So, Oprah isn’t the only natural force that can move book sales? Amazon.com, which commands 15 percent of the book sales market and has been marketing books for years through carefully selected homepage placements, gets credit today in the Journal for propping up books like David Wroblewski’s 566-page coming-of-age The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, which is now in its seventh printing. Other booksellers like CostCo and Barnes & Noble are moving more copies too.
This is a departure from the other “Amazon Force” story that was just told earlier this week, which focused not on how Amazon.com can move a book to blockbuster status, but on how it can totally screw a publisher out of sales, by disabling the Buy Now button and moving the book to its virtual dustbins (back pages that are harder to find), if they don’t play by the retail giant’s revenue-sharing rules.
But while we’re on a happy note, it might be worth drilling down exactly how Amazon can send a no-name title to household name status with just a few clicks.
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ETHICS CONUNDRUM “The publisher of a cockfighting magazine has agreed to stop selling it on Amazon.com after the Humane Society charged that its sale violated federal law.
“But Amazon has vowed to fight on, arguing it has the constitutional right to do so.” [Folio]
From Amazon.com’s listing of James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces:
Proving that even after all the Bush administration’s truth stretching, the public will still happily buy into a web of lies. (NB: Frey’s “memoir” is second in sales only to Elie Wiesel’s Night — which Oprah just chose as her latest book club pick on Monday.)
A Million Little Pieces (Oprah’s Book Club) (Paperback) [Amazon.com]
• Leave it to the Daily News to call out the New York Post on ties to the Bonanno crime family. Having Rupert Murdoch’s paper in their pocket (thanks to employee “Vinny Bionics”) is an asset worth protecting, but the Olsen twins would have more to gain than the mob. [NYDN]
• The Wall Street Journal’s parent, Dow Jones & Co., is looking to muddy its feet with some Judith Miller. They’ve filed a request to unseal eight pages of redacted documents that were critical in convincing judges that Judy needed to testify. Stupid newspapers and their quest for the free flow of information. [E&P]
• Everyone – and we mean everyone – agrees that Corporation for Public Broadcasting chairman Ken Tomlinson’s resignation is a good thing. [B&C]
• NYT publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. is rallying support to “upgrade the ethical standards of journalism,” which matches nicely with his new khakis and campaign to oust Judith Miller. [Guardian]
• Incoming Financial Times editor Lionel Barber is quickly doing away with the double-edged news desk, though his “real” plans for the paper aren’t expected till late this month. [Guardian]
• While Google resumes its Library project, Amazon.com isn’t letting the search giant get too much of a head start. The bookstore-and-more is debuting Amazon Pages, which lets consumers buy books a few pages at a time, which works for us given our attention spans. [News.com]
• MTV is getting even larger, but just because they’re launching more channels and media properties doesn’t mean music videos will return anytime soon. [Reuters]