Ingram, Amazon, & E-Books Oh-My!!!

Recent news (possibly not all good) regarding Ingram (you know ... the POD author's best friend next to Lightning Source)

From the official release:

Ingram Acquires Vital Source Technologies, Expanding Its Digital Content Delivery Solutions

Link: Ingram Aquires Vital Source

"Ingram Industries Inc. today announced it has completed the acquisition of Vital Source Technologies, Inc. ("VitalSource") of Raleigh, North Carolina, a leading and trusted provider of digital content delivery solutions in education and professional learning environments.

VitalSource, which has become part of the Ingram Digital Ventures operating group, provides the market's only turnkey solution for portable digital content.

Founded in 1994, VitalSource has emerged as the leader in educational content delivery..."

Now, this might be all fine and dandy however I've also learned that on the heels of this announcement that Amazon has decided to halt the offering of e-books distributed by Ingram (Lightning et al) and in doing so may possibly hurt a bunch of e-published independents and self-publishers for this Ingram/Amazon connection has been for quite some time *THE* way to go to reach many readers of digital media (said with no offense whatsoever meant towards other notable sources such as Palm, Fictionwise, OverDrive, etc--it's just many of us don't qualify to be listed on your sites *sniff*).

Now the more worthy authors who have already made it into the "big league" of e-books and earned placement at the other booming e-facilities (like those mentioned above) will most likely not see too much of a drop in sales ... but for others--myself included--it'll definately put a serious dip in the earnings (*sniff again* ... pout, pout)

And it'll also be verrrrry interesting to see how this whole thing works with VitalSource too for after persuing thier very nice website, I was sad to learn that if I presently wanted to obtain some material from them, I can't for I don't have the technological capablity (now class, can we say Windows 98 first edition?? lol).

Okay, I admit the technological hinderance of my relic of a system is no one's fault but my own yet I can't help but to think that there will be some impact to an industry in which I was finally seeing a re-birth of after quite some time of awkward stagnation.

But I gotta keep the faith folks! Ingram (and LS) has been good to quite a few of us independent authors and I have a sincere hope that in thier quest they won't leave us little guys in too bad of a spot for as John R. Ingram, Vice Chairman of Ingram Industries Inc. said: "...the acquisition will expand Ingram's existing services to publishers and other content owners by providing a comprehensive offering of digital content accession, storage, management and delivery services."

With a title like that, I'm sure he knows what he's talking about :)

And it's not Ingram's fault that Amazon chose to do what they are proposing--much less Amazon's. Being under the same umbrella as the well-known (and major competitor) Booksurge might have something to do with the action for as we all know, business is business, right?

So, here's to crossing fingers! I'll keep you informed as I am myself :)