Let’s hear it for compeititon! Amazon has been forced to spell out exactly what their new POD policies allow and ban. In response to a letter from competitor Lightning Source‘s John Ingram, Amazon has conceded that there are still ways to sell your POD books on site without using their Booksurge program…

Amazon further notes that if publishers do not want to use BookSurge for pod, they can still sell their titles through the e-tailer as part of it Advantage Program, provided they pre-produce five copies of each title that Amazon will stock in its warehouse. Publishers can also use Amazon’s third party marketplace option to list titles. Amazon is not requiring that pod titles be printed exclusively through BookSurge.

So basically, you can pay Amazon the extra fee through Booksurge to have your POD book sold on site or you can by Amazon the extra fee through the Advantage program or merchant marketplace program and have your book sold on site.

So either way Amazon is going to get you to pay for not using their POD service. But at least today they had to own up to their plans.

{via Publisher’s Weekly}