Having (Mostly) Failed with Authors, Amazon Makes a Pitch for the Readers

Last week a group of over 900 writers took out a full-page ad in the Times taking Amazon to task for its tactics. The letter was signed by some big names, including John Grisham and Stephen King, and it asks readers to write to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos telling him to "stop using writers as hostages in its negotiations" with Hachette.

Amazon's previous plan had been to explain to authors just how much more money they could make by doing things Amazon's way and presumably Amazon wasn't pleased when their self-centered logic got shot to pieces. We presume this because suddenly there's a Web site, readersunited.com that is asking people to write to Hachette's CEO.

This site is pretty transparently an Amazon shill front, as anyone with a little know-how can find that Amazon has had the domain parked for some time and just decided to activate it. For reference, see "Astroturfing".

As John Scalzi points out, this is not classic astroturfing since Amazon put its name on the letter. This leads him to wonder why Amazon bothered to use the indirect domain rather than just posting the letter on its own Web site. That's a very good question, I think.

The rest of Scalzi's entry dissects Amazon't continuing use of bad/biased math, not to mention hyperbole in its arguments. He argues that this is another ham-fisted move by Amazon which has been remarkably inept at the PR side of this dispute. They may be trying to fight too many battles at once, as you can see from the news headlines: "Dispute Erupts Between Amazon and Disney" for example.