Inspired by the recent stand off between Amazon and Macmillan, the Authors Guild will now track how often Amazon removes the button that allows customers to buy a book directly on Amazon–a project called Who Moved My Buy Button?
Readers, writers, and publishers can sign up for email alerts tracking a book’s buy button status on Amazon. Here’s more from the site:
“Amazon often chooses to instill fear in a publisher by selectively removing only a portion of a publisher’s list from its online market. It can do this silently, changing the titles that are unavailable on a regular basis, so that only the publisher notices. Both Amazon and the publisher have solid reasons to keep the unpleasantness quiet: Amazon doesn’t really want to be seen as a bully, and the publisher doesn’t want to betray weakness as it succumbs to the pressure…So please keep track of a few of your books. Sound the alarm if you find Amazon’s removed your buy buttons … We’ll do our part — we’ll monitor thousands of titles from many publishers.”
It will be fascinating to analyze the results of this ongoing program. Currently, (as of this 12:23 p.m. EST writing), direct buy buttons have not been restored to many Macmillan. You can test availability by following links to John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War.
