Stephen Colbert is "mad prime" at Amazon for delaying the purchase of his books

And now he's started his own war: Sell more books than Amazon

Published June 5, 2014 2:20PM (EDT)

Last night Stephen Colbert learned the hard way about the Amazon versus Hachette spat: His works are among the Hachette-published books affected. Needless to say, he's not pleased.

In a war over prices, Amazon has been accused of a variety of damaging tactics, including delaying book shipments (which is what happened to Colbert), removing the pre-order button from author J.K. Rowling's new book, and not selling books at their discounted price. On Tuesday there were reports that Amazon had slackened the chokehold on some Hachette books, but Colbert and other authors have still been hurt by this squabble.

And so Colbert delivered his own package to Amazon (wrapped in excessive packing material). Watch below:

To explain how this tiff hurts authors, Colbert had Sherman Alexie, author and winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, on the show. Colbert wonders who you root for in this battle between these two giant corporations? "You root for the authors," Alexie says.

Colbert is also curious about how authors and the public fight them. Alexie retorts: "You don't shop there!"


By Sarah Gray

Sarah Gray is an assistant editor at Salon, focusing on innovation. Follow @sarahhhgray or email sgray@salon.com.

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Amazon Amazon V. Hachette Books Publishers Stephen Colbert Tech The Colbert Report Video