold by Amazon.

In a move that feels utterly McCarthy-esque, Amazon has decided to make an example of my publisher for its disloyalty - an example intended to be heeded by Random House or anyone else who is even thinking of signing with Amazon's competitor, Apple's forthcoming iPad bookstore (as reported in the New York Times, page B-4, Saturday, 1/30/2010, see http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/30/techn ... lan&st=cse ).

Beginning last night, Amazon announced, and then followed through with it's threatening example by pulling all books published by MacMillan and its satellite houses from distribution, evidently with no regard whatsoever for the little guys at the bottom who write the products they sell and who have had nothing to do with (or even any knowledge of) the dispute. Clearly, they really do think of books as mere products - like milk bottles - and not as works that are often somebody's guts, sometimes with a timely warning for the future, or a path to hope, as that set forth by my teacher Tsutomu Yamaguchi, or by Dr. James Hansen in Storms of My Grandchildren.

Deliberately destroying and black-listing their own books like this makes no sense. It's like eating your own children. According to my editor this morning, it's the last thing anyone thought would happen at Amazon and everyone is still in shock. (I'm not. I've watched human behavior long enough to remember all the pundits on the news saying, when Iraq and Iran went to war in the 1980s, "The last thing they will ever do is bomb each other's oil fields." And what was the first thing they did?)

Among the top sellers on Amazon that have been sent plunging down the rankings by the MacMillan black-list are Oprah Book Club selection Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides and one of my favorite books, Eli Wiesel's Night - which was ranked right next to The Last Train from Hiroshima on Amazon's top sales list these past two weeks and has been falling in perfect formation with me since Amazon took this action last night.

For an author, this game of intimidation against American publishers is indistinguishable from all the awful brutality of censorship. I, for one, know what I'm talking about. More than twenty years ago my book about the origin of life and other evolutionary matters (Darwin's Universe) was attacked by a tribunal that included anti-evolutionists and was ordered pulled from the press. I ended up losing my home and came to the U.S. with only some clothes, my notebooks, and a suitcase full of fossils. I came with a belief that things like this aren't supposed to happen in America.

And yet, here we go again. Though at Amazon the executives responsible for this are bound to deny it's censorship or black-listing - the amount of malice involved, and the sense that someone is getting a reckless joy out of the harm being inflicted (deliberately) during a game of one-upmanship - is having the same, identical effect. (Actually, a worse effect than government-supported acts of censorship: When finally a famed creationist burned a copy of Darwin's Universe in front tv cameras, it actually helped my sales in America. Amazon's action of 29 January, 2010 has likely neutralized sales that would have resulted from The Last Train from Hiroshima's beautiful and prominent reviews, during its particularly vulnerable first two weeks of publication.)

According to the New York Times (April 14, 2009), in reference to a similar spasm of Amazon activity that appeared to be aimed at James Baldwin and other gay writers, while leaving the availability and sales rankings of sexually violent books like American Psycho untouched, "We have to now keep an eye on Amazon and how they handle the world's cultural heritage."

- - Charles Pellegrino

[ed_the_engineer]

From reading the two New York Times articles (1/29 and 1/30), this dispute has been brewing for a year and involves pricing and availability of e-books for Amazon's Kindle vs. Apple's newly released iPad. It may not be possible for publishers to enter into exclusive e-book deals with retailers because of anti-trust laws, however pricing is another matter.

From information presented in the NY Times articles, Amazon is looking to price newly published e-books at a $9.99 discount price across the board (with a 50/50 split between retailer and publisher), while Apple's deal is from $12.99 to $15.99 (with a 70/30 publisher/retailer split) with a 7 month e-book delay after a new (print) book is published. The NY Times didn't specify the e-book availability Amazon wanted, but I would figure a few weeks after print availability rather than 7 months.

One note, the book is still orderable from other sellers in its Amazon listing, but they don't offer benefits like Amazon Prime (free 2-day delivery or discount 1-day delivery for an annual subscription fee).

I'm just glad I ordered and got my copy before all this happened...

Ed The Engineer

[Darb]

Disgusting.

I think perhaps my fellow admins and I may need to re-examine our long-time exclusive amazon affiliation, and take steps to broaden the purchase links we provide in the database.

[PolarisDiB]

The e-book format wars be gettin' ugly.

--PolarisDiB

[Charlie P.]

Uglier than you think. John Bachelor has likened Amazon's treatment of Macmillan's various publishing houses and its entire family of authors to the Germans of World war II taking ten people and their entire families out into the town square and making all the other people (in this case Random House, Harper, etc) witness the mass execution as an example and a lesson to the entire town. No matter that most or all of the people actually lying dead and bleeding on the cobblestones had nothing to do with blowing up a German train, no matter even if no train has been blown up in the first place. The lesson is made: no one should ever attempt to cross the Germans, much less blow up a train.

And it has not escaped notice that this was done on a Friday, in the same way that some shady rat-tailed government types will squeek out the bad news late on Friday so that at most it is visible only as a small piece in the back pages of the New York Times (and in this case, no one in the general public knows what is causing these strange glitches and the sudden meteoritic plunge of New York Times best sellers from the top of the Amazon sales rankings to the very difficult to find bottom. Last night it was a puzzle even to authors).

Among the banned books are several Pulitzer winners and Oprah Book Club selections and two Nobel winners.

If Amazon was looking for trouble, they have found the local distributors. They have struck out with something that stinks like censorship, and they have struck out at people who are particularly sensitive to this species of brutality and who buy their Pilot pens and printer refills by the case. They've got a lot of Nobel, Pulitzer, Mensa and 3-Sigma types sitting up at night, putting their heads together, and deciding that they're going to blow up a lot more German Trains. Hell! We're going straight for Amazon's Peenemunde and and we're gonna blow up all of their rockets after we're done with their trains.

See you later,
- - Charlie P.

[Charlie P.]

Further Update on Some Rapid-fire Developments:

I do not care if they take the book off its current banned status and put it back on Amazon by tomorrow. They are the New Zealand ad hoc tribunal to me. Pipe Dream: The thugs ought to publically apologize to the authors they have banned and harmed, and make restitution. Big, public restitution - not just restoring losses to the innocent bystanders whose careers they have tried to gun down; but by giving serious aid to Doctors Without Borders and/or other reputable aid groups, to carry on with the (too easily neglected, once the headlines shift elsewhere) long term mental and spiritual health care of the children of Haiti and other stricken areas. It's what Mr. Tsutomu Yamaguchi and Sadako would have called for: Turn the evil-doers on their heads, and make them turn something good out of it. It ougtht to be an interesting wait. I'll need to manufacture gills because I can't hold my breath that long.

Oh - and have you seen the iPad? It's the beautiful clovis point against a Homo erectus hand-ax (just the sort of machine I dreamed of in "Flying to Valhalla" and "Dust.") And, unlike Amazon, Apple has given authors and publishers a reasonable assurance that its system is not a leaky boat that makes thousands of instant E-book bootlegs more commonplace than streetvenders selling DVDs of Avatar. That's one of the main concerns publishers have with Kindle and a few of the even lesser artifacts out there: The bootleg problem. Apple doesn't just shrug and laugh about the problem when asked, they don't just shrug and and say, "Well, we really don't talk about that." As is the American way, my publisher was gravitating toward a superior product. In a free market, the superior product is supposed to win by virtue of being superior. A less desirable product is not to win by acts of extortion, followed by book banning - by fashioning a literary car bomb and driving it under a thousand books.

- - Charles Pellegrino

[gollum]

Affiliate info & application pages:

http://www.borders.com/online/store/BGI ... ateprogram
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/affiliate/index.asp
http://www.booksamillion.com/affiliates/index.html
http://www.abebooks.com/books/AffiliateProgram/
http://www.powells.com/partners/partners.html

[Mr. Titanic]

As immature and revolting as all this is, I think foremost Amazon's decision is quite illogical. So Amazon is concerned about competition with its Kindle from the iPad, ultimately a challenge that may end up netting them a loss in money, sure. As a result, they pull all these books from sale? What could that possibly accomplish; Amazon has gone ahead and inflicted more damage upon itself to ensure that competition with the iPad results in not only an opposing product on the market --- but less inventory for sale as well! I fail to understand how that could possibly give them an edge. Playing it "all or nothing" in business couldn't possibly work in anyone's favor. Especially not Amazon's.

EDIT: Additionally, I've always purchased about 90% of my books (including all of Charlie's Books) From Books-A-Million. I had it with Amazon when my reviews started being deleted for no justifiable reason. Besides, Books-A-Million has great coffee.

[Darb]

From New York Times, Jan 31st 2010

Amazon Concedes on Electronic Book Pricing
By BRAD STONE and MOTOKO RICH
Published: January 31, 2010

In a fight over the price of electronic books, Amazon.com has blinked.

Amazon Removes Macmillan Books (January 30, 2010) On Friday, Amazon.com shocked the publishing world when it pulled both the digital and physical books of Macmillan, the large international publisher, after Macmillan said it planned to begin setting higher prices for its e-books. Until now, Amazon has been setting e-book prices itself, and has established $9.99 as the common price for new releases and best-sellers.

But in a message to its customers posted to its Web site on Sunday afternoon, Amazon said that while it strongly disagreed with Macmillan’s stance, it would concede to the publisher ...

{snip}

Full article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/01/techn ... eb.html?hp

The retraction is a welcome gesture, but the fact that they did it in the first place is still deeply disturbing, and I have little doubt it will cause long term damage to Amazon, because it woke people up.

The whole situation was catastrophically stupid. If their corporate HQ & PR people are actually worth their salt, they''ll distance themselves from those responsible.

[ed_the_engineer]

From New York Times, Jan 31st 2010

The retraction is a welcome gesture, but the fact that they did it in the first place is still deeply disturbing, and I have little doubt it will cause long term damage to Amazon, because it woke people up.

The whole situation was catastrophically stupid. If their corporate HQ & PR people are actually worth their salt, they''ll distance themselves from those responsible.

There is other long-term damage to the reputation of the Kindle. According to an article on Publisher's Lunch (a pay site, quoted here, http://themoderatevoice.com/61017/jeff- ... ff-amazon/ ) All sample chapters of Macmillan books were deleted from Kindles as part of the delisting, and Macmillan books disappeared from Amazon Wish Lists.

They haven't learned, because Amazon did a stunt like this on Kindle last year.

Amazon allowed the purchase of thousands of unauthorized copies of two classic books, then when they realized the e-publisher didn't have the US rights, they remotely deleted all copies of those books on all Kindles without refund including irretrievably removing reader notes (which are stored separately from the book). This caused many high school and college kids to loose notes they needed for their academic classes (my Kindle ate my homework?).

After this story hit the wires and got circulation on TV News morning, noon and night, Jeff Bezos CEO of Amazon circulated a statement apologizing profusely for this disaster, saying it would not happen again and offering compensation to the victims. Now the Kindle has another black eye. Oh, and the books they removed? Animal Farm and 1984, by George Orwell...

Ed The Engineer

[Darb]

A profuse apology is a nice gesture, but it is simply that ... a hollow gesture. They've played hardball before, and they clearly think people are idiots if they expect them to believe they won't play hardball again, whenever and wherever it fiscally suits them.

[Charlie P.]

A Step Too Far: After I posted my thoughts about this dangerous farce on this Discussion Group, and after John Bachelor and I spoke about it on his show last night, another program that had scheduled me for late night radio flinched when a concern came up about Amazon being a sponsor of the program, and raised serious questions about whether we would be able to change the book link on their website from Amazon to other sellers (thus trapping me with a link on a national show's website with a distributor that was banning my book [while Amazon claimed it was not "really" a ban because they provided a link to book dealers offering seventeen available used copies of "Last Train," at prices up to nearly twice the cover price). On the heels of this depressing news came the question of whether I would even be allowed to discuss on the air, why my book - which had just reached the New York Times best seller list for Feb 7 - was unavailable from America's biggest book-seller (so big, these days, that author rankings on Amazon have become next of kin to author credit reports along Publisher's Row, determining how much promotional support a book is likely to receive); and finally there was the disquieting impression (preceding a talk among the station's upper management types during the next two hours) - that in addition to being muzzled on this subject, I might not be able to speak at all.

A couple of hours later, I was told that the show's link to my book was going directly to Barnes and Noble (other people's books also); and the broadcast began with a much deserved blast from the station against a former sponsor - Amazon. A brave, admirable, and thouroughly human move. The producer told me later that this was a case of "censorship, undoubtedly," even if Amazon decided to call it something else (like "special processing").

This should not be stomached. Not only by the many hundreds of writers impacted by this action (and in some cases on the verge of being destroyed by it) - but the public in general, must take a stand - strongly and immediately. - - Charles Pellegrino.

[Charlie P.]

Further Update: By lunch-time, today, Amazon had announced that it would begin restoring my publisher's books for sale, commencing immediately. But as John Bachelor has pointed out in a letter just received, there seems to be some selectivity in the intense delays to which certain books are being subjected - and I have heard from others monitoring this situation that authors whose books have not yet been restored these past 14 hours since the announcement, and who made public statements decrying the Amazon book bannings (among them John Scalzi, Charlie Stross, and Jeffrey A. Carver) are being attacked in forums and posts disguised (very poorly) as book reviews. They are being denigrated as greedy, "cheap bastards."Add "unethical" to the name-calling list. In a statement released today by Amazon management (see Tech Crunch, by Leena Rao, Jan 31, 2010), Amazon claimed in a public letter to its customers that it was forced to concede to MacMillan and its authors, who were trying to hold a monopoly over their own titles. Amazon claims to have been held hostage. Victimized - as if they are only a little David against Golliath. (As if.)

A remarkable phenomenon - all too common these days: the perpetrator of a reprehensible wrong repaints himself as the "real" victim. The thug who censors wraps himself in the American flag and says that all of his actions were really about preserving free trade and free speech. (What on sweet bleeding Earth?) This is about as McCarthy-esque or Orwellian as it gets: None of us writers - none of us who were subjected to the Amazon bombing run of black-listing had a hint that any dispute between our publisher and Amazon even existed. The attack came at us Friday night, unprovoked by any of us, and utterly without warning.

And - oh, sin of sins, some of us had the temerity to raise our voices, and to object.

Among the handful of Amazon-banned books I was tracking, only one has been restored to Amazon sales. Authors who spoke out are still being hit with disabled "Buy" buttons. Ray Bradbury naturally wasn't too happy, and said so. F-451 is actually on the banned list. (Have any of these executive-types actually read what that book is about? I'm almost afraid to ask how this could possibly get anymore farcical - or worse.) Nobel prize winner Elie Wiesel's "Night" is still on the black-list and Michael Gordin's "Red Cloud at dawn" has been bulldozed out of the top 100into utter obscurity in the #64,627 spot. John Bachelor has just informed me that my book, too, appears to him to have been kept on a continuing ban.

- - Charles Pellegrino

There comes a time when silence is betrayal - Martin Luther King.

[Darb]

Further-Further Update: Amazon's link is back up. EDIT: No longer avail new from Amazon ... only the wishlist and market place links work.

IBDoF linkage: Last Train from Hiroshima

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #142 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
#1 in Books > History > Asia > Japan
#1 in Books > History > World > 20th Century
#1 in Books > History > Military > World War II > Hiroshima & Nagasaki

I took the liberty of freshening IBDoF's entry with the final version of the title (the original draft title was "SAFE: Last Train {from Hiroshima} to Nagasaki").

[Mr. Titanic]

Update from Charlie concerning an author who tested the waters with Amazon and received a reply if particular interest. The name has been changed to protect the author's identity.

Dear Amazon,
>
> Charles Pellegrino's new book, "Last Train from Hiroshima" is garnering rave reviews (NY Times, Booklist, Library Journal). Why can't I purchase it from Amazon anymore (only a few higher priced vendors)? And where's the Kindle version? This seems ridiculous. A bit of research (I'm also an author) has led me to discover that Last Train will hit the NY Times Bestseller list next week (2/7) at #23 on their non-fiction list. Why isn't this book available through Amazon.com?

All of which are reasonable questions we've all been curious about, no doubt.

Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2010 13:56:35 +0000
> From: cust.service03@amazon.com
> To: [Snip]
> Subject: Your Amazon.com Inquiry

Hello,

Unfortunately, we don't have any more stock of "The Last Train from Hiroshima" book right now, and we're not sure when we'll be able to get more. The Kindle edition of this book is also unavailable. I'm sorry about this.

I'd suggest checking our website from time to time to see if this item is available from us. You can also use the "Alert me" link, which allows you to sign up so we can e-mail you when Amazon has stock available for purchase.

Unexpected fluctuations in our inventory occasionally happen. I know it's frustrating when that happens, and I'm very sorry for the inconvenience.

If you need to contact us again feel free to do so by visiting the link below:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/contact-u ... tions.html

We hope to see you again soon.

Did I solve your problem?

Best regards,
>
> [Snip]
> Amazon.com
> We're Building Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company (IRONIC STATEMENT?)

And finally, Charlie's reply to the inquiring author in question:

You haven't heard the news, have you?

Friday night Jack [my editor] was trying to reach Elaine [my agent]. He got to me Saturday morning literally choking back tears. They sent out plenty of books to Amazon but Amazon has been refusing to put them up for sale, stating an intention to puunish MacMillan, its satellite publishers (and all of its authors) - presumably as an example to Random House and every other pubkisher who might offend their eye.

(It's only an hypothesis of course, but it is possible to believe that after the iPad and the other readers are driven to or near extinction, Amazon-Kindle will begin raising its prices on Ebooks to at least market value. They are free to price cut in competition with other systems; but they are not free to wrap themselves self-righteously in the American flag and claim that they are fighting for free market values and for the the sharing of information - fighting for free speech - while using the power to literally pull thousands of books from the press, knowingly, and deliberately, destroying authors' careers and lives.)

They committed this dastardly act late on a Friday, doubtless for the same reasons Congressional types send out bad or shocking news late on Fridays. It's an act of stealth. At most they can usually expect to see a small article in the back pages of some section of the NY Times. Not even any of the authors I know had any idea (no more than I did) why their titles were suddenly unavailable on Amazon from Friday evening until about lunch time yesterday. John Batchelor's analogy is apt: Amazon (trying to do this stealthily so that only publishing executives knew about it) has taken MacMillan out into the village square and forced all of the other villagers (the other publishers) to watch while they gunned down MacMillan and its entire family (its authors). This was a warning to Random House and Wiley and to everyone else that they'd better not cross the local rogues of Publisher's Row. The threat appears to have worked. On January 29, the New York Post reported that Random House and McGraw-Hill all but ran away from Steve Jobs and his iPad presention - mysteriously and "conspicuously" absent.

Among the books banned this weekend by Amazon were Elie Weizel's "Night" and "The Diary of Anne Frank." Elie had something unkind to say about people who ban and burn books. Though under different circumstances, he'd seen something like this before.

I was still on my thickest weekend of scheduled radio interviews (the final push by my publisher to maintain the momentum on "Last Train," generated by the sorts of reviews one dreams of for an entire career. And, after the John Bachelor broadcast Saturday night, on which he told the country exactly what was happening, Amazon evidently attempted to shoot a powerful round across the bow of Coast-to-Coast AM radio - the next show on which I was scheduled to appear. A lower level station program manager called two hours before I was to be interviewed (during a 3 hour program that sells books on a level equal to Larry King), telling me of concerns that the station might not be able to link my book with Barnes and Noble on its website, or with anyone except Amazon, because Amazon was a sponsor. Then I was told that for contractual and legal reasons, no one might be allowed to mention the book banning by Amazon, as John Bachelor had done about two hours before on Fox news radio. Finally, it was implied that I might not be allowed to speak at all and that there would be a meeting of upper management during the next two hours

Ultimately, Coast to Coast responded valiantly - immediately putting my book on a Barnes and Noble link and removing its now ex-sponsor. The show began with the host's editorial blast against Amazon and this reprehensible act of censorship. Amazon had argued that they were not really "banning" or "censoring" anyone's book - that "Last Train" was still available on Amazon through secondary dealers. The producer was enraged. She pointed out that, as Amazon was well aware, there were only 17 copies available through secondary sources via Amazon and that some of them were being offered "Used" at almost twice the price of a new hardcover. The producer said that Amazon's behavior was book banning and censorship "undeniably."

Yesterday, at about noon, Amazon agreed to start restoring books for sale on its site commencing immediately. In a public statement, Amazon claimed to have been bullied into caving in to MacMillan, actually claiming to be the "real" victim in a hostage drama and dismissing any harm to authors as their American right to choose which publishers they carry and that we authors were simply civilian collateral damage (in their eyes guilty of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Read this to mean: choosing the wrong publisher).

Anne Frank and other authors do seem to have been restored to Amazon sales lists almost immediately, commencing about noon yesterday; but John Bachelor noted last night that certain authors - including but not limited to me and Elie Wiesel, seemed to be experiencing a strange and, he believed, a selective delay. Others who had been particularly vocal - examples include John Scalzi, Charlie Stross, and Jeffrey A. Carver - were suddenly subjected to one-star name-callers (very poorly) disguising their comments supporting the banning of their books as book reviews. The list of slurs characterised writers as "greedy bastards" and praised Amazon for "creative destruction."

So, when Amazon writes to you to say they are out of copies, they are lying - again. The book went into a third printing by Friday and was sent to Amazon, according to my editor, Jack - - where it has been languishing in warehouse limbo all the way up to this very moment.

See you later,
- - Charlie P.

[Charlie P.]

UPDATE: While some titles appear to have been restored yesterday, all MacMillan titles are, as of 6:30PM, February 1, 2010, banned once again on Amazon.

My own publisher has proved that we don't need Amazon. Holt-MacMillan are doing quite well getting their books out to other retailers - that is, directly to Amazon's competitors. Even if our books are restored to the Amazon list, I hope MacMillan will continue to give extra support to Amazon's competitors, as they have supported us in our time of need. If not for them, "Last Train" would not today be going into its fourth printing despite the Amazon black-list.

The only way Amazon can make right, and maybe even save face, is by what I outlined above in the 3rd paragraph of my third posting of January 30 - 11:44PM - (especially with regard to what Sadako and Mr. Yamaguchi would have them do).

- - Charles Pellegrino

[Darb]

I've kicked off a discussion in an offline staff-only area of the forum to determine if/how our exclusive affiliation arrangement with Amazon will be affected by these recent developments.

[ed_the_engineer]

Unfortunately, we don't have any more stock of "The Last Train from Hiroshima" book right now, and we're not sure when we'll be able to get more. The Kindle edition of this book is also unavailable. I'm sorry about this.

The truth is they're sitting on thousands of copies in their warehouses, not sending it back or selling it, keeping them in limbo.

> We're Building Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company (IRONIC STATEMENT?)

How do you build a customer-centric company by *lying* to your customers and being unable or unwilling to fulfill their orders? Just asking...

This is just fascinating, Amazon is lying to their customers, I suppose expecting they don't read newspapers or the internet (this story is getting more and more coverage, but the spin is that its "temporary" and Amazon wants to "mend fences," yet "temporary" now looking like availability in MARCH!!!)

On the legal front (I am not a lawyer, but I have done legal research), I should mention that two persons (a high school student and an engineer) sued Amazon as a class action in Federal District Court for removing 1984 and Animal House from their Kindles as a violation of the Kindle's own terms of service and for Amazon being deceitful in their email exchanges. Amazon settled that case for $150,000 to be split between the two plaintiffs (with the lawyer's cut being donated to charity as part of the settlement), and offered free replacement of the books or a $30 gift certificate to all affected customers (not sure if this was stipulated or just to forestall further suits). So Amazon has a history of being deceitful with customers and having it used against them successfully in court. They have also laid themselves open once again to a class-action unfair business practices tort (specifics may vary from State to State). Not to mention a likely contract violation with Macmillan, who made thousands of its books available to Amazon for sale, not censorship.

Amazon is estimated to have 15-20% of the USA book market, this is a classic case under Federal anti-trust law of abusive and/or anti-competitive behavior that leads to and/or preserves a dominant market position. Shouldn't there be an anti-trust investigation by the US Justice Department and/or the Congress (they may not get far, but they could run up a legal tab for Amazon and Congress could sure roast Jeff Bezos in public)? Call your Congress-critter and Senators and complain!

Remember that old ad (I think it was by the Authors Guid), "Censorship Works, Just Ask the Experts (with pictures): Hitler, Stalin, Ayatollah Khomeni, Saddam Hussein." Maybe we should make one of those with Jeff Bezos' picture...

Ed The Engineer

[Mr. Titanic]

Ed: That is why I highlighted that statement and suggested I felt it was ironic. It really can't get any more ironic than a signature on the bottom of an email message that lies and denies its customers products on the basis of petty executive play.

[Charlie P.]

I have just finished another broadcast with John Bachelor - who, in addition to the host of Coast-to-Coast AM (and me) - does not speak at all kindly about Amazon's raketeering game and its destructive crusade against authors. It now appears that many of the banned authors are having their books restored for sale on Amazon.com. My book is among those that have not been restored and which in fact, oddly, were briefly restored only to have been removed (seemingly selectively). As John Bachelor pointed out to his audience, I am the only author blown up by Amazon these past 100 hours - BOOK NOW NOT AVAILABLE UNTIL NEXT MONTH - who has been on his show and on Coast-to-Coast discussing the banning of his or her book (and everyone else's). As he sees it - very South-Park-esque: Oh my God, they shot Charlie. You bastards!

And Charlie says, "Oh no. Not again."

For the uninitiated, I left New Zealand years ago because evolution was being attacked at the university level and 1982 was really the wrong time to be coming out with a book titled, "Darwin's Universe." Through the years, I've survived two plane crashes and two submarine crashes. I've been downwind of "an unscheduled energetic disassembly," shot, stabbed, slashed, survived a hand grenade attack, survived getting lost with an Army officer in a car with an Israeli flag on it (on the wrong side of the Jerusalem wall), walked away from a volcanic incident with only a few bumps, and even survived once having been married to a volcano. Now you know the meaning of, "Oh, no. Not again." Now you know why Jim Cameron expressed a little nervousness about sitting between me and the ultimate survivor, Tsutomu Yamagichi, on December 22, 2009. Mr. Yamaguchi's daughter said not to worry - people within a 30 foot radius of her father or Charlie-san always tended to be safe.

See you later,
- - Charlie P.

[Darb]

Charlie,

Here's another symptom that something fishy is up with your macmillan books on Amazon. As a longtime voter, I've learned how to put my ear to the ground and pick up small clues. Enclosed below are some tips on deciphering how to tell if Amazon is accepting or rejecting your feedback on reviews ...

Feedback that are auto-accepted generate this message:

Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided to other Amazon.com readers and reviewers. Your vote will be counted and will appear on the product page within 24 hours.

Feedback that are auto-rejected typically generate one of the following two messages:

Thanks for your feedback.

There was an error processing your request. Please try again later.

Caveat: As part of Amazon's extremely porous anti-trolling safeguards, there is usually a limit on the number of votes anyone can place on a given review, reviewer or book, after which your votes will get auto-rejected. For instance, you can (and should) only be able to vote once on a given given book or review, and you can only register votes on a small handful of different books & reviews in any given login session. That's perfectly fine, and I have no problem with that.

SO, how did I know something fishy's going on with the Hiroshima book ? Well, I hadn't previously voted at all on any reviews relating to the Hiroshima book, but when I went to do so a little while ago, my votes were automatically rejected, despite not having voted before on it, or at any time during my current login. I'm tempted to see if I'm allowed to vote on any of the other currently banned macmillan books. If I learn anything, I'll report back.

[Mr. Titanic]

New update from Charlie:

[quote="Dr. Charlie Pellegrino]Subject: The Amazon Book Ban
To: "Edward Bishop"
Date: Wednesday, February 3, 2010, 4:44 PM


Dear Ed: I'm on the John Bachelor Show again tonight - and every night until targeted books are restored. As you know, I left New Zealand, all those years ago, to get away from what had, in those days, become the anti-evolutionist shotgunning of science books.

I tend to take black-listing and attempts to intimidate publishers and authors rather personally.

Barnes and Noble has reached out in our time of need and put all black-listed books on its internet bookstore at Club Prices even for B&N buyers who are not club members - matching and even beating the former Amazon sale prices on the black-listed books.

I hope all Americans will remember this one kind action from B&N if and when all of this is over, and pay it forward to B&N and anyone else who has attempted to protect authors from this Amazon attack that came suddenly, and with no provocation whatsoever from any of us.

Without warning, during its initial, first bombing run against books (on the evening of Friday, Jan. 29, 2010), Amazon banned both The Diary of Anne Frank and Ray Bradbury's Hamilton edition of Fahrenheit 451. Amazon struck out with such depraved and reckless malice that they seemed not to notice that some of the books they were banning were not even published my their target, Macmillan.

Amazon also banned Elie Wiesel's Night, but after his family said something unkind about censorship, the book was only temporarily restored to sale on Amazon - then subjected again to a ban early this morning that continues through this writing. Amazon announced to the Author's Guild (as reported in the A.G. letter of 2 February) that they were selectively restoring for sale, books they considered to be of educational merit. We all know that Ray Bradbury also takes the evils of black-listing and censorship quite personally and is never silent on this subject; so the crowning irony is that his book about the evils of censorship remains banned on Amazon, judged along with Elie Wiesel's book as not being of any educational merit.

As I have said, all of this has become terrifyingly McCarthy-esque.

Frightening (and worth the "redunzel" moment): In my own case, Amazon evidently attempted to interfere last Saturday night with my book tour for The Last Train from Hiroshima (and today, even some of the targeted satellite houses under the MacMillan imprint are advising their authors not to say anything on radio or television about what is being experienced by them, behind the scenes). On Saturday January 30th, an Amazon sponsored national program was required to deal with the question of whether or not the station would be allowed to list a web-connect for my book to Barnes and Noble, and whether they would have to abide by a requirement to keep my book connected exclusively to Amazon (which was openly declaring its refusal to ship a single copy from its warehouse).

This incident followed, by only about two hours (by coincidence?), my interview on the John Bachelor Show, where I was invited as a guest because, in Email communications with John at the moment the incident developed, I had fallen butt-backwards and entirely by accident right into the story of the ban; and we thus became the first to break the news. After this, the producers of the next show had to decide whether I could discuss the ban on the air, and for a while it appeared to me that I might even be cancelled as a guest. As it turned out, instead of suffering Amazon intimidation, the station began the discussion of my book with an editorial against one of its former sponsors - Amazon. Valiant! Glad to say that in this incarnation of Rome, the only lions are not in the arena.

Of course, under Amazon's selective continuation of a ban that will apparently continue to run at least through those books its executives judge not to be of educational merit, The Last Train from Hiroshima has, not suprisingly, been judged not to be of any educational merit and remains banned (along with Elie Wiesel's and Bradbury's books).

In a letter sent out yesterday by the Author's Guild in support of banned authors, the Guild noted that Amazon now controls 75% of internet book-sales (the primary mode through which books are sold these days), and has seized the power to point to a book even as it first climbs onto the New York Times best seller list, and to destroy it at whim.

Having tasted blood this week, Amazon has proved that it can destroy; and if such unwarrented and aggressive conduct is left unchallenged, Amazon will destroy again, because they can.

Anyone can read the fear even in the letter sent out to members of the Author's Guild yesterday. What's glaringly absent from that letter is the presence of a single officer of the Guild who was brave enough to sign his or her name to its criticism of the Amazon black-list. There seems to be neither a John Hancock nor a lion among them. The letter therefore reads as silence.

I'm sure Elie Wiesel and Ray Bradbury will agree with me about a great American who once said, "There comes a time when silence is betrayal." (Martin Luther King)

- - Charles Pellegrino
February 3, 2010
Day six of the Amazon black-list
[/quote]

[Charlie P.]

Day-8 of the Amazon black-list.

At least for the time-being, the Amazon black-list has been lifed.

If not for Barnes and Noble stepping in and offering black-listed books up for sale at club prices for non-club members, and getting those books onto the shelves and into the mail, whole careers could have been ended by this reprehensible act - which was not provoked by a single writer, and which came at us entirely without warning.

I know two writers (two of my favorites) whose careers were barely holding together in the midst of the worst publishing recession on record, and whose careers were pushed over the cliff by this action - and I know another whose new book fell from the top 100 in the Amazon ranking to below 60,000 and never recovered because all the initial publicity for the new release had just ended and momentum was irretrievably lost. There must be many more such cases. This was not only a reckless disregard, it was carried out with all the trappings of a malicious glee, over a tantrum about what was, in all essentials, a computer toy.

Two giants were having themselves a mighty pissing fight in a field, over a toy, and what were the writers but the grass that got pissed on and trampled underfoot?

See you later,
- - Charlie P.

[Darb]

The forum staff discussed the issue offline, and the current consensus, among those present who chose to weigh in, was that we (IBDoF) intend to discontinue the exclusive aspect of our current affiliation with Amazon, and we will instead be looking to provide a broader variety of purchase links, both new and used, for the convenience of our members - including (but not limited to) Barnes & Noble, B. Dalton, etc. In other words, Amazon will be demoted to being just one of several purchase options available.

NOTE: please keep in mind that because we're an independant all volunteer site that's run by and for it's own members, our developmental resources are still presently quite limited, and it may be several weeks before the existing backlog of tasks (missing front page, missing member ratings & reviews summary, etc.) enables us to get the extra purchase links up and running.

[Charlie P.]

We may still have a problem. During the past week, we saw at least one author (Ray Bradbury) added to the Amazon black-list even though he was not involbed with the publisher on the Amazon ban (MacMillan). Then, as John Bachelor had pointed out on his radio show, despite an announcement through the Author's Guild that certain books judged (by an internal Amazon committee) to be of historic or educational merit would have their "buy buttons" restored during the ban, certain authors who were vocal about the Amazon black-list were evidently judged to have written books of no historical or educational merit (including "The Last Train from Hiroshima").

Now that the Amazon black-list was lifted on Day 8 (Feb 5), early in the morning following my next appearance on the John Bachelor Show (9:30pm, Feb 6), during which we discussed the short-and-long-term radiation effects of the two atomic bombs, John Bachelor praised the book before I appeared, and expressed his opinion about the "disgraceful" Amazon book ban, and its damaging effects on this and other books, and told listeners to support Barnes and Noble and other sellers who supported the black-listed authors.

Within hours of that broadcast, a new tag appeared next to my book (the sort of "tag" the Author's Guild had warned its writers about yesterday, February 6): Instead of shutting off the buy buttons, "Last Train" has become the only book in Amazon's History top 100 tagged as not being available for shipping "for 2 - 4 weeks." Indeed, it's the only book I have ever encountered with up to a one month shipping delay tagged to it.

There is little difference between the 8 day Amazon black-list and tagging a book as not being available for an unreasonable amount of time. In the latter case, no reasonable internet shopper is going to put a book with such delay in his or her "shopping cart." I know I wouldn't.

The 2 - 4 week delay of shipping, in which Amazon seems to be indicating that copies will not be available from the publisher (MacMillan), for a very long time, is deceptive to Amazon's customers. Even during the ban, the book was selling briskly through Barnes and Noble, and last week alone, two new printings were shipped. The tagging of "Last Train" with a suggestion that an extreme delay exists in the availability of copies is, at best, greatly mistaken, at least insofar as the truth is concerned. It gives the appearance that Amazon might still be on a destructive crusade (Oh, how dare someone be struck by a hard blow, and see his friends struck by the same unprovoked blow, and say, "That hurts, and that's wrong.")

- - Charles Pellegrino