Chelsea Green's decision to make a new book, Obama's Challenge by Robert Kuttner, available first only via Amazon--via its BookSurge POD service--has led to some independent booksellers and Barnes & Noble to cancel orders.

The book won't be available to non-Amazon accounts for two weeks. In addition, the publisher intends to distribute 15,000 coupons at the Democratic convention, beginning next Monday, that offer a 25% discount on the book on Amazon.

B&N had ordered 10,000 copies of Obama's Challenge, an admiring portrait of the Illinois senator, and called the exclusive sales arrangement "unprecedented," according to the Wall Street Journal. B&N said that now it will sell the book only via special order and on its website.

The New York Times quoted B&N saying it bought Obama's Challenge believing the book would be "available to all booksellers simultaneously--an even playing field--which is common practice in book publishing."

Bookshop Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, Calif., called the arrangement "a slap in the face," the Journal reported.

Chelsea Green said that it is publishing Obama's Challenge in this manner to make sure it would be available for Democratic convention-goers. "This election is too important to wait around for traditional publishing lead times," president and publisher Margo Baldwin said in a statement. According to the Times, she also wrote to booksellers, "If all of you cancel your orders, it will mean that a really good and important book on Obama will be effectively boycotted."

---

The ironies and oddities of this situation are striking. One wonders why a publisher that prides itself on progressive politics and sustainable living--which usually includes buying local--made an exclusive agreement with a company seen by some as the biggest threat to local bookselling. There are other POD organizations, and e-books in a variety of formats would offer a way of reaching people quickly. And isn't flooding the Democratic convention with this book preaching to the choir? Also we see clearly whom B&N considers its major competition--to the point of invoking a level playing field. And while we don't know about Amazon, most others on opposite sides of the fence in this brouhaha are rooting for Obama.