Amazon Wants to Bury Hachette by Offering 100% of E-Book Sales to Authors

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Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos introduces the new Amazon Fire Phone, Wednesday, June 18, 2014, in Seattle.

Image: Ted S. Warren/Associated Press

By Jason Abbruzzese2014-07-08 19:50:51 UTC

Amazon has thrown down the Hachette.

The online retailer has offered to give authors 100% of the sales price of all Hachette e-books sold until its standoff with the publisher is resolved, according to a source who confirmed the authenticity of a letter sent to authors.

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The proposal, from David Naggar, vice president of Amazon Publishing, claims that Hachette has been slow to respond to Amazon's attempts to negotiate and shines some light on the standoff that eventually led to the now-public issue. The dispute between Amazon and Hachette came to the media's attention in May when Amazon began blocking preorders for upcoming books from the publisher.

"We agree that authors are caught in the middle while these negotiations drag on, and we’re particularly sensitive to the effect on debut and midlist authors. But Hachette’s unresponsiveness and unwillingness to talk until we took action put us in this position, and unless Hachette dramatically changes their negotiating tempo, this is going to take a really long time," Amazon's letter states.

The letter was first reported by the New York Times . Hachette did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Amazon took the rare step of publicly acknowledging the dispute and publishing a blog post defending its actions on the behalf of customers. Amazon has consistently championed itself as the customer's defender in the battle of book royalties, but now looks to be pivoting in an attempt to put itself on the side of publishers.

Amazon has recently come under fire from authors who believe that Jeff Bezos' company is on the wrong side of the dispute. A letter from author Douglas Preston that circulated recently accrued more than 200 signatures from other writers.

Preston's letter reads in part:

Many of us supported Amazon from when it was a struggling start-up. Our books started Amazon on the road to selling everything and becoming one of the world’s largest corporations. We have made Amazon many millions of dollars and over the years have contributed so much, free of charge, to the company by way of cooperation, joint promotions, reviews and blogs. This is no way to treat a business partner. Nor is it the right way to treat your friends. Without taking sides on the contractual dispute between Hachette and Amazon, we encourage Amazon in the strongest possible terms to stop harming the livelihood of the authors on whom it has built its business. None of us, neither readers nor authors, benefit when books are taken hostage.

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Topics: amazon, Business, ebooks, hachette, Media