{"id":2085,"date":"2014-08-27T16:34:22","date_gmt":"2014-08-27T23:34:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/?p=2085"},"modified":"2014-08-27T16:34:22","modified_gmt":"2014-08-27T23:34:22","slug":"one-publisher-takes-on-amazon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/2014\/08\/one-publisher-takes-on-amazon.html","title":{"rendered":"One Publisher Takes on Amazon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[contextly_auto_sidebar id=&#8221;TUHr64z55mkmhkosqXugONtslgtzjq1a&#8221;]<\/p>\n<p>IT&#8217;S hard to know what an author or publisher should do when faced with Amazon&#8217;s dominance of the market: It&#8217;s hard to withdraw from a distributor who handles so large a portion of book (especially e-book) sales. But just as several small record labels have pulled their music from Spotify and other streaming services, the Oklahoma-based Educational Development Corporation, decided enough was enough.<\/p>\n<p>A Slate story, &#8220;How One Publisher Ditched Amazon and Succeeded,&#8221; looks at what led Randall White to back out.<\/p>\n<div class=\"text-3 text parbase section\">\n<blockquote><p>\u201cRemember\u00a0<em>Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid<\/em>, when they\u2019re on the cliff and getting ready to jump and one guy says, \u2018I can\u2019t swim?\u2019\u201d asks the folksy 72-year old, referring to the classic Robert Redford\u2013Paul Newman film. \u201cAnd the other guy says, \u2018What are you worried about? The fall\u2019s going to kill you.\u2019\u201d<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-2086\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/220px-Amazone_Staatliche_Antikensammlungen_8953.jpg\" alt=\"220px-Amazone_Staatliche_Antikensammlungen_8953\" width=\"220\" height=\"216\" \/><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text parbase text-4 section\">\n<blockquote><p>That was essentially the situation White found himself in, watching helplessly as EDC\u2019s revenues were steadily eaten away by competition from world\u2019s most successful\u2014and most aggressive\u2014online retailer. \u201cWe were selling more to Amazon but our business kept declining,\u201d he says, describing a dip of some 40 percent in one division alone. \u201cI\u2019m thinking, \u2018What can I do here? This is crazy.\u2019 You had to fix it, or you\u2019re going to die anyway.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It&#8217;s financially difficult &#8212; maybe impossible &#8212; for larger publishers to do this. The story concludes by wondering if EDC is anomalous or if other publishers can make a similar move. &#8220;The more important lesson may be to align themselves more aggressively the few local bookstores that\u00a0still remain in business\u2014probably the only entities more threatened by Amazon than publishers are. A strong alliance accompanied by a noisy publicity push might at least put them in a more advantageous negotiating position the next time Amazon comes around looking for better terms.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ll keep watching.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[contextly_auto_sidebar id=&#8221;TUHr64z55mkmhkosqXugONtslgtzjq1a&#8221;] IT&#8217;S hard to know what an author or publisher should do when faced with Amazon&#8217;s dominance of the market: It&#8217;s hard to withdraw from a distributor who handles so large a portion of book (especially e-book) sales. But just as several small record labels have pulled their music from Spotify and other streaming [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[612,35,650,377],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2085","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-amazon","7":"category-books","8":"category-bookstores","9":"category-slate","10":"entry","11":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2085\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}