Ah, publishing: that sleepy business rich with irony.
On August 15, tiny but politically mighty Chelsea Green Publishing announced it will crash Obama's Challenge: America's Economic Crisis and the Power of a Transformative Presidency. Margo Baldwin, publisher of the Vermont-based house, said her objective was to get the pro-Obama book by journalist Robert Kuttner out in time for this week's Democratic convention. To that end, Chelsea Green is producing 2,000 advance copies; because the convention expects 15,000 attendees, the publisher planned to give the rest of them coupons redeemable for a $13.95 pre-pub POD edition from Amazon's Book Surge.
All this might sound reasonable, even forward thinking, to those who think politics is only about what's about to happen in Denver and Minneapolis. But for all its political correctness, Chelsea Green—as left-leaning and eco-friendly as a publisher comes—made a giant political misstep when it comes to publishing: by making a special deal with Amazon.com, Chelsea Green has buddied up to Independent Bookselling's Enemy #1.
As reported in PWDaily last week, Chelsea Green reps have received e-mails calling its Amazon move “a money-grubbing sellout” and “a slap in the face.” Several independents canceled their orders for Obama's Challenge; Barnes & Noble has followed suit. (Talk about rich: a spokesperson for the chain decried the lack of “level playing field” in this arrangement—this from the retailer some say practically invented the un-level playing field.) Some retailers have even said they'll never order from Chelsea Green again.
Obviously, booksellers have much to fear from Amazon.com. So I'm not surprised by other booksellers' vehement reaction to Chelsea Green's actions. When I wrote months ago about my infatuation with my Amazon Kindle, I received several sharp e-mails suggesting I was a traitor to independent booksellers—and to books them-very-selves—for enjoying a product available only through the Evil Empire. Never mind, as Baldwin points out, that many of the independent bookstores that are refusing to carry the book are the same ones selling anti-Obama books they profess not to believe in. And never mind that by September 15 all bookstores will be able to sell the Chelsea Green book. This is about politics, all right—but politics of the internal, not the global kind.
Still, expecting a publisher to subsume its primary goal—getting as many books out to as many people as quickly as possible—in the interest of some internecine war seems misguided. What should Chelsea Green have done? Not made sure all convention-goers could get a copy? How does that help with either its mission as a publisher or its bottom line—not to mention Baldwin's unabashed effort to support her favored candidate? In the interest of publishing politics, it would have been nice if Baldwin had considered other POD options, but as of now, the fact that Amazon can print and ship from one location makes its service the most economical. (A note: when Peter Osnos of PublicAffairs decided to print interim copies of Scott McClellan's What Happened, he chose Ingram's Lightning Source, thus sidestepping this landmine.)
But she didn't, and thus, Margo Baldwin entered into yet another battle in a decades-long war by effectively sleeping with the enemy.
Click here for a response to this editorial from Barnes & Noble.
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