Saw SFWA prez John Scalzi mention this on his blog a couple of days ago, but it slipped my mind until I saw GalleyCat link to it as well yesterday: the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Association is removing all links to titles on Amazon (save for those that are not available anywhere else) from its website, and instead redirecting them to Amazon’s competitors.

The SFWA is taking this action in protest over Amazon’s removal of buy buttons from e-book titles distributed by the Independent Publishing Group after IPG declined the more-favorable-to-Amazon terms Amazon tried to impose on its contract renewal.

There are a number of comments on the SFWA blog entry explaining this removal. Many of them are supportive, but quite a few of them are from people who either seem to be confusing the issue with overpriced e-books in general, or note that since they are locked into their Kindle platform, e-books from elsewhere will not work for them.

Of course, it’s largely a symbolic gesture and isn’t likely to affect Amazon’s bottom line much—but it does send a signal of exactly whose side the SFWA comes down on. Not much of a surprise there given that a number of the 5,000 e-books Amazon pulled were by SFWA members.

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