UK's Leading Writers Website calls for Amazon Boycott

[angelahoy]

I manage YouWriteOn.com, the UK's most popular Arts Council funded site for
budding writers, with leading publishers such as Random House involved who
consider highly charted new writers in our charts, and also free critiques
from editors for publishers such as Bloomsbury and Orion. We are calling for
a boycott on Amazon here in the UK over the news about Amazon and
Print-On-Demand which we consider are attempts to monopolise the POD
industry and will lead to considerably less choice, less opportunities, and
less royalties for POD writers, and also opens a door for Amazon to consider
similar approaches for other mainstream commercial publishers and
authors. This YouWriteOn move has been reported in The Bookseller:
http://thebookseller.com/news/56180-youwriteoncom-calls-for-amazon-boycott.html

YouWriteOn.com in response is inviting all POD authors everywhere to list
their books on our site with a free 'book-buy' link to any bookseller other
than Amazon. Effectively we are calling for a proactive boycott of Amazon
and are encouraging all writers and readers and other writers' sites to join
in this by doing the same in their writers communities, which drive the POD
industry, and to also email their discontent to Amazon. It is also a
red-flag to the publishing industry in terms of how Amazon may use their
influence on books from mainstream commercial publishing houses in the
future.

POD may sometimes be viewed as 'vanity publishing' but it can be an
important progression step for writers who are locked out from mainstream
commercial publishing by the current 'mid-list' book problems that authors
suffer in the industry. We have helped writers achieve success with
publishers like Random House and Quercus, and for non-mainstream publishing
we give, as an example, Bufflehead Sisters by YouWriteOn US member Patricia
J. DeLois, which was turned down by agents and publishers here and in the
US. We published the novel by POD and it sold 1,200 copies over Christmas
2007 and the author received agent representation and is being considered
for a two book deal by a leading publisher as a result. Amazon's move would
have seriously impacted on the writer's chance of this opportunity as well
as leading to considerably lower royalties for her. POD is driven by writers
outside of mainstream publishing, and, in the same way that peer to peer
feedback on YouWriteOn has helped writers achieve publishing success, we'd
like this boycott to be taken up by all writers communities.

Kind Regards
Edward Smith
Manager
YouWriteOn.com