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Amazon takes a company's e-books out of stores after disagreement

When the Independent Publishers Group couldn't come to terms with Amazon, the bookselling giant took 5,000 IPG titles out of their Kindle e-book store.

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Jeremy Atherton
The Independent Publishers Group, which is based in Chicago, is currently the second-biggest distributor of books published independently.
  • By Molly Driscoll

After a disagreement over the renewal of a contract with independent book distributor and publisher Independent Publishers Group, Amazon took the Chicago company's titles out of its Kindle e-book store on Monday.

Five thousand of IPG’s books were taken out of the book giant’s Kindle e-book store. Paper versions of IPG’s books are still available on Amazon’s website.

“They decided they didn't like the terms we offered,” Suchomel said of the contract dispute between IPG and Amazon. “And we said, 'We're not going to change,' and they removed [the e-books].”

He said he didn’t feel he could further discuss the disagreement between the two companies.

“Amazon has issues with us talking too much,” Suchomel said.

IPG is the second-biggest distributor of books published independently in the country. Mark Suchomel, president of IPG, told the Chicago Tribune that e-book sales on Amazon only accounted for about 5 percent of the company’s earnings, so there isn’t any possibility that the removal of their e-books will cause them to go out of business.

“If they want to buy our books, they can buy them,” Suchamel said of Amazon. “We are happy to deal with them.”

Amazon didn't return calls for comment, said the Tribune.

Molly Driscoll is a Monitor contributor.

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