What looks like a simple price war between Amazon, Target, and Walmart over a handful of bestsellers is symptomatic of a much deeper problem in the book business. The larger fight is really over what you get to read.
The price war began Oct 15 when Walmart.com dropped its prices drastically on several bestsellers. Amazon.com and Target.com quickly followed suit, and within a couple of days the prices were down to $8.99 and heading lower. At this point, these behemoths were clearly selling those books below cost and engaging in an illegal form of predatory pricing.
Read more at: The Huffington Post
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So … who reviews the little guys?
If the larger publishers are kowtowing to the needs of the large distributors … limiting the number of titles … then the mid-range to small and tiny publishers need help getting “mind space.” We public librarians have been doing this for years, of course, but we only seem to review what the major publishers want to send us.
We need to work with the smaller publishers and explain that our ability to provide exposure is more than worth any lost sales due to library use. We also need to make sure that we have a way to review the smaller press material.