Ooooh, dissed! Galleycat posts a photo of a full-page New York Times ad for a book, which features the bolded line at the bottom, “Available at booksellers everywhere except Amazon.” I’m sure that’s got to sting.
As the first commenter on Galleycat notes, it actually is available at Amazon, albeit via third-party vendors.
It sure does sting.
It shows how incredibly petty Macmillan is and what a colossal ego its CEO must have to approve such a silly ad. It also points out how the publisher placed the ad — not with the notion of promoting the work of the author — but attempting to score debating points in a corporate battle which leaves out the interests of the consumer.
How ironic the book title is “How to Get Things Right”. It’s appalling and Macmillan ought to be ashamed of itself.
So publishing an ad that points out that you can’t purchase the book at Amazon is ‘silly’ and shows a colossal ego, but stopping the purchase of thousands of books over a completely unrelated corporate battle isn’t? To me it seems like Amazon is the ones that should be ashamed of themselves. The Macmillan CEO has at least publicly addressed the issues.
It seems like Amazon is the one without the interests of the consumer in mind, they have stopped the sale of books that people would want to read.
How on earth could one retailer stop the sales of books?
Unless of course Amazon had an exclusive deal to sell those books… but I don’t think they did.