Indie Booksellers and the Holiday Pricing of Doom

We should've seen this one coming. After Amazon, Walmart, and Target initiated their race to the bottom in hardcover book pricing, independent booksellers are crying foul.

Yesterday, the American Booksellers Association filed a letter with the Department of Justice asking for the DOJ to "investigate practices by Amazon.com, Walmart, and Target that we believe constitute illegal predatory pricing that is damaging to the book industry and harmful to consumers."

Among the books the retail giants are deep-deep-discounting for the holiday season are likely bestsellers from Sarah Palin, Stephen King, John Grisham, James Patterson, and Barbara Kingsolver, which could be sold for as low as $8 online, severely undercutting independent booksellers.

Among the consumers who have turned their backs on traditional brick-and-mortar bookstores is literary legend Philip Roth, who spoke to the Wall Street Journal's Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg today and said he used the Internet for grocery and book shopping. Roth, whose 30th book, The Humbling, is not among Amazon's $8 specials, paid lip service to New York's old book row on Fourth Avenue, but said, "I…use Amazon, and I buy a lot of used books from AbeBooks and Alibris. It's wonderful when you want to find something obscure and there it is for $3.98. It's the greatest book bazaar that has ever existed."

Then again, it's unlikely Roth would take advantage of Amazon, Target, and Walmart's discounts. He told Trachtenberg, "I don't follow what's going on with modern fiction," and said of Patterson and Nora Roberts, "They are entertainers. They aren't writers. And entertainers have a wide appeal. People love entertainment."

Especially when it's dirt cheap.