The ongoing dispute between Amazon and Hachette is quickly escalating, with both sides calling on support from readers and authors.
Last Friday, Amazon launched Readers United, which encourages readers to contact Michael Pietsch, the CEO of Hachette. The initiative was introduced by Amazon through an open letter that criticizes Hachette for refusing to agree to new contract terms that will drive down most eBook prices to $9.99 or less.
Amazon reiterates its goal of lowering the prices of eBooks, along with claiming a 30 percent share from eBook sales, which the company said was what the publisher proposed to Amazon in 2010.
The online retail company has drawn much criticism due to its apparent coercion of Hachette to accept new contract terms, using its dominant position in the eBook industry to leverage its arguments. Amazon has driven customers away from Hachette books by increasing prices, removing books for pre-order and delaying the shipping times.
Amazon, while looking to have readers onboard its goal, continues to face opposition from Hachette. However, the publisher has gained ground with the acquisition of support from the book author community.
A group of over 900 authors, going by the name Authors United, signed a letter that was published in the New York Times last Sunday, calling for readers to send Jeff Bezon, the CEO of Amazon, their thoughts regarding the price dispute over eBooks.
Included in the authors that signed the letter are household names such as Stephen King and John Grisham. The letter was penned by Douglas Preston, a writer under the Hachette publishing house.
"Jeff Bezos used books as the cutting edge to help sell everything from computer cables to lawn mowers, and what a good idea that was," Preston said. "Now Amazon has turned its back on us. Don't they value us more than that? Don't they feel any loyalty? That's why authors are mad."
A recent development in the dispute is a statement posted by the Amazon Books Team.
"The famous author George Orwell came out publicly and said about the new paperback format, if 'publishers had any sense, they would combine against them and suppress them.' Yes, George Orwell was suggesting collusion."
Amazon's usage of the statement is a perceived blunder due to the fact that the statement by Orwell was celebrating Penguin paperback books, and not urging collusion. The whole line reads: "The Penguin Books are splendid value for sixpence, so splendid that if the other publishers had any sense they would combine against them and suppress them."
Orwell's statements went on to say that cheap books are not good for the book industry, which goes entirely against all the arguments that Amazon itself has been stating.
