Charging that Bloomsbury UK failed to engage in good faith to reach a new contract agreement, Amazon posted a notice on its UK website late Thursday afternoon that as of midnight January 24, Bloomsbury UK print titles would no longer be available directly from its online stores in the U.K., Europe, and Australia. That takedown was averted, however, when the two parties reached an agreement in principle on a new contract 90 minutes before the last one expired.
In the initial announcement, Amazon stressed that Bloomsbury print book availability in Amazon’s U.S. store would have been unaffected by the action, but that its Bloomsbury’s Kindle editions would not be available for sale worldwide. According to the post, Bloomsbury UK’s agreement with Amazon expired last year, and the e-tailer had extended the deal for about seven months in hopes of reaching a new agreement.
The last extension ended at midnight on Jan. 24, and if no new contract had been signed by then, Amazon would have begun to pull its "buy buttons" from impacted countries. Customers would still be able to buy Bloomsbury titles from third-party sellers who use Amazon’s services. In practical terms, the dispute meant that, for example, Sarah J. Maas titles that are published by Bloomsbury UK would not have been available in affected stores, while Maas titles released by Bloomsbury’s U.S. subsidiary will still be available in the American Amazon store.
In explaining its action, Amazon claimed that the old terms with Bloomsbury “were far out of sync with other publishers who sell books through our store. Unlike other U.K. publishers, with whom we’ve successfully negotiated in recent years, Bloomsbury has refused to recognize our continued investments in bringing books in all formats to readers.”
In a statement, Bloomsbury told PW that “we have been in discussions with Amazon over terms since last summer. At no point during these discussions did Amazon say that they would take such action. We learned about this at the same time that Amazon issued a public statement and was contacting Bloomsbury authors and agents. We have now reached agreement with Amazon in order to ensure the continued availability of our titles on Amazon.”
Amazon has had legendary contract disputes with major publishers in the past, largely centered around e-book terms. It pulled buy buttons from Macmillan titles in 2010 and took different actions against Hachette in 2014. And while Amazon is still viewed by publishers as a tough negotiator, it has been several years since it last stopped selling books from a specific publisher.
This story has been updated with further information.
