According to WritersWeekly, John Clifford - "an Amazon/BookSurge representative" - said print on demand (POD) books not converted to BookSurge would have their 'buy' buttons turned off on Amazon.com.

That article also states "Another comment Mr. Clifford made was that their eventual desire is to have no books from other POD publishers available on Amazon.com."

Alternatives to using BookSurge include joining Amazon's Advantage Program, which involves an annual fee of $US29.95 plus 55 percent of the list price of the book, plus the cost of having the books printed and shipped to Amazon's warehouse; or selling through Amazon resellers (thus losing the advantage of Amazon's free shipping offers).

The WritersWeekly article was written by Angela Hoy, publisher of WritersWeekly and co-owner of POD services company BookLocker.com. In a postscript to the article addressed to authors, she wrote:

"For most self-published authors, sales are almost always author-driven, meaning the bookstore link you use in YOUR marketing efforts is what's driving your sales, not just simply having your book listed on Amazon.com.