There’s a lot to dislike about Amazon as a company, but one thing it did was allow people to have access to legions of potential customers. This is true for authors who might not have the name to get into a lot of bookstores, but also for people selling any number of other products.
And, as a private company, Amazon has some discretion in what they sell and what it won’t. I don’t always agree with that position, but as someone who has been a business owner more than once, I’m fine with it because I don’t want people telling me what I have to do with my business, either.
That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have to answer questions when they make decisions that are clearly problematic and biased, which is what they’re accused of doing this time.
It seems that a pro-Second Amendment author can’t seem to sell his books on Amazon.
A respected, self-published Second Amendment author reports that Amazon no longer allows new copies of his books to be sold, only used ones, directly denying him to be compensated for his work.
“Note that Amazon has shut down new copy sales of The Origin of the Second Amendment and The Founders’ View of the Right to Bear Arms by limiting access to my publishing storefront, Golden Oak Books,” David E. Young informed his readers on his On Second Opinion blog in December. Any links to Amazon on this page or on my webpage, secondamendmentinfo.com, or elsewhere will no longer show sales of new copies from the publisher (these are self-published books). Only used copies are available from Amazon or elsewhere.”
Young includes links to both, and they both only allow customers to “Buy Used.”
That should be of concern to all gun owners who believe in the value of authentic Second Amendment scholarship. As noted in an interview this correspondent conducted with Mr. Young in 2008, “Origin contains relevant material literally transcribed from newspaper articles, editorials, broadsides, pamphlets, speeches, proceedings, and amendment proposals that directly or indirectly relate to the Second Amendment and its adoption as part of the U.S. Bill of Rights,” and “The Founders’ View traces … the most relevant American characters, comments, actions, and resolutions that resulted in development and adoption of the Second Amendment as part of the Bill of Rights.”
Now, some might figure that it really has something to do with the books being self-published, but that’s not it. Amazon has tons of self-published books on its site, and not all of them are self-published directly through Amazon. Most self-publishing operations can list its books on the site, and routinely advertise that fact.
That’s unlikely to be the issue.
So what is the problem?
I can’t help but think that it’s a combination of the works being self-published, but also takes a position that someone in authority at Amazon dislikes. Being self-published, there’s unlikely to be any of the ramifications a mainstream publisher might be able to level against a store that’s refusing to sell a book because they don’t like what it says, but it’s not about the book being self-published alone. It’s a reason it happened, but only in a secondary sense.
It’s possible that there’s something else going on, but Young announced the issue at Christmas. That means there’s been a few weeks for Amazon to at least explain the problem. Granted, actually talking to someone at Amazon is about as common as finding a unicorn in your driveway, so they might not even know there’s a problem.
But I doubt it.
We know Amazon never sold guns, but they were quick to bend the knee on other items related to guns and shooting when anti-gunners pressed. It’s not difficult to imagine them doing the same thing again, but this time over a scholarly-sourced defense of our Second Amendment rights. After all, if people can’t hear the other side, they’ll forget there is one.
Editor’s Note: The mainstream media continues to lie about gun owners and the Second Amendment.
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