Affirm Press: we won’t supply print books to Amazon, Book Depository

Melbourne-based publisher Affirm Press has announced that it won’t be supplying print books to Amazon and the Book Depository in a bid to support the local industry.

Affirm Press sales and marketing manager Keiran Rogers told Books+Publishing that the publisher has decided not to supply print books to the retailers in the US and the UK as they ‘have little regard for Australian publishers, authors and retailers’ and ‘deliberately and aggressively price other retailers out of the market’.

‘Affirm Press truly values our independent bookselling sector and wants to support it wherever possible,’ said Rogers. ‘And it is absurd to send stock to the US or UK in the knowledge that you are doing so solely for it to come back to our shores via Amazon.’

While Affirm Press has not previously supplied print books to Amazon or the Book Depository, which was acquired by Amazon in 2011, Rogers said that the option to sell books via the retailers has been available through Affirm Press’ sales representative Hardie Grant. ‘Some people estimate Amazon/Book Depository to represent as high as 15-20% of the market for Australian book sales, so naturally we, and many other Australian publishers, have looked at this as a sales channel,’ said Rogers. ‘The difference is that while others are doing what they can to publish internationally and supply Amazon, we have decided to deliberately not make our titles available.’

Affirm Press does supply ebooks to Amazon, and Rogers said the company will continue to do so because the retailer’s ‘share of ebooks is such that it would be unfair on our authors to not supply them’. 

Rogers said that online shoppers will continue to be able to purchase Affirm Press print books from local online booksellers, and in cases where international rights to Affirm Press titles have been sold, Rogers said the publisher will ‘fight hard to ensure we publish first to avoid the same Amazon issue’.

Rogers acknowledged that the decision means that other retail options in the UK and US are effectively closed to Affirm Press as UK and US distributors ‘almost automatically’ supply titles to Amazon and the Book Depository. ‘Our decision means we have no UK or US distribution but we’re happy with that as we are about great Australian stories and we see our local market as key,’ said Rogers.

Category: Local news