Scott Turow: Amazon.com is the Darth Vader of the Publishing Industry
Posted on October 21, 2011
In advance of a speech he was giving at the Oak Park Unity Temple, bestselling author Scott Turow had quite a bit to say about Amazon.com's recent foray into book publishing.
In an interview with the Oak Park-River Forest Patch he said that Amazon is the Darth Vader of the publishing industry and questioned why the company isn't being investigated for violating federal antitrust laws. He also said that if Amazon.com hires away a huge author like John Grisham or Stephen King, major publishing houses will be seriously damaged, because it's the big authors that allow publishers to publish midlist authors.
I refer to Amazon as the Darth Vader of the publishing industry. I am very concerned about what they do. When I went to law school, I thought that kind of vertical integration, where the book seller also becomes the book publisher, I thought that was supposed to be against the law, but you know, it's supposed to be an anti-trust violation, but I guess the anti-trust laws have evolved in a way that I haven't thought of.Scott says he's also heard rumors that Amazon is going to offer certain books exclusively through Amazon.com. He says Amazon has the money to take a run a traditional book publishers.*****
If Amazon goes out and makes an offer to Stephen King or John Grisham that they can't refuse -- they won't completely sink their publishing houses, but they'll put a hole in the hull. And the other problem with Amazon is that you worry that they will behave as a monopolist. They play the game so that they always win.