Well, Dr. Phil says we should ask for the relationship we want, so I'm asking for this from all you mega-sites:

• Do not force me to buy your "services". Make your services so attractive that I will want to buy them.
• Roll back your fees. Period. They are not sustainable.
• Eliminate all the transaction-based charges. By the time I compute my net-net-net I seriously wonder why I'm in this business.
• Clean up the sites and eliminate all the garbage listings and the non-seller programmers hiding behind their electronic names. Make me proud to put my listings on your site.
• Ask me how I feel about changes, and then listen and respond. No relationship can exist if one party feels completely used and ignored by the other.
• Fix the feedback system where it exists and eliminate customer abuse.
• Award excellence.
• Provide us with services we really need. How about low-cost health insurance for small independent booksellers?
• Provide opportunities to do good in the world.
• Act like a real "partner" and design your business model to be mutually beneficial, not parasitic.

A parasite - from the Greek word parasitos, means "one who eats from another's table." Parasitism is an interaction between two organisms, in which one organism (the parasite) benefits and the other (the host) is harmed, though usually without killing the host. Parasitism can be considered a special case of predation since in both interactions one species acquires biomass directly from another.

A partnership is a type of business entity in which partners share with each other the profits or losses of the business undertaking in which they have all invested. (Wikipedia)

What kind of relationship are we going to have?

Renée Magriel Roberts can be reach at renee@roses-books.com.