Jun 23 2014
The New York Times spoke with an unnamed employee at Hachette who speaking off the record about Amazon's dispute with Hachette says that Amazon has been demanding payments for a range of services, including the pre-order button, personalized recommendations and a dedicated employee at Amazon for Hachette books. This is similar to so-called co-op arrangements with traditional retailers, like paying Barnes & Noble for placing a book in the front of the store.
Amazon "is very inventive about what we’d call standard service," this person said. "They're teasing out all these layers and saying, 'If you want that service, you’ll have to pay for it.' In the end, it’s very hard to know what you’d be paying. Hachette has refused, and so bit by bit, they’ve been taking away these services, like the pre-order button, to teach Hachette a lesson."
The Funeral Cryer by Wenyan Lu
Debut novelist Wenyan Lu brings us this witty yet profound story about one woman's midlife reawakening in contemporary rural China.
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