Crushed Dreams

My dream of seeing my book on the shelf at a major bookstore was crushed last week when Barnes and Noble announced that they will not stock any books published by Amazon in retaliation to Amazons thriving KDP program. Does Amazon care? No. As one commenter on the New York Times Blog said: As an author, the last thing I want to do is get in between these two. It's like trying to get out from under foot when King Kong fights Godzilla. However for many of us, we are in the middle without even trying. 

It's day's like that when I miss Borders (my all time favorite bookstore) more and more. I was very discouraged when they were bought out by Barnes and Noble, and am even more so now. I have been to Barnes and Noble twice in the past 2 months. I was unable to purchase the item that I went for both times. The first time I received horrible customer service. After waiting for two employees (one being a manager) to finish chatting and laughing for several minutes, I was told that the item I wanted was out of stock. That's it. No apologies for the wait, no offer to order it, just they were out, and had been for over a week - which they knew because it was over a week ago when someone else asked for the book and they realized they were out. The next time I went to a different location just to find out that the books I was looking for were out of stock. Not a single employee spoke to me while I was there, and I didn't try approaching them. I just figured I would order the books from Amazon when I got home. 

This latest stunt by Barnes and Noble has put me in a new position. I am no longer trying to let them replace my love for Borders, but instead will make all of my book purchases online, or at Walmart. If they are going to refuse to shelve my books, because of  a decision that I had nothing to do with, I will make the decision to refuse to support them.

How do you feel about this recent news from Amazon?

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