Do you think another lesson is don't change the price point?
Did you rule out a robo reaction to Kobo's delayed increase back to $2.99 causing the robo to price it at its average best selling price over the last two months?
or IE it sold better at the lower price point so roboAmazon moved it back there?
I don't know. The thing is, they had dropped the price to match $.99 at Kobo, and after Kobo restored the price, I worked with Amazon then to get the price back to $2.99 on Amazon. So they had already restored that price.
It might have been something leftover in their system that dropped it *again* based on that month-old price drop, I don't know. If I get any more information from them, I'll post it.
I can rule that out myself. Three of our titles had prices arbitrarily changed in January 2012, for arbitrary periods of time. At no point were they being sold for less elsewhere.
I have almost zero knowledge and experience in this field, so take this for what it's worth, but could it be that Amazon actually *does* do this stuff automatically, that an algorithm is actually running the price fluctuations? And that the humans you presumably were corresponding/talking to have no idea what factors are included in the equation? Just wondering...
I do get the sense the humans don't have all the facts, and were just responding via a customer support flowchart or something similar... Bottom line, I don't *know* what triggered this.
It makes sense to me for groups of writers to form their own label and publish through Amazon as a group, which would give them more clout than that of one lone author. Sure the accounting would be a bit more complex and profits would have to be distributed from the business account, but it would be like the agent who handles several valuable authors talking to a publisher, not a lone voice in the wilderness.
Sure, any corporation who deals with authors is in it for themselves. Amazon is quite deliberately trying to lure us all by being nicer overall than traditional publishers. It's in their best interests right now to seem as appealing to us as they can. I don't have any illusions about them. I know people who are self publishing directly, without their distribution, and it seems to be going well. That could be an option for those who have already built an audience and name recognition.
And Amazon has done an amazingly effective job of it. They've built themselves up into the top e-publishing outlet, and they've given authors some great royalty terms in the process ... but the royalty terms are part of their strategy, not some sort of gift or kindness to writers.
Bookviewcafe is one example of authors banding together to release their own stuff, and they've got some big names and recognition going. Not sure how exactly they work with Amazon, though.
Clout, alas, is not something Amazon is afraid of.
My company, a small press publishing 120 original hardcover titles per year, does not distribute ebooks through Amazon precisely because we can't get them to back off their abusive contract.
The large publishers don't have to put up with this, but they had to do battle with Amazon. Remember when Amazon pulled all MacMillan books, both print and e-? I suspect the main reason Amazon blinked that time was because the other large publishers might have followed suit.
Amazon can do without the 120 books/year from my company (an academic press), but they can't do without the thousands of bigger sellers from the large trade houses.
I'm pretty impressed actually that you were able to get a hold of them and get the price changed back to $2.99. So, although their terms of service technically take a lot of control away from the author, they actually spoke to you, listened, and made the change you asked for, in spite of the fact that they didn't have to. That's kind of nice!
That's true, and I definitely appreciate that they got back to me and fixed the price. They've generally been pretty good about responding to e-mails within 2-3 days.
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Did you rule out a robo reaction to Kobo's delayed increase back to $2.99 causing the robo to price it at its average best selling price over the last two months?
or IE it sold better at the lower price point so roboAmazon moved it back there?
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It might have been something leftover in their system that dropped it *again* based on that month-old price drop, I don't know. If I get any more information from them, I'll post it.
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*Makes another note in her Granny notebook*
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Sure, any corporation who deals with authors is in it for themselves. Amazon is quite deliberately trying to lure us all by being nicer overall than traditional publishers. It's in their best interests right now to seem as appealing to us as they can. I don't have any illusions about them. I know people who are self publishing directly, without their distribution, and it seems to be going well. That could be an option for those who have already built an audience and name recognition.
Reply
Bookviewcafe is one example of authors banding together to release their own stuff, and they've got some big names and recognition going. Not sure how exactly they work with Amazon, though.
Reply
Reply
My company, a small press publishing 120 original hardcover titles per year, does not distribute ebooks through Amazon precisely because we can't get them to back off their abusive contract.
The large publishers don't have to put up with this, but they had to do battle with Amazon. Remember when Amazon pulled all MacMillan books, both print and e-? I suspect the main reason Amazon blinked that time was because the other large publishers might have followed suit.
Amazon can do without the 120 books/year from my company (an academic press), but they can't do without the thousands of bigger sellers from the large trade houses.
Reply
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Nothing useful to say.
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