Apple rejects iBook with links to Amazon's store

Why would they allow it? It's like ordering a pizza and in the box getting a coupon for one of their competitors. I see people are talking about Apple censoring but it's still a business, Apple has the right to do it, and there are already guidelines in place that say that you can't do it.

Does Amazon allow it?

I think a link in digital media such as a book is the wrong way to go. Links break. I feel that we need a standard that allows us, the reader in this case, to be able to search with our own settings. Our search engine and store preferences should be used to find media at our leisure. This is something I feel should be standard in digital books and magazines, links are the wrong way to go.

Apple doesn't let Amazon link to books in their store in their own app. Why would they let this guy?

Just to clarify: Of the 14 linked books, 12 do actually appear on the iBookstore. Of those 12, 10 are cheaper -- sometimes a lot cheaper -- than Godin's links. I wrote about this last night, and when I was looking into availability, I noticed that Godin is using a non-standard Amazon link, as well, at least on the HTML version of the book I was able to read:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0865716692/permissionmarket/ref=nosim/

I don't know if it means anything that "permissionmarket" appears in his link (it may not do anything at all) but it's certainly not necessary (the link works just fine without that bit) and Permission Marketing is a therm coined and popularized by Godin that involves data collection. (Albeit with customer permission.)

Here's my full writeup: http://brianford.newsvine.com/_news/2012/03/01/10544069-seth-godin-apple-rejection-and-permission-marketing

I've reached out to Godin, as well.

Stupid.

Putting links to a store inside the bibliography of your book is tacky. You'd have to keep updating them every time the store changes the link, and it's not a very professional way to list your sources. People can easily google search something if they want to know where to buy the recommended books.

Seems to me that there are only two reasons to provide links: 1. Kickbacks from the store, and 2. Ease of use for your readers. If it's 2 then he should have used the iBooks store links anyway, because the iBooks store is the same price, and much easier to use than the Kindle store.

tldr: If he wanted to make it easy for his readers to buy his recommended books he should have provided iBooks links to iOS users.

Its a pretty important strategy for Apple, since the only buyers of iBooks are people who have no clue about Amazon and first-time iPad owners who want to 'try' iBooks.

If Amazon pulled every book that mentioned or was about the iPad (a Kindle Fire competitor), would you justify it by saying it's Amazon's playground?

Have you ever seen a link to a book in the iBook store when you're reading on your kindle? I honestly don't know...but I doubt it. I don't think this is particularly outrageous.

Eh. Sure it's just Amazon? I don't think the world needs e-books linking to assorted e-commerce sites.