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Thursday, June 6, 2013

Amazon axes ties with booklovers' site

The Bookseller reports a mystifying move

The founders of the book recommendation site Lovereading have said they are “baffled and shocked” by Amazon’s decision to terminate its affiliate programme linking titles to the Amazon website.

Louise Weir and Peter Crawshaw, co-founders of Lovereading, have displayed links to Amazon for the past five years without problems. However, the Amazon Associates Programme has now terminated the arrangement, with no further payments of advertising fees, after telling them that the website has violated the EU Associates Programme Operating Agreement.

Significantly, perhaps, Weir and Crawshaw received the communication shortly after Amazon bought Goodreads.

Asked for further explanation, Amazon merely said that the decision was final.

Weir told The Bookseller: “We feel our readers are suffering as a result, they no longer have the ability to click through directly from us to what they see as the best price. It makes no sense. We have linked to them for four to five years with no problem and then out of the blue we get this this.” She added: “It’s a blow for British book lovers, who have become used to being able to choose from all available formats on Lovereading.”

Amazon declined to comment.

1 comment:

Joansz said...

Even before I got to the "Goodreads" speculation, that site immediately leapt to mind. The only think I can think is the Goodreads affiliation with Amazon might have a clause that favors Goodreads. That's really too bad.