UPDATED WITH TWITTER CAMPAIGN INFO: Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert last night urged his viewers to boycott Amazon because, “I just found out it’s deterring customers from buying books from Stephen Colbert.” Amazon is in a battle with Colbert’s publisher Hachette, and has been accused of refusing orders for upcoming Hachette books, raising prices, and deliberately delaying shipments — sometimes by 3-4 weeks. (Amazon lists the ship date on orders for Colbert’s book, America Again: Re-Becoming the Greatness We Never Weren’t, as “two to four weeks”). “This is a big blow to my bottom line,” Colbert said, announcing he had made arrangements through a large independent Portland-based bookstore called Powell’s Books to sell copies of a new Hachette release, California, by Edan Lepucki, on his show’s website. He also urged viewers to download a sticker — also available on his site, that says “I Didn’t Buy It On Amazon” to slap on all their books and other products. “Watch out Bezos — this means war!” Colbert warned Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos. (See the video below.)
Immediately after the show, Colbert also launched a Twitter war against Bezos and Amazon:
Together we can #CutDownTheAmazon by buying “California” from http://t.co/Rejy6gyFoN! Which will lead to more regular deforestation.
— Stephen Colbert (@StephenAtHome) June 5, 2014
I have just been informed that the book “California” can be purchased at http://t.co/dXkJ38wUPD by citizens in ANY state! #CutDownTheAmazon
— Stephen Colbert (@StephenAtHome) June 5, 2014
Go to http://t.co/GYT7RlcmBM and buy “California: A Novel” so you can fight Amazon: A Corporation! #CutDownTheAmazon
— Stephen Colbert (@StephenAtHome) June 5, 2014
Powell’s Books, which claims to be the largest independent new and used bookstore in the world, this morning listed California as its No. 1 book, in sales and was scrambling to keep up with orders. Also, this morning on Colbert’s website, were three comments on the book’s pre-order page. Someone identifying herself as Erica Wallace wrote, “I’m so happy and lucky I was watching Colbert Report–I would be interested in this novel anyway, and I’m so glad to support Powell’s, publishers, authors, and not Amazon.”
Another commenter, who goes by “poonstank8,” wrote, “You can pre-order this on Google Books for $9.09 as an e-book too. Looks like a promising read,” with a link to that transaction. To which a commenter who goes by “geneb” added, like he/she meant it to sting that Mr/Ms poonstank8 is a “vile Google promoter…obviously a troll attempting to subvert the Colbert bump…Yet another Amazon-instigated ploy??”
Meanwhile, over at Amazon, if you tried to buy a copy of California, you saw this message: Currently Unavailable… Want us to email you when this item becomes available?
Watch Colbert here in parts 1 and 2:
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