[matwood]

That's why, when Hachette's contract expired, all of their books were listed as "Out of stock: ships in 1 to 6 weeks" - that's how long it takes Hachette to deliver stock. That's slow as hell.

I find this hard to believe, but do not know about Hachette specifically. Amazon isn't the only one who can do PoD. In fact, Amazon tends to carry so little stock that many of the publishers drop ship books for Amazon when an order comes in. They will show 1-3 day availability and not 1-6 weeks.

This tactic is typical push a vendor over the cliff mentality that has been shown by Amazon time and time again.

[graeme]

Lightning Source International also does print on demand. About half of amazon orders for POD books may use LSI rather than Createspace, amazon's printer.

Amazon had a dispute with LSI as well. It was less publicized, so we don't know the details. But LSI books started showing "Out of stock: ships in 1 to 6 weeks" if that book wasn't also available on Createspace.

That was false. LSI takes about a day to ship a book once it receives an order. Amazon was merely delaying LSI orders in an attempt to force authors to use Createspace in conjunction with LSI.

[mcguire]

Actually delaying the orders, or reporting an availability of 1 to 6 weeks, pre-order?

I suspect one of those options is legally questionable. And would cause a very large hoo-ha.