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Hen81
Regular Poster
Username: Hen81
Post Number: 49
Registered: 09-2007
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, March 28, 2008 - 09:31 am: | 
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Something is happening at Amazon.com with POD books sold on their site and Booksurge. If you have a POD book check to see if the buy button is still there. One of my books does not have a buy button any longer. Check the link below for an article on this:
http://writersweekly.com/the_latest_from_angelahoycom/004597_03272008.html
www.DTPollard.com |
Emanuel
Veteran Poster
Username: Emanuel
Post Number: 544
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, March 28, 2008 - 01:37 pm: |
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It's true. I checked my old, subsidy title on the site and you can no longer buy it directly through Amazon.
I also checked my current title which is truly self-pubbed but is printed through Lightning Source. That one was still available with a buy button through Amazon.
I guess it's time for authors to fight back by removing their links to Amazon.com. Authors in "opt out" contracts with subsidy publishers might want to get out so that they can either truly self publish or try to submit to traditional publishers.
I don't think it's that big a deal. If a person is motivated to buy your book online, he can buy it at www.bamm.com, www.bn.com, www.target.com, www.walmart.com or through your own website if you use a service like Paypal.
Still, it looks like another reason NOT to choose a subsidy publisher. |
Emanuel
Veteran Poster
Username: Emanuel
Post Number: 545
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, March 28, 2008 - 03:35 pm: |
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Troy,
This will probably affect your sales through Amazon and your bestseller list. |
Hen81
Regular Poster
Username: Hen81
Post Number: 50
Registered: 09-2007
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, March 28, 2008 - 05:33 pm: |
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There are many small/self publishers that use POD digital technology also, mostly Lightning Source which is part of Ingram, to print their books. This is a very aggressive move from amazon that will probably benefit BN.com greatly.
Some of these POD publishers have thousands of files and moving them to another printer is no small task.
www.DTPollard.com |
Emanuel
Veteran Poster
Username: Emanuel
Post Number: 546
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, March 28, 2008 - 10:54 pm: |
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I just saw this message from PublishAmerica to its authors:
PublishAmerica is intensifying its ties with BarnesandNoble.com as its primary online vendor. At the same time, we are devaluating our relationship with Amazon.com. Unfortunately, we are doing this under pressure.
Amazon has informed us a few days ago that they are insisting on printing every PublishAmerica book they sell, in their own recently bought in-house digital printing facility. We have been given just over two weeks to comply. Their ultimatum implies that PublishAmerica must submit almost 60,000 separate book files (text and cover), and redo every single one of them so they conform to the complicated technical specs that Amazon's in-house press requires.
They also demand a huge increase of their own profit-per-book, which would lead to dramatically lower royalty payments for our authors on all books sold through Amazon.com. Amazon's threat: if you do not play ball, we will disable the "Buy" button for your books.
Not surprisingly, PublishAmerica refuses to be swayed by anyone's strong-arming tactics, big name or otherwise, especially given the fact that budging would mean an additional expense on the publisher's side of tens of thousands of dollars, on top of the unacceptable royalty losses for our authors.
When they tried to force our hand in the past, Amazon representatives have suggested that PublishAmerica should simply pass on its Amazon-caused expenses to its authors. Of course we have refused this. PublishAmerica never charges its authors as much as a single penny, ever. We are not going to change this winning policy under the threat of anyone's intimidation, nor are we willing to involuntarily accept any royalty cuts on behalf of our authors.
PublishAmerica's almost 30,000 titles remain available to Amazon, and we will continue to also make all future titles available to them. Amazon continues to be able to access our books the same way they, as well as all other retailers, have always accessed them, through at least four separate venues. One of those venues is LightningSource, a daughter company of the world's largest book wholesaler Ingram, which prints our books for retailers. (Amazon was attempting to take away a portion of this printing volume from Lightning Source until we prevented it.) If they want to obtain any PublishAmerica title, they can at all times, as they always have.
PublishAmerica's books will furthermore continue to be available to just about every other book retail venue as well, including all Barnes and Noble, Borders, Waldenbooks, Books-a-Million and many other chain and independent bookstores, and to online outlets such as BarnesandNoble.com.
Barnes and Noble remains PublishAmerica's number one customer: more of our books have always been sold through Barnes and Noble and that company's online store than through any other vendor. Given the new circumstances, we now fully anticipate significant sales increases through BarnesandNoble.com and other places.
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A_womon
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: A_womon
Post Number: 2218
Registered: 05-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 29, 2008 - 07:18 am: |
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Listen to PublishAmerica trying to sound all self righteous and "all for the authors' best interests. HA! They rip the authors off more than anyone, holding on the all of the rights to the authors' books among other things.
Maybe they'll take some of the money from these "significant sales increases through Barnes and Noble.com" and hire some professional editors to edit their authors' books! |
Hen81
Regular Poster
Username: Hen81
Post Number: 51
Registered: 09-2007
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 29, 2008 - 10:06 am: |
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PA's business practices are a side issue in this case. This is the danger when a company has two businesses, one that is sucessful while the other lags. Amazon is using access to their online retail service as a hammmer to bring business to Booksurge which seems to be lagging.
Booksurge competes with iUniverse etc. on one hand and seems to be lagging. Lightning Source prints POD books for a long list of publishers including major houses as a contract manufacturer. Now amazon wants to use excess capacity of Booksurge to do wholesale work and is twisting arms with threats to do it.
I don't think this is a good long term strategy from a public relations standpoint. Small and large publishers that use POD will be hit just like PA was.
This will be interesting to watch. Concentration in the access to book purchasing is leaving fewer choices and amazon is leveraging that fact in the area of POD books where online purchasing is the primary vehicle. Amazon is the big dog in online access. Many thousands of POD authors and publishers have links to amazon on their websites and I think many of those will be deleted.
www.DTPollard.com
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Emanuel
Veteran Poster
Username: Emanuel
Post Number: 547
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 29, 2008 - 10:34 am: |
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A_womon is right about PA. Just Google them and you'll find all kinds of negative information about them and their own strong arm tactics, threats against authors, poor editing,and overpriced books. It's like Sadddam Hussein calling Adolf Hilter a bad man.
DT, one advantage true self publishers have over subsidy-published authors is they can join Amazon's advantage program. When Amazon gets an order, they contact the publisher to send the books and Amazon later pays them their share minus Amazon's percentage. Of course, the self publisher needs to keep books on hand for orders.
I don't think this affects ALL publishers that use Lightning Source, just the subsidy publishers that compete with Booksurge. For instance, I used Ligntning Source for my book on cold calling and the BUY button is still active on Amazon. But even if it wasn't, I wouldn't be worried. Ten years ago Amazon might have had a monopoly on online book sales but now there's Books-A-Million, BarnesandNoble.com, and many more players. Personally, my books do much better on BN.com than Amazon anyway.
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Troy
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Troy
Post Number: 1159
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 29, 2008 - 12:12 pm: |
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I started out as a B&N affiliate. B&N preemptively terminated their affiliate program (in a very similar fashion to the Amazon/Lighting source tactic). B&N ultimately transferred the affiliate program administration to Commission Junction. However in the process B&N broke thousands of links on my web site.
I’m sure B&N thought this was a good business decision, but they lost all of my personal business and all the business which AALBC.com was bringing to them. Obviously B&N did not feel losing AALBC.com’s business was worth reversing their decision. However, I’m sure I was not the only affiliate that did not go back to B&N.
My books sales are much higher now. If you combine my books sales with the other affiliate that did not go back, I’m sure the lost revenue would be much more significant and B&N anticipated – one reason, in my opinion, B&N lags behind Amazon in on-line book sales.
Axiom #1
One must operate on the assumption that any company that you deal with can radically modify their business practices or go out of business completely. You assess the likelihood of this actually happening and plan accordingly.
This is one reason “true” self publishing costs more than subsidy-publishing. You are paying a premium to off-set the risk of being locked into a POD technology. For most self published authors I do not think this premium is worth the additional cost…
Prior to B&N dropping their affiliate program; it occurred to me that my entire business model (at the time) was based upon commissions on books sales sold via B&N’s affiliate program. I decided that this was too much of a risk. I began using Amazon links side by side with the B&N links. So when B&N did actually drop their affiliate program – I was protected with the Amazon links.
It is also interesting to note that while the B&N and Amazon links were both active; the Amazon sales grew to be 4 times the B&N sales in less that a year – with no appreciable decrease in B&N sales volume.
I fully understand that Amazon can do the same thing B&N did a couple of years ago. In fact, they have done so already:
First I earned money based upon a percentage of the full retail sales price of the book, then is was a percentage of 35% off retail, now with Amazon market place, it is a percentage of $1.00 or less. Last time I checked about 40% of AALBC.com’s sales were via Market place. This change of Amazon’s business practice is great for the customer. Via Market Place, I’ve brought Black Expressions hard bound version books for 85 cents, when the new publisher’s paperback was available for 10 times the price.
However market place has stunted AALBC.com commission on book sales growth -- despite continuingly increasing book sales, revenue growth does not keep pace. This is not necessarily a bad thing as the ability of people to buy whatever they want is a benefit to AALBC.com. And AALBC.com has branched off, necesarity, into other revenue streams…
Axiom #2 Businesses operate to generate profit. Which is the proof for Axiom #1
Amazon already knows that (1) books from Lightning Source are a small percentage of their overall book sales; and (2) the majority of on-line book sales come through Amazon.
Booksurge is a competing product to Lightning Source, why not exploit their biggest advantage? Sure it will piss off current Lightning Source customers, but there is no shortage of future self published authors who will undoubtedly be swayed to Booksurge because of Amazon availability.
PublishAmerica better figure out away to add booksurge to the mix.
Microsoft, does this type of strong arm crap all of the time too. I used to use software called Listbot to maintain my mailing list – easy to use and inexpensive. Microsoft brought Listbot and folded into a suite of products called bCentral which they launched with all types of fan fare. The price went up and the service seriously sucked! Microsoft canned that products a couple of years later -- forcing me to transfer to another product (I now use Constant Contact which is pretty good but much more expensive).
There are many other examples.
It is obvious that technology risk is a problem for web sites, but it is interesting to learn it is a very real risk for self published authors too.
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Hen81
Regular Poster
Username: Hen81
Post Number: 52
Registered: 09-2007
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 29, 2008 - 12:30 pm: |
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I know about PA. My first book is through them. The key is having proper expectations. Why would amazon just stop with other subsidy publishers when they could handle everything under one roof and get the extra profits.
The issue with amazon is many people have accounts set up and it is easy for them to buy books like any other item. I'm sure self published authors enrolled in their advantage program will be contacted as they alread have your contact information.
They are starting with the big fish and will cascade downward.
www.dtpollard.com |
Emanuel
Veteran Poster
Username: Emanuel
Post Number: 548
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 29, 2008 - 12:41 pm: |
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You would think Amazon needs Ingram and wouldn't want to piss them of by dissing their subsidiary Lightning Source. Don't they need Ingram distribution for traditionally-published books? |
Hen81
Regular Poster
Username: Hen81
Post Number: 53
Registered: 09-2007
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 29, 2008 - 02:30 pm: |
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When I sell one of my iUiverse books through amazon, my recap shows amazon as the buyer, not Ingram. Sales through bookstos show Ingram as the purchaser. Amazon is going direct to get a larger discount, if they produced the book that margin would increase.
It's a bold move that could cut a number of ways.
www.DTpollard.com |
Urban_scribe
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Urban_scribe
Post Number: 680
Registered: 05-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 29, 2008 - 07:59 pm: |
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My guess is this brazen move on Amazon's part MIGHT prove financially beneficial to self-pubbing service companies like Lulu, Bookapo, BookMobile, etc, that can format to Amazon's layout standards. I think it will be interesting to see next quarters' figures for self-pubbing service outfits. Also, it might be interesting to see Ingram and B&T's next quarter figures, since it's obvious that Amazon is positioning themselves to become a full-fledged book wholesaler. I was thinking about this and it dawned on me:
Lulu=Lightning Source=Ingram/B&T
Bookapo=Lightning Source=B&T/Ingram
BookMobile=Lightning Source=B&T/Ingram
WordClay=Lightning Source=Ingram/B&T
CreateSpace=Booksurge=Amazon
That's how it is now, but with Amazon's latest announcement, it may end up being:
Lulu=Lightning Source=Ingram/B&T/Amazon
Bookapo=Lightning Source=B&T/Ingram/Amazon
BookMobile=Lightning Source=B&T/Ingram/Amazon
WordClay=Lightning Source=Ingram/B&T/Amazon
CreateSpace=Booksurge=Amazon
CreateSpace(Booksurge), which is fully owned by Amazon, won't need LS, B&T, or Ingram. Yet, all vanity presses, pubbing services companies, small and midsize presses and major houses, chain and independent bricks-and-mortar bookstores are being placed in a position where they will NEED Amazon. I think bn.com may see an increase in internet sales but, in the longrun, BN physical bookstores may end up needing to rely on Amazon as one of their wholesale suppliers. That is, IF Amazon manages to pull this off.
One thing's for sure, this isn't boding well with the publishing industry. It's all over the internet, everyone's blogging about it, and there's talk that legal action against Booksurge/Amazon MAY come from Lightning Source/Ingram.
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Hen81
Regular Poster
Username: Hen81
Post Number: 54
Registered: 09-2007
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 29, 2008 - 11:24 pm: |
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What amazon has to watch out for is collateral damage that spreads beyond book sales. With Kindle they use a propriety e-book format that is only available through them and now they want to tie sales of POD books to their in-house production. This insular approach has risks. Online sales comprise 10% of toal book sales and amazon has the lion's share of that pie. I find that I sell far more of my POD books by driving customers to book stores where they can avoid shipping charges.
The POD revenue of Lightning Source is a big chunk of business for Ingram. I expect they will fight this tooth and nails.
www.DTPollard.com |
Urban_scribe
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Urban_scribe
Post Number: 681
Registered: 05-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, March 31, 2008 - 07:59 pm: |
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Amazon responds:
March 31, 2008
Open letter to interested parties:
We wanted to make sure those who are interested have an opportunity to understand what we're changing with print on demand and why we're doing so.
One question that we've seen is a simple one. Is Amazon requiring that print-on-demand books be printed inside Amazon's own fulfillment centers, and if so why?
Yes. Modern POD printing machines can print and bind a book in less than two hours. If the POD printing machines reside inside our own fulfillment centers, we can more quickly ship the POD book to customers -- including in those cases where the POD book needs to be married together with another item. If a customer orders a POD item together with an item that we're holding in inventory -- a common case -- we can quickly print and bind the POD item, pick the inventoried item, and ship the two together in one box, and we can do so quickly. If the POD item were to be printed at a third party, we'd have to wait for it to be transhipped to our fulfillment center before it could be married together with the inventoried item.
Speed of shipping is a key customer experience focus for us and it has been for many years. Amazon Prime is an example of a successful and growing program that is driving up our speed of shipment with customers. POD items printed inside our own fulfillment centers can make our Amazon Prime cutoff times. POD items printed outside cannot.
Simply put, we can provide a better, more timely customer experience if the POD titles are printed inside our own fulfillment centers. In addition, printing these titles in our own fulfillment centers saves transportation costs and transportation fuel.
Another question we've seen: Do I need to switch completely to having my POD titles printed at Amazon?
No, there is no request for exclusivity. Any publisher can use Amazon's POD service just for those units that ship from Amazon and continue to use a different POD service provider for distribution through other channels.
Alternatively, you can use a different POD service provider for all your units. In that case, we ask that you pre-produce a small number of copies of each title (typically five copies), and send those to us in advance (Amazon Advantage Program-successfully used by thousands of big and small publishers). We will inventory those copies. That small cache of inventory allows us to provide the same rapid fulfillment capability to our customers that we would have if we were printing the titles ourselves on POD printing machines located inside our fulfillment centers. Unlike POD, this alternative is not completely "inventoryless." However, as a practical matter, five copies is a small enough quantity that it is economically close to an inventoryless model.
Might Amazon reconsider this new policy?
Only if we can find an even better way to serve our customers faster. Over the years we've made many improvements to our service level for consumers. Some of these changes have caused consternation at times, but we have always stuck with the change when we believe it's good for customers. An early example: many years ago we started offering customer reviews on our website. This was a pioneering thing to do at the time. The fact that we allowed *negative* customer reviews confounded many publishers -- some were downright angry. One publisher wrote to us asking if we understood our business: "You make money when you sell things! Take down these negative reviews!" Our point of view was that our job was to help customers make purchase decisions. It made sense to us to stick with the customer-centric position of embracing customer reviews, even negative ones.
Another example: a few years ago, we made the decision to offer used books, and to make those used copies available directly alongside the new editions. This caused significant consternation, but we stood by the decision because we were convinced it was right for customers. Sometimes a used book will do and it can sometimes be had at a significant cost savings relative to a new book. We stuck with the customer-friendly decision.
Our decision with POD is the same. Once a book is in digital format, it can be quickly printed on modern POD printing equipment. It isn't logical or efficient to print a POD book in a third place, and then physically ship the book to our fulfillment centers. It makes more sense to produce the books on site, saving transportation costs and transportation fuel, and significantly speeding the shipment to our customers and Amazon Prime members.
We hope this helps those who are interested understand what we're working to do and why. We believe our customer-focused approach helps the entire industry in the long term by selling more books.
Sincerely,
The Amazon.com Books Team
© 1996-2008, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates
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Troy
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Troy
Post Number: 1168
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, March 31, 2008 - 09:14 pm: |
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Urban_scribe, Thanks for sharing this. Amazon offers a strong argurment focusing on the benefits to the customer.
...and of course the customer cares little about the technical details behind the scenes they just want to get their stuff as quickly and cheaply as possible.
PublishAmerica on the other hand has their head buried in the sand; "...never charges its authors as much as a single penny, ever. We are not going to change this winning policy under the threat of anyone's intimidation..." -- come on!
I can't blame PublishAmerica for trying to get authors/publishers mad at Amazon. But if they thought it through they would have realized they had no leverage.
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Urban_scribe
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Urban_scribe
Post Number: 688
Registered: 05-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, April 12, 2008 - 11:16 am: |
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Washington Attorney General's Office Public Notice
Re: Inquiries Concerning Amazon.com’s “Print on Demand” Policy
April 8, 2008
The Washington Attorney General’s Antitrust Division has received several inquiries and concerns regarding the new “print on demand” or “POD” policy recently implemented by Amazon.com. Individuals who have contacted our office claim that Amazon is engaging in “monopolistic practices.”
As with all complaints regarding a business, we have advised Amazon.com of these concerns and have asked the company to respond to us. In the meantime, the Antitrust Division is conducting an initial review of the marketplace and will respond more fully once that review is complete.
In order for the Attorney General’s Office or another enforcement agency to take action on an antitrust law violation, a court must be convinced that a company has attempted to monopolize a relevant market or is attempting to exclude others from a market it has already monopolized. The relevant market is judged not only in terms of what products are in question, but the geographic service area in which competitors compete.
If it is determined that the markets involved are national in scope, it may be more appropriate to refer this matter to one of the federal antitrust agencies for review.
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Urban_scribe
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Urban_scribe
Post Number: 689
Registered: 05-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, April 12, 2008 - 11:50 am: |
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IMO, this is about self-pubbers, vanity presses, POD companies, and small presses not wanting to and/or not having the resources to shell out the money and time to create additional bookcover and text files that meet Amazon's requirements.
Yes, it is an extra step in the publishing process and, yes, it is an extra expense that will cut into profits. But, IMO, if you're going to run a business, be it a self-pubbing business or a vanity or POD company or small press, and attempt to align yourself in a position to be a "player" in the publishing industry, then you best be ready, willing, and able to put your money where your mouth is.
Seeing a multitude of Amazon "buy" links disabled on various books from various "publishers" is really serving as an eye-opener of who's who in the industry. If we're looking at vanity presses, PublishAmerica sticks out like a sore thumb as far as PA books having their links disabled is concerned. The same can be said of various self-pubbers, POD companies, and small presses. If they strictly rely on POD printing and/or didn't invest in additionally setting up their books with Booksurge, (relied exclusively on POD printing through Lightning Source), all of their links went bye-bye.
Word in the industry is, regardless to how anyone feels about Amazon's new policy, this has really given the industry insight as to who is stepping up to the plate to play with the big boys, be they self-pubbers, POD or vanity companies, or small presses, and who's merely keeping the bench warm.
I don't have a problem with what Amazon is doing. I don't have a problem with it at all. I firmly believe if you're going to get into something, get in it to win it - don't do it half-ass. The way I see it, Amazon's new policy is drawing attention to those who are in the publishing game half-ass, and they're pissed that they're being exposed, so they're hollering "monopoly".
By no means is this a monopoly. That's just absurd. Amazon, in fact, offers an alternative to using their services: have your books printed by the printer of your choice, send them 5 copies (minimum) to have on-hand to fulfill orders, and they'll take a 55% wholesaler's discount off the cover price. If that's a monopoly, then the whole damn publishing industry is a monopoly. |
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