Amazon has reportedly pulled Independent Publishers Group (IPG) ebooks in a dispute over terms. While physical editions are not affected, up to 5,000 Kindle editions have apparently vanished from Amazon’s store. In a brief note on their website, IPG go into little detail. But the problem is reportedly due to the terms for electronic books.
IPG is a Chicago-based distributor providing marketing, sales and distribution help to more than 400 independent publishers across America. There’s no word so far as to whether this is likely to be a brief outage or a longer disagreement, but for now IPG’s titles (including digital editions) remain available on Barnes & Noble, including Nelson Johnson’s hit Boardwalk Empire.
It remains to be seen how this apparent conflict plays out. Amazon is still a huge marketplace and any publisher who isn’t onboard with Amazon’s ebook program is arguably at a disadvantage. On the other hand, it’s clear that customers are still using devices like the Nook in considerable numbers, so it might be that Amazon also suffers from not having certain titles available digitally.
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