Macmillan Burns Amazon In New York Times Ad
Feb 05, 2010 - By Chris Weiss
As long as you’re not a direct party to the disagreement, the Macmillan/Amazon affair is quite entertaining to watch from afar. Although Amazon said earlier this week that it would accept the higher pricing that Macmillan was pushing for on its books, the retailer still hasn’t hit the green light on reinstating sales on books from the publisher.
Never one to go home and weep quietly, Macmillan responded yesterday by taking out a full page ad in the New York Times advertising one of its latest releases: The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande. That sounds kosher enough, but in the ad, Macmillan printed this little nugget: “Available at booksellers everywhere except Amazon.”
It doesn’t seem like savvy marketing to air your grievances in an advertisement, but it certainly is ballsy. It was one thing to take out an ad in Publisher’s Marketplace, but an ad aimed at consumers in the New York Times may be overplaying the hand.
In related news, Hachete is planning to push for similar pricing models as Macmillan. [via TechFlash]