Are you kidding me? You actually bought into that line? Their public-faced reason (although when you look at it, it's not about customer service, but still about their profit line) might ALMOST be tolerable if, in fact, BookSurge wasn't well documented as being one of the worst-quality POD printers available, serviced by slow, unresponsive customer service. Let me get this right: they are "improving" customer service by forcing POD authors to go through their subsidiary that is best known for its lack of customer service? Please, Heidi, for the sake of your own professional reputation, take a 2nd look at this. There is a reason that every writer's organization in the country is standing against this move.

No, I didn't "buy into" anything. Yes, it is about profits, but profits are dependent upon logistics. Third-party POD publishing blows logistics out of the water. If third-party POD prevents Amazon from offering premium services -- which impact ALL product categories, not just books -- then it has a right to control that source of supply. On the quality issue, yes, BookSurge USED to be a poor-quality publisher, but that was before Amazon purchased the company three years ago. From what I've seen, its poor reputation is largely dependent upon experiences from the pre-Amazon days. Is it a premium "publisher" today? No. Are things much better? Yes. Just because the associations are in an uproar doesn't mean they are right. They are doing what their members want them to do, and their members' reactions appear to be driven by emotion, not thoughtful responses to the full range of issues on the ground.

I think the best approach for publishers is to share their concerns directly with Amazon. Some of the complaints are valid. As with all new policies, this one has some kinks and unintended consequences. Those who will work with these policies daily are best qualified to share what those consequences may be. Driving publishers out of business won't help Amazon's bottom line.

How are publishers being pushed out of business? Amazon's whole point is that these publishers are selling such low volumes that they don't merit keeping books in stock. So if AMZ has to order on demand, it puts a chink in the workflow. If a publisher is selling volumes that low, then it's either in trouble already or it's making its money on book packaging, not on book sales. The only way the Amazon decision could hurt those POD publishers is if it hurts them in the eyes of customers. "If you can't get me on Amazon, why should I publish with you?" My company, Strong Tower Publishing, prints POD through Lightning Source (LSI), whose customers are traditional publishers and more committed small presses and self-published authors. So far, my Amazon status hasn't been affected -- nor any other LSI clients, either.

The cost of changing over to BookSurge is prohibitive and extremely time-consuming for larger publishers. The change won't be a problem for me because I only have one book to convert and I can use CreateSpace. Publishers like BookLocker, who recently filed a class-action suit, are facing huge conversion costs.

I contacted Amazon, as I'm sure other publishers did, and they have made adjustments in their programs. There are specials and lower cost options available,and I've heard that rumors about BookSurge quality are left over from before Amazon bought the company.

Complaints about BookSurge quality are generally left over from the pre-Amazon days. All of the equipment, personnel, and business practices have been overhauled. There may have been some rough patches immediately after the takeover, during the transition, but those seem to be resolved. And, yes, there are large conversion costs, but they are largely internal to the publishers. BookSurge has waived the set-up fees for many -- if not most -- existing publishers in order to encourage the conversion.

"My company, Strong Tower Publishing, prints POD through Lightning Source (LSI), whose customers are traditional publishers..."

if you're a publisher, your customers would be readers, not "traditional publishers"...or did I miss something?

I'll tell you what CreateSpace has done: taken self-publishing and POD printing back lower than it ever was in the eyes of reviewers and the public. The absolute garbage I find on Amazon from CS is amazing. I just read a book on design from them (actually, Amazon shoved it in my face) that had so many errors, my eyes started to bleed. The 'expert' whose only other previous book featured Comic Sans and images used from Microsoft against licensing restrictions, repeatedly called sans-serif fonts, san-serf fonts. Is spell check that difficult to operate?

That's only one example.

It's the first time in my life I wished it was possible to regulate self-publishing for quality.

It's going to hurt everyone.

If you thought the attitude towards POD printing methods and self-publishing was bad before, just wait a while.

Has anyone noticed that Amazon is now putting Sponsored Links on some author's book pages? The Sponsored Links, in some cases, are a link to search the author's address, telephone number and even names of family members by simply clicking on the link. The links have been posted without the author's permission and unless the author happens to check, without their knowledge. I know first hand as it was done on my book page. I asked them twice to remove it but they refused. I think it is a violation of the author's privacy.

I've published three books with Booksurge over the past year and have been ecstatic about both the service and the quality of the books they've delivered. One had been published previously by a traditional publisher and had gone out of print. They scanned it in (including the cover) and I frankly can't tell any difference from the original. I gave my latest book to Booksurge as a pdf and it is exceptional quality as well. My contacts there have been informed and responsive.

I am a new author and found Booksurge and decided to use it just because it is associated with Amazon. I did not know all of these new changes and angers from other POD companies and authors until today. I will explain why I found these news because I was very frustrated using Booksurge's service.

I hired Booksurge to do everything, edit, layout, website, or whatever. I bought the premium package because I wrote my book for fun and to help others in my industry and not really for profit. I have other businesses and I was too busy to spend time on the book publishing. The least amount of time I can put in to publish my book was the better.

What I thought it was going to be a process that I would at least involved turned out to be me doing everything.

They edited my book with more misspelling, over using hyphens (three in one short sentence sometimes)that drove me crazy, deleting a paragraph (I almost did not catch it that the whole section was gone), and did not correct some sentences that were repeated by mistake. I complained and the manager looked at it and agreed on the low quality of edit that they did.

Then the layout. This was the true nightmare. In order for them to do the layout, they asked me to give them only text version and put photos in a different file with page numbers that would appear in the book. I wrote the book with word format with photos so they got that as well. They had everything to create the layout just the way I wanted in the word document so all they had to do was to put the only text version and photos together. That took a lot of my time by the way but I did it because it seemed like it had to be done.

After submitting my file, a different person contacted me from a design department telling me those files were not in right format or do not work with what they were going to do. They told me I had to do this and that in order for them to work on my layout. It seemed like what I hired them to do became me involving more than I wanted. I felt like I was doing their work. The long story short, I fired them to do the layout and did it myself following their specs carefully.

Up to this point, I was very very frustrated. I spent my holiday doing the layout of my book. I wanted to hire them to do everything so I didn't have to put my time to it. Anyway I did complete my book in pdf file using InDesign and sent them the file to them just this week.

What more? Now another different person EMAIL me, not a phone call, telling me that the specs they told me was wrong and I had to redo everything! They didn't even have a courtesy to call me after all of these.

I talked to a real person to confirm the specs and email them the specs to confirm them before I started working on it. (I didn't trust their services any more after I fired them for layout. I knew I should have the specs confirmation in writing)

It seemed like there is not even ONE same person assigned to my book and every time when I take a step, a different person contact me and tell me a different information. Is it that hard to have the information such as Specs to be consistent within the organization? That is pretty basic and important one.

Since this is my first book and hasn't been published yet, the issues that many people have with the new policy Amazon is having with other POD publishers do not affect me. However I am very very frustrated with the terrible customer services Booksurge have and the incapability of executing the job that they're supposed to offer. I have no problem if they publish my book without these lack of functions. I am now looking into a different publisher (and this is how I found your website). Please get your stuff together Booksurge. If Amazon make Booksurge the only choice, it better be good and functional. It is not right now.