This morning I got a reply from Amazon to the email I sent yesterday. It reads:

Thanks for your e-mail regarding Amazon's print-on-demand offerings.

We think Amazon's print-on-demand is a great option for both publishers and customers as it allows us to offer more titles and keep those titles perpetually in stock. We know customers love this, and we think that it's great for authors and publishers, too.

In addition, when we can print the titles right in our own fulfillment centers, we can marry the on-demand book together with a regular book and quickly ship both titles the same day in a single box--something that is very important to our customers. And of course, these titles are all eligible for Free Super Saver Shipping and Amazon Prime.

In all cases and for any title, any publisher or author can always use the Amazon Advantage program to list their titles. With Amazon Advantage, publishers send us their titles on consignment, and those titles are also eligible for Free Super Saver Shipping and Amazon Prime. The Advantage program has been in place for many years and thousands of publishers have sold hundreds of thousands of titles using Advantage. For more information, go to www.amazon.com/advantage.

By offering our publishers a variety of options for selling on Amazon, we can continue to provide our customers with the broadest possible selection of titles available.

I hope this information has been helpful.

Thank you for your interest in Amazon.com.

Please let us know if this e-mail resolved your question:

If yes, click here:
[link]
If not, click here:
[link]

Please note: this e-mail was sent from an address that cannot accept incoming e-mail.

To contact us about an unrelated issue, please visit the Help section of our web site.

Note at the end where it says: "Please let us know if this e-mail resolved your question:"

Well given that my question was: "Can you reassure me that my loyalty is not misplaced, and that you will not be removing my book from sale?" and given that this is pretty much a yes or no question, and given that your email contains neither a yes or a no, or a confirmation or denial, in relation to either my question, or the allegation that non-BookSurge books are being delisted... no, I'd say it doesn't answer my question.

And now I'm quite annoyed.

Don't get my wrong. I expected a form letter. After all, they are probably getting hundred of queries, all asking the exact same question as me. But given this, I did rather expect them to bother to write a new form letter, that actually addressed the fucking question that we're asking!

I think I'll click on the, "No, the email hasn't answered my question, and I'm baffled as to why anyone who is neither chimp nor retard might think that it has!"

And then simply re-ask the question again.

In answer to your question, no, the email did not answer my question - and I'm baffled as to why you might think it did, given that you made no attempt to answer the question I was asking.

I'm not shocked that you sent me a form letter. I expected that. But I am very angry that you sent me a form letter completely unrelated to the questions I asked.

So I'll ask again:

1) Is it true that you are removing the buy buttons from some non-BookSurge POD books?

2) Are you going to remove the buy button from my Lightning Source produced book Game Night?

Jonny Nexus

P.S. Can I remind you that in addition to selling through you, I am a long-time Amazon customer.

Got this back:

Thank you for writing back to us at Amazon.com.

I understand that you are upset, and I regret that we have not been able to address your concerns to your satisfaction. Unfortunately, we will not be able to offer any additional insight or action on these matters.

We've appreciated your business and hope to have the opportunity to serve you again in the future.

Please let us know if this e-mail resolved your question:

If yes, click here:
[link]
If not, click here:
[link]

Please note: this e-mail was sent from an address that cannot accept incoming e-mail.

To contact us about an unrelated issue, please visit the Help section of our web site.

Best regards,

[name removed]
Amazon.com Customer Service

Here is my reply:

So to summarise:

- You have been accused by multiple parties of serious anti-competitive and unethical behaviour.

- I've asked if these accusations are true.

- You are unable to confirm or deny them.

Well they're obviously either true, or potentially true, because otherwise you'd deny them - wouldn't you?

Since you are unable to reassure me that my book will not be delisted, I'll start working on contingency plans. I hope you understand that you've left me with no choice but to do so since your product, BookSurge, does not give me the distribution I require.

I am pretty disappointed in Amazon. I know they are highly successful, so much so that they've acquired a near-monopolistic position, but I naively believed that they were, as corporations go, good guys. Guess I was wrong. Hopefully if there's enough of a back-lash they might reverse this decision.

...another one opens.

This probably isn't the best day to announce this, what with it being April 1st and all, but pretend its the second. Or the thirty-first. Or whatever.

Game Night Is Now Being Distributed By Esdevium Games

We are pleased to announce that Game Night is now being distributed by Esdevium Games, one of the leading distributors of hobby and mass-market products in Europe.

The practical upshot of this is that your local games shop will be able to order it for you. So if you want it, and you haven't yet got it, you can now get it through them.

Its Esdevium stock code is MOP001. (And if they want the ISBN as well, that's 978-1-906402-01-3).

Thanks!