{"id":631155,"date":"2023-04-19T19:56:06","date_gmt":"2023-04-20T00:56:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sellorbuyhomefast.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/19\/award-winning-writer-lydia-davis-is-boycotting-amazon-with-her-new-collection-of-short-stories\/"},"modified":"2023-04-19T19:56:06","modified_gmt":"2023-04-20T00:56:06","slug":"award-winning-writer-lydia-davis-is-boycotting-amazon-with-her-new-collection-of-short-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/19\/award-winning-writer-lydia-davis-is-boycotting-amazon-with-her-new-collection-of-short-stories\/","title":{"rendered":"Award-winning writer Lydia Davis is boycotting Amazon with her new collection of short stories"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Lydia Davis, an award-winning author and translator, will not sell her new book on Amazon<\/a><\/span> in a protest of the company\u2019s business model. The book, a collection of short stories called \u201cOur Strangers,\u201d <\/em>will only be sold in brick-and-mortar shops and selected online independent retailers. <\/p>\n

\n
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Ana Gasteyer on creativity<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The book, Davis\u2019s seventh collection of fiction stories, is due to be published on October 5 by the small Scottish publishing firm Canongate. The author cited Amazon\u2019s monopolistic power over the publishing industry in explaining her decision.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe value small businesses, yet we give too much of our business to the large and the powerful\u2014and often, increasingly, we have hardly any choice,\u201d Davis said. \u201c[Canongate] will be publishing Our Strangers and doing so in a way that puts my book on the shelves of booksellers who are so much more likely to care about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Davis won the Man Booker Prize in 2013 and was a MacArthur Genius Fellowship recipient in 2003. She is known for her bite-sized short stories\u2014sometimes only as long as a page\u2014as well as acclaimed translations of French classics like \u201cSwann\u2019s Way\u201d by Marcel Proust and \u201cMadame Bovary\u201d by Gustave Flaubert.<\/p>\n

Canongate said in a statement that the move is a sign of her solidarity<\/a><\/span> with independent booksellers and will \u201cencourage further conversation about the vital importance of a diverse publishing ecosystem.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a>Amazon book sales, by the numbers<\/h2>\n

\u00a314:<\/a><\/span> Price ($17) of Prince Harry\u2019s new memoir on Amazon upon launch, despite having a retail price of \u00a328 ($35) in independent bookstores.<\/p>\n

63%:<\/a><\/span> Approximate decline in independent bookstores since the launch of Amazon. There were roughly 5,500 independent shops in 1995, while in 2022 there were only 2,023. <\/p>\n

50%:<\/a><\/span> Percentage of total print book sales in the US made by Amazon. The company sells at least three-quarters of all ebooks.<\/p>\n

$28 billion:<\/a><\/span> Amount of revenue Amazon generates from book sales annually, or about 10% of the company\u2019s total revenue.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Why Amazon is a monopoly, despite making things cheaper<\/h2>\n

Lina Khan, the current chair of the Federal Trade Commission, wrote an essay for the Yale Law Journal called \u201cAmazon\u2019s Antitrust Paradox\u201d<\/a><\/span> while a law student. In it, she challenged the traditional interpretation of antitrust law that focuses on securing the lowest price possible for consumers, using Amazon as a specific example.<\/p>\n

Specifically, she argued that Amazon\u2019s ability to use its size to undercut competitors\u2019 prices does not justify its monopolistic practices and that the company is taking advantage of a 1970’s era interpretation of antitrust law that has a narrow definition of consumer welfare. Because Amazon is able to deprioritize profit, control its entire shipping and warehouse infrastructure, and compile extensive data on consumers, the company is able to control more than its fair share of the market.<\/p>\n

Amazon\u2019s impact on the publishing industry is a great example of this. Precisely because size has allowed the company to forgo profit and offer books for cheap, it\u2019s been able to outperform traditional competitors. Moreover, establishing itself as a major marketplace for independent booksellers to sell their own catalogs of new and used books has given the company an unprecedented level of control over the industry. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe thousands of retailers and independent businesses that must ride Amazon\u2019s rails to reach the market are increasingly dependent on their biggest competitor,\u201d Khan wrote in her essay. <\/p>\n

Dave Eggers, perhaps the most famous author to boycott Amazon, argued something similar when he refused to list his newest book on the site in 2021.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmazon is a monopoly that uses unfair business practices to drive out competition,\u201d Eggers said in an interview with the Guardian<\/a><\/span> that year. \u201cThey do not play by the rules and they do not pay anywhere near their proper tax burden. Meanwhile, you can bet your local indie bookstore is paying taxes.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a>Related stories<\/h2>\n

????\ufe0f The FTC is preparing a wide-ranging antitrust lawsuit against Amazon<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

???? Federal inspectors fine Amazon $60,269 for putting workers at risk<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

???? Jeff Bezos\u2019 plan to give away his fortune won\u2019t help the 10,000 workers Amazon is planning to lay off<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a>
\n Diego Lasarte<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lydia Davis, an award-winning author and translator, will not sell her new book on Amazon in a protest of the company\u2019s business model. The book, a collection of short stories called \u201cOur Strangers,\u201d will only be sold in brick-and-mortar shops and selected online independent retailers. Ana Gasteyer on creativityThe book, Davis\u2019s seventh collection of fiction<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":631156,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33900,3296],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-631155","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-award-winning","8":"category-writer"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=631155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/631156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=631155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=631155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=631155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}