Nancy Pearl, the famous librarian (and action figure!) who recently partnered with Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) to republish a handful of out-of-print titles each year, tells the New York Times and Seattle Times that based on the reaction she’s received it’s a “hard question” whether she’d do it again.
Amazon Publishing is launching Pearl’s line at a time when many in her community—independent booksellers, librarians and some authors—are very angry at Amazon for what they see as predatory business practices, relentless discounting and attacks on independent bookstores.
Full article at Paid Content.org
Not her books
>> Many in the book publishing world respond by asking why Pearl didn’t just decide to self-publish the books.
Because they are not her books. The books are books that Pearl recommends but that are out of print. Pearl has no right to republish them. To do that the publisher has to go buy rights to the book so they can be republished. Amazon was willing to do this; other publishers that Pearl approached were not.