Kate,

As an aspiring author myself I can understand and respect Cherie’s decision and I would have done the same thing. Amazon was told that they could keep their current pricing plan but it would involve “Deep Windowing of Titles” here I’ll quote it: (this is from the following article): http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/lunch/free/

(begin quote)”This past Thursday I met with Amazon in Seattle. I gave them our proposal for new terms of sale for e books under the agency model which will become effective in early March. In addition, I told them they could stay with their old terms of sale, but that this would involve extensive and deep windowing of titles. By the time I arrived back in New York late yesterday afternoon they informed me that they were taking all our books off the Kindle site, and off Amazon. The books will continue to be available on Amazon.com through third parties.” (end quote)

So instead of Amazon keeping the books on their site at the “Old Terms of Sale” they decided to remove ALL Macmillan titles from its site. Now keep in mind, this “new pricing plan” only effected “E-Books” not the hardback/paperback copies. So if Amazon wanted to do something like that they could have just removed the Macmillan E-Books but no they chose to remove ALL Macmillan titles. Who does that hurt? Only the authors. There were other ways Amazon.com could have handled this without throwing a gut punch to the authors. You have to try to look beyond the corporate smokescreen, there’s one reason why Amazon did this and they’re using the “price conflict” as a scapegoat. It’s all because Apple announced Macmillan as a major partner to their new iBookstore, which is a competing business entity. Think two competing businesses as two sides of a war. You get your supplies from Supplier A and your enemy gets his from Supplier B. Well 2/3rds of the way through the war, Supplier A starts selling to your enemy to make money. That not only puts you in a dangerous position it may also help turn the tides of the war, you can no longer trust Supplier A so you have to cut ties, stop getting supplies from them and move on.

So Cherie’s choice to remove Amazon.com links from her site or any others is fully justified. Amazon.com made a business decision which cost Cherie potential future sales, so Cherie made a business decision to not send any business Amazon’s way. She even said it herself, its nothing personal just business.

(Everything written in my comment is the sole expressed opinion of myself, and in no way do I represent Cherie or any one else who may be someway linked/involved in this Amazon/Macmillan endeavor. I’m just an outside observer and fellow writer speaking his mind. It is my opinion combined with my knowledge of corporate business and the hard facts I have looked at with my own eyes.)

-Shawn-

…although it’s unrelated, I watched something similar happen with Coca-Cola and Costco back around 11/09. They had a dispute over pricing and Costco decided to remove Coca-Cola products from its stores and they did that because they refused to charge their customers more. Of course at the time they said they would not put coke back in the stores but wheeling and dealing went on behind the curtain and they eventually reached an agreement and its back in stores now. Although Books and Coca-Cola hardly fall under the same category, the point I’m getting at is that this could very well be temporary but only time will tell. However, keep in mind this is only one retailer, albeit they have become quite popular, there are plenty other retailers that would be happy to pick up the slack (and most could really use the business).
Just my 2 cents. -Shawn-

What utterly silly business. Hopefully saner heads will prevail sooner than later and you’ll be properly listed at Amazon again.

But I got about a dozen emails about it this morning, and I knew if I didn’t say something that I’d keep getting them all damn day.