“You un-link to Macmillan? Well we’ll un-link to you.”

At least that’s what some readers, writers, and bloggers seem to be saying. In an announcement on its website, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America says “we are removing Amazon.com links from our website. Our authors depend on people buying their books and since a significant percentage of them publish through Macmillan or its subsidiaries, we would prefer to send traffic to stores where the books can actually be purchased. To that end, our volunteers are in the process of redirecting book links to indiebound.org, Powell’s, Barnes and Noble, and Borders. Many authors are being hit hard by this, so we encourage you to seek out new places to find their books.”

The announcement on the SFFWA homepage has generated a lot of discussion, mostly in support.

A few people have spoken out against the decision, but most agreed that the SFFWA had their authors’ best interests in mind.  One commenter writes, “I don’t think it matters who is in the right: Macmillan or Amazon. What matters is that Amazon is not hurting Macmillan. It’s hurting authors.” Another (who I assume is the moderator) comments, “Amazon is in its rights to remove those links, but we prefer to send our links to stores where readers can find our members’ work.”

This is an effective way to not only respond to Amazon as an individual, but also to embrace the conversation that is going on about retailers, pricing, and e-book technology. A small grassroots movement seems to be building on line, and the Macmillan debacle is only further supporting the growth of that movement. Hopefully Indiebound, Powell’s, and other independent online retailers have seen not only a growth in traffic directed towards their sites, but also a small growth in sales.

The people that disagree with un-linking to Amazon only need to look back to last fall, when Amazon enforced a new affiliate policy, disallowing links to other booksellers. This affiliate policy effected everyone from LibraryThing (a social networking site for booklovers, which drives a lot of book-buying traffic to e-tailers) to bloggers in states trying to enforce sales tax. These websites acquiesced then, but maybe its time to pull data from another e-tailer.