As Amazon(s AMZN) and book publisher Hachette continue negotiations that have resulted in Amazon turning off pre-orders and delaying shipments on many Hachette titles, the retailer broke its silence Tuesday with a post on its Kindle forums. BookExpo America, the country's largest convention for the book industry, begins Wednesday in New York.
"One of our important suppliers is Hachette, which is part of a $10 billion media conglomerate," Amazon wrote, in apparent reference to accusations that the retailer is picking on Hachette and its authors.
"Unfortunately, despite much work from both sides, we have been unable to reach mutually-acceptable agreement on terms. Hachette has operated in good faith and we admire the company and its executives. Nevertheless, the two companies have so far failed to find a solution. Even more unfortunate, though we remain hopeful and are working hard to come to a resolution as soon as possible, we are not optimistic that this will be resolved soon."
As for the authors, Amazon said, "We've offered to Hachette to fund 50% of an author pool - to be allocated by Hachette - to mitigate the impact of this dispute on author royalties, if Hachette funds the other 50%. We did this with the publisher Macmillan some years ago. We hope Hachette takes us up on it."
In the post, Amazon drives home the point that Hachette is just another supplier -- "This topic has generated a variety of coverage, presumably in part because the negotiation is with a book publisher instead of a supplier of a different type of product." The company notes, "Suppliers get to decide the terms under which they are willing to sell to a retailer. It's reciprocally the right of a retailer to determine whether the terms on offer are acceptable and to stock items accordingly."
Amazon didn't say explicitly how many items are affected, but noted that "If you order 1,000 items from Amazon, 989 will be unaffected by this interruption. If you do need one of the affected titles quickly, we regret the inconvenience and encourage you to purchase a new or used version from one of our third-party sellers or from one of our competitors."