http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/15/technology/in-latest-volley-against-amazon-hachettes-writers-target-its-board.html 2014-09-15 22:52:22 In Latest Volley Against Amazon, Hachette’s Writers Target Its Board Authors United, a group of Hachette writers and allies, is appealing to Amazon’s board to consider their reputation in the battle over e-book pricing. === Amazon As a negotiating tool in Authors United, a group of Hachette writers and their allies, is appealing directly to Amazon’s board. It is warning the board that the reputation of the retailer, and of the directors themselves, is at risk. “Efforts to impede or block the sale of books have a long and ugly history,” reads Amazon takes its good name seriously. In the Harris Poll of corporate reputations, it once again took top honors this year. But that prestige is taking a bit of a beating as the fight with Hachette drags on. The disastrous reception of Amazon’s first smartphone, which sold so poorly that the company was forced last week to The letter warns the directors that the discontent might spread. “Since its founding, Amazon has been a highly regarded and progressive brand,” it says. “But if this is how Amazon continues to treat the literary community, how long will the company’s fine reputation last?” Among Amazon’s board members are Patricia Q. Stonesifer, the former head of the Gates Foundation; Jamie S. Gorelick, deputy attorney general during the Clinton administration; John Seely Brown, former director of Xerox’s research center; Thomas O. Ryder, former chief executive of Reader’s Digest; and Judith McGrath, former MTV chairwoman, who officially begins next month. An Amazon spokesman declined to comment for this article. The 1,100 Authors United members, who include Stephen King, John Grisham and Robert A. Caro, have until Wednesday to sign the letter. Then it will be sent to Amazon’s 10 board members. The letter follows an Mr. Preston’s sales have dropped substantially since Amazon started squeezing sales of Hachette books in the spring. Anyone contemplating ordering his latest novel, “The Lost Island,” written with Lincoln Child, is warned it might take as long as three weeks to arrive. That, as Amazon and its customers know, might as well be forever. Amazon wants to pay Hachette less for e-books, saying it will pass the savings on to consumers. Hachette’s position, as it said in a public statement, is that 80 percent of its e-books are already at the price Amazon wants — $9.99 — and that “Amazon is seeking a lot more profit and even more market share” at the expense of authors, other bookstores and publishers. “If not for our effort, I believe Amazon would have started People who wrote to Mr. Bezos said they received no response. Amazon declined to say how many emails it received. Hachette and Amazon are still negotiating, and a resolution is not out of the question. But in some ways the parties seem to be digging in for the long haul as the crucial fall selling season gets underway. In response to Mr. Preston’s initial efforts, Amazon opened a counterattack, setting up its own group, To make sure the correct message was sent, Amazon offered a list of talking points. The first was, “We have noted your illegal collusion,” a reference to the antitrust In making its case to the writers, Amazon said that George Orwell had been Amazon’s request prompted quite a bit of controversy among writers who use its platform. One of the talking points suggested by Amazon was that Hachette “stop using your authors as leverage.” But to some Amazon writers, it seemed as if they were being used for leverage. “I’m not your army, O.K.?” the novelist Chuck Wendig wrote on his popular Although Amazon referred to the antitrust suit against publishers, it has its own conflicts with regulators. It is currently being sued by the Federal Trade Commission for billing parents for millions of dollars in unauthorized app charges run up by their children. Amazon denies the accusations. Those who wrote the Hachette chief, Michael Pietsch, got a lengthy response outlining the publisher’s position. Hachette declined to say how many emails it received. If any writer might have been receptive to Amazon’s call to arms, it would be “I will never be able to adequately express my gratitude to Amazon,” the writer said. “If Jeff Bezos called me in the middle of the night and asked me to move a dead body, I would do it.” And yet. Mr. Shubaly, 37, hails from the punk rock tradition, which means suspicion of capitalism is in his blood. “I’m a fan of small independent businesses,” he said. “The more variety of bookstores and booksellers out there, the better.” So when Amazon sent the email asking him to march on Hachette, he deleted it after reading only a few paragraphs. “I think ambivalence is the only proper response that a writer can have to this dispute,” said Mr. Shubaly, who is now writing a memoir for PublicAffairs. Hachette said this summer that it was buying a group of smaller publishers including PublicAffairs, but the deal fell apart. Hachette writers, being closer to the line of fire, are less ambivalent. Meryl Gordon’s “ But not at Hachette. A few weeks ago, the writer signed a contract with the embattled publisher for her next book, a biography of Bunny Mellon. “I’m loyal. And had I shopped it around to another publisher, there’s no guarantee they would not be Amazon’s next target,” Ms. Gordon said. “Hachette was just the first in line.”