The same law firm that filed a lawsuit against Amazon earlier this year (see our coverage) has now filed a second lawsuit on behalf of Bookends & Beginnings, an independent bookstore in Evanston, Illinois. The bookstore’s owner hopes the lawsuit will be declared a class-action case on behalf of all bookstores, and the law firm seeks co-plaintiffs. Michael Cader of Publishers Lunch commented (subscription required) that the suit “rests on a variety of basic errors of fact”; for example, it claims that book sales have declined (book sales grew in 2020), and that big publishers represent 80 percent of book sales (BookScan figures report otherwise). But the main contention of the suit is that Amazon’s most-favored-nation clauses have damaged the book retailing ecosystem. Learn more at Publishers Weekly.
Meanwhile, the American Booksellers Association urged attorneys general across the country to investigate Amazon for antitrust violations and to break it up into four autonomous companies. The Association of American Publishers chimed in with its own statement, saying, “The fact is that no publisher can avoid distributing through Amazon and, for all intents and purposes, Amazon dictates the economic terms, with publishers paying more for Amazon’s services each year and receiving less in return.”
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
