Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
Re: My Comment on Stephen King's Site
Author: Joshua Kempner Posted: 7/24/2000; 7:27:03 PM Topic: My Comment on Stephen King's Site Msg #: 18983 (In response to 18977) Prev/Next: 18982 / 18984
While I don't like what Amazon has been doing with regard to its patents, that's not the reason I refuse to buy from them. My boycott of Amazon comes from the damage they do to small, independent, locally owned bookstores and the small presses that these stores support. Without independent book stores, small and independent publishers can't survive, and our freedom of expression as a nation suffers, being left only with larger publishers who are less willing to gamble on what they print.It is with regard to this, rather than to Amazon's patent abuse, that I find King's partnership with Amazon disturbing, not to mention surprising. King has always been a champion of independent bookstores, which Amazon is putting out of business right and left. For years, King has done book signings only at independents and has been quite vocal about the threat that Borders, Barnes & Noble, and other chain stores pose to independent book sellers. Amazon is as big a threat as any of these, so it distresses me to hear King partnering with them to sell his book online. Does this mean he's abandoning independents? What impact will his decision have on publishers' relations with and attitudes towards independent book stores? The continued survival of such locally owned businesses arguably has a greater impact on the publishing industry than does the migration of books from paper to digital form, and Stephen King has an enormous amount of clout in this issue.
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