DBD-distributed books pulled from Amazon

“Did Diamond Book Distributors just get “Macmillan-ed” by Amazon? It appears books represented by DBD are currently not available directly from the largest online retailer of books. Downtime to fix the glitch, or a sign of tension between the two? We are already familiar with Amazon’s penchant for being heavy-handed with publishers and distributors with whom it is in dispute, and the book listings do look quite a bit like Macmillan’s did a few weeks back. ”

I realize, delicately put, that (somewhat) taking Amazon’s side in pro-Publisher waters is akin to building yourself a 100% Black angus steak-suite and jumping into the lions’ dens, but……..

…If Amazon did temporarily stop sales of Diamond books over the dispute, is that a crime against humanity (such as where authors placed the Macmillian ‘We’ll play hardball and you just take it!’ issue somewhere between the Cambodian killing fields and the Ukrainian forced-famine)? Amazon’s got a pretty costly hoedown on it’s hands via the Comic Conflagration of 10′, just looking at single-affiliate sell-through’s (http://www.bleedingcool.com/2010/03/08/amazon-stats-what-bleeding-cool-readers-ordered-so-far/) shows huge order numbers. Factor in all the customer service man-hours/PR help that this issue is going to consume, this can conceivably be a problem that costs over a million dollars.

Especially if the problem originated with Diamond, you can be sure that Amazon is going to want them to pony up some duckets in this wing-ding. And if Diamond is resistant, what tools does a middle-man posses to bring pressure on a supplier other than to stop selling their goods? Should Amazon plaster a big corn-shuckin’ grin on it’s face while it swallows a potentially million+ problem gracefully laid by one if it’s suppliers, whilst still happily making said supplier money?

Amazon, in my usually not-so-humble opinion, has repeatedly shown want of good PR strategy/execution. However, in fairness, Amazon is also not some magically appearing force of nature, like Lorna Doone rising from the mist, that just happens to be tended to by Jeff Bezos. It is not a public utility run for the sake of book publishers. Amazon is a business, who in many cases drives a substantial part of the very revenue that authors/publishers are attacking it over. Middle-men do not control product content/manufacturing/etc., in a dispute a middle-man’s only weapon is often only to stop selling the product(s) in question.

I don’t think enough of the good ol’ fashioned, chicken-fried info/facts are out there yet to say if Amazon’s move in this case is heavy-handed or not.