The POD (print on demand) industry has been rocked with the news that Amazon.com has started bending the arms of POD Publishers to force them into using their sister company, Booksurge, for printing or they won’t offer their books for sale directly through Amazon. PublishAmerica has already been hit and the BUY buttons of their books on Amazon have been taken down. POD review sites like Podpeep and Lulu have already started voicing their opinions, and I hope POD authors will as well.
POD authors always looked to Amazon as their #1 online marketing tool. As a POD author myself, I jumped at the opportunity Amazon gave me by selling signed copies of my book at my own set price right on the same page where Amazon sold my book. Amazon also gave me my own blog on their site which would show up right on the page where my book was and then promoted it to those who purchased my book so they could keep up with me.
My book’s publisher, Xlibris, has yet to be affected by this move as far as I know, but who knows what’s to come. I personally hope this will be a poke in the eye for Amazon as they try to monopolize this industry. Hopefully it will send readers somewhere else…into your local physical bookstore, perhaps? As for POD authors, our one friend has stabbed us in the back and so our search for a proper nitch in the market continues. We’re like stray dogs and cats on the streets. Some have room in their hearts for us. The pounds are full of us. But most (readers) just don’t really care. POD books are usually overpriced, most poorly written or edited, and now we’ll be hard to get!
The Lone Writer: Shannon Yarbrough 
I had looked at BookSurge and they already seemed to be providing better prices than the other PODs. So I don’t understand why they would be so bold to stop selling books from other PODs.