Amazon: Evil? Srsly?

There's been much hoo-ha recently over Amazon donating money to non-profit literary organisations. One of the more balanced articles was on Salon.com, in which Alexander Zaitchik asked whether Amazon was "backing book culture or buying off critics". Chad Post, slightly misquoted in the piece, responded at Three Percent.

I'd like to weigh into the argument here, for two reasons. The first is that I'm one of the translators who has worked directly for Amazon's translation imprint. I have taken the devil's cheque, to paraphrase Zaitchik. But then I've also worked for Random House and for not-for-profit publishers, so I think I can safely say I've covered a range of bases on the publishing front.

Working for Amazon was mainly a pleasant professional experience. The people I dealt with there were very definitely book-lovers rather than fire-breathing devils. They cared about the books they worked on and did a good job of putting them out there. I'm still pleased that AmazonCrossing exists, because it has the guts (and the wherewithal) to translate books other publishers wouldn't even consider, especially genre fiction.

I say this because of reason two for speaking out in the first place. And that's the invective that pervades the argument. In Salon's piece, an anonymous veteran indie publisher is quoted as saying of Amazon that despite their donations, "(...) everything about them is still evil."

Evil. Evil? Have you thought about what that word means? Amazon is re-selling and delivering books and other commodities via the internet. It demands major discounts, which are disadvantageous to publishers, and questions have been raised about its tax payment practices. It is not, however, clubbing baby seals to death or indeed keeping life-saving medicines out of the price range of those who need them. To the extent that I understand Amazon's tax issues (which is pretty much zero), the corporation is acting within the law. OK, taxation is a moral issue, but it's one I'd place lower on the scale than manufacturing and selling weapons, for example.

Making money, as Chad Post points out however, is what corporations do. It's their raison d'être. They can't be judged as we'd judge individuals, because they're not individuals. So just as all the little drones at Random House no doubt love books in their own way, the CFO may or may not, and Random House itself, as an entity, doesn't give a shit. It's a corporation selling a commodity to make a profit. Its only theoretical restriction is the respective legislation in the countries where it operates.

If we leave aside the fetishisation of the book (see below) and simply treat Amazon as a corporation with a corporate donation scheme, we come up with a good few similar examples in the UK. How about the Galaxy National Book Awards? Should we boycott them because Mars Inc. make our kids obese while turning a profit? Or the MAN Booker Prize, which is sponsored by an asset management company of all things - another area that simplistic arguments see as a moral issue. I'm reminded of the recent scandal in Berlin, in which anti-gentrification activists allegedly threatened the safety of the temporary "BMW Guggenheim Lab" intended to focus on precisely their topic - because of the sponsor.

What I'm trying to get at here is that if you want to get on a moral high horse, it's not Amazon but the system within which it exists that's to blame. Amazon exploited a gap in the market - the fact that most books simply weren't available in most places. They changed that, and became very a powerful business in doing so. But in a deregulated market with no fixed book prices, they're perfectly entitled to undercut and buy up and deep discount as much as they like, and it's simply not a moral issue. I don't know enough about bookselling to compare, but I don't see many differences to Waterstones in the UK, for instance. And if you like, feel free to extend the term system beyond the market itself to capitalism as a whole.

So while I don't, as Chad Post suggests, literally love Amazon because I'm a translator - again, a little too much invective here - I certainly don't think they're buying off their critics with their support of literary projects. It's naive to tell non-profits they're wrong to take Amazon's money and to imply that individual recipients - as in the case of the Best Translated Book Award - will be morally tainted by accepting it.

I buy books and occasionally other things from Amazon. I don't think I know anyone who doesn't, just as I don't know many people who never go to supermarkets or never use Unilever products or boycott Google, Microsoft, Apple and Facebook. I also try to support independent booksellers, which is admittedly probably easier in Berlin than in many other places. If the all the energy and invective were focused on promoting a wide range of literature or indeed on promoting independent booksellers rather than bashing non-profits with a moral truncheon, that colourful literary landscape we all value so highly might do better.

Swiss Book Prices: to Fix or Not to Fix

So. Like Germany and Italy, Switzerland used to have fixed book prices and then scrapped them. Then it reinstated them at the beginning of this year. And now there's a referendum to get rid of them again. Those in favour of fixed book prices say their purpose is to protect books as a cultural asset. Those against, including the Swiss Pirate Party, say literature is not under threat and does not need protecting.

Let's take a look at one country with which I'm familiar that doesn't have fixed book prices - the UK. Looters have been avoiding Waterstones like the plague, but over the last couple of decades the bookstore chain has become pretty much the last place on the high street you can buy literature. Why? Because they do cheap deals, for which they charge publishers zillions of pounds. Which means everyone ends up reading the same stuff in a scary literary world run by people with MBAs. And that independent bookstores go bust and small publishers have less of a chance on the market. And then in an oh-so-ironic way, the supermarkets have got in on the bookselling game and begun undercutting the chain bookstores in terms of both price and taste. Glittery pink books about flying ponies "written" by glamour models, anyone? Waterstones' latest reaction? Reintroduce centralised buying. Yay. Even less choice and variety.

Not being an economist, I have no idea whether it's a bizarre contradiction that a lack of state regulation (since Britain abolished fixed book prices) has not led to greater competition and greater choice for the consumer but to a near-monopoly. Maybe it's just me who finds that odd.

So now let's take a look at Germany, a land of evil state intervention. While the largest chain, Thalia, is present on most high streets, there are still plenty of independent bookstores on the ground. It's hard to find statistics but this 2007 NY Times piece on the subject quotes a figure of 2600. Independent publishers are, if not exactly flourishing, then at least holding their ground. And Katie Price's books have not been translated.

Now, books are not an expensive commodity in Germany. It's not in publishers' interests to set their prices too high, and there's still a subjective pain-barrier at around €20 for a hardback. Because they don't have to discount their bestsellers, publishers can keep prices for smaller print-runs low. But the best argument against the anti-fixed-pricers is libraries. If you can't afford to buy new books, buy them used or borrow them for free.

This is a bit of a rant, I admit, what with the lack of facts to back it up. So I won't attempt to suggest that the high quality and wide variety of German-language writing is due to fixed book prices. But on the other hand, nor can I see any evidence to uphold the argument behind the Swiss referendum - that fixed prices ultimately harm books.

Booksellers Reveal All

They're taking off their glasses, shaking down their hair and closing up shop for the rest of the afternoon. Remember that fantastic scene with the lady in the bookstore from The Big Sleep? Well soon you can get your kicks from German lady booksellers in an erotic calendar.

As trade mag Börsenblatt reports, twelve lovely ladies from all around the country have been posing for the calendar. Cue much moaning about people expecting booksellers to be mousy and bespectacled when they're actually full-blooded babes. I don't know though, I think I'd find it rather unnerving to be sold books by someone I'd seen in her underwear. I suspect it'll be no good for business - and if you watch that clip above, you'll notice that all those feminine charms still don't convince Humphrey Bogart to buy anything.