You Have to Burn Some Money

When you are a small company, it is easy to get bullied by much bigger corporations.

Here’s a textbook example. While working at F+W Publications, I wrote my first book, “Workbenches: From Design & Theory to Construction & Use.” The book retailed for $29.99 in 2007, and it was sold wholesale for about $15.

Amazon carried the book (it still does), and when the book was released, Amazon sold it for $16.99. Yup, $1.99 more than they paid for it.¹

What happened? Almost everyone bought the book from Amazon, choking out Barnes & Noble and other retailers. In fact, I have never seen that book for sale on the shelves of a physical bookstore. Ever. And I’ve looked. (Mostly to take a selfie of me in a bookstore with my book. “I’m a published author, bitches!” Crotch grab. Big Mick Jagger fish lips. But sadly, that moment has never happened.)

So, Amazon bought the lion’s share of my book’s inventory from F+W and sold it. Of course.

What’s wrong with this feature of late-stage capitalism? Amazon could …