I’m nuetral at the moment. Yesterday I wondered if Amazon’s decision could be seen as a monopoly. I didn’t know the answer but questioned the possibility.

After reading Amazon’s letter, they are giving POD’s an opportunity to provide five books that can be inventoried for sale. So in essence, they are saying that they will sell POD books from other printers IF they are given books to stock. So now, I’m even less sure about the monopoly agrument.

That said, a POD’s business model is that it’s “inventoryless” so they only print books at the time of order. That is why bookstores don’t carry POD books because they can’t return them to the POD printer if they do not sell.

Though Amazon has stated in their letter that five books is virtually “inventoryless” the fact of the matter remains that each POD has hundreds if not thousands of POD books. So five copies of each book can lead to tens of thousands of dollars. Who foots the bill for this? The POD? Or the writer?

Since writers are paying for the POD service, my take is that the writer will end up paying for the five copies. Which I think is okay because as I said they are paying for the POD services anyway.

ETA: My initial reason to post the Amazon/POD news was because some of my visitors use POD or will have a POD book printed soon. I want to provide visitors with industry news that will affect their ability to market their books.