Booksellers’ Star Wars: Barnes & Noble Strikes Back at Amazon
Bookselling giant Barnes & Noble has announced that it will cease selling Amazon-published books in its brick and mortar stores. The move apparently comes in retaliation for Amazon’s exclusive marketing tactics in recent months.
Jaime Carey, B&N’s chief merchandising officer, said in a statement: “Our decision is based on Amazon’s continued push for exclusivity with publishers, agents and the authors they represent. These exclusives have prohibited us from offering certain e-books to our customers. Their actions have undermined the industry as a whole and have prevented millions of customers from having access to content.”
Ursa Minor Publishing, home of DESTINATION DEALEY: Countdown to the Kennedy Conspiracy, assures readers that the novel is available at both B&N.com and Amazon.com.
Tags: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Novel, Publishing
I think it is time not only to tweak the stereotype about science fiction being a male province, but for the genre itself to have a more female slant. I myself started reading science fiction at the age of ten, and I loved HW Well, Jules Verne and Asimov. As a children’s writer I wanted to write a fantasy adventure sci fi book with a feminist slant and a female protagonist. I have recently self published an e book (Goddess in Pyjamas) about a schoolgirl being abducted to another planet to save their world. It was rejected by publishers because it did not fit into an accepted niche. I felt there was a market out there for sci fi adventure for girls so I wanted to re-invent the genre and create what I like to call ‘pink sci-fi’. It has the sensuality of a girly book and features mythical creatures as well as space travel. More Hitchhikers Guide meet Wizard of Oz, than Star Wars. I was puzzled to find that they don’t even have a section for sci fi for children at all in the flagship branch of Waterstones in Piccadilly. Isn’t it time that publishers and booksellers began to realise that children need as wide a range of reading as adults? If self published ebooks are the only way to get this kind of risk-taking, experimental stuff out there, they deserve to lose out.