eReaderIQ no longer Amazon.com affiliate eligible

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

People have been gaming Amazon for years and still are. It's a natural outgrowth of how Amazon's business model (i.e. pushing as much work on to someone else as possible) works. For that matter, many indie authors game the system by breaking their books up into chapter books, thus charging a lot more and are much praised here for it. There will always be someone willing to grab a buck if it's out there. The only real difference this time is that Amazon decided that it was their ox that was getting gored.

It sounds to me like you are in bed with the BPH. At least they are perfect angels by being consistently overpriced. If you haven't noticed the step from KU 1.0 to KU 2.0 has greatly reduced those chapter books.

As per usual you have completely ignored what I said and didn't say. To the best of my memory I have merely suggested another option instead of closing accounts. I have neither defended nor objected to Amazon's move to start closing accounts.

For the record here is my opinion on it: It is a good move on Amazon's part to finally do something, anything, to proactively fight scammers. Before they merely changed the rules. Amazon cannot do anything wrong? Well they did this time by waiting so long to do something.

[Barbara1955]

IF ReaderIQ Disappears My Pocketbook will be happy. While I do get a Lot of the Freebies I end up finding a LOT of Authors e-books I normally wouldn't find. IF I Love the Freebie I usually end up BUYING ALL their e-books Esp if its a Series. So I see Authors loosing out with the Closing of ReaderIQ.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

It sounds to me like you are in bed with the BPH. At least they are perfect angels by being consistently overpriced. If you haven't noticed the step from KU 1.0 to KU 2.0 has greatly reduced those chapter books.

As per usual you have completely ignored what I said and didn't say. To the best of my memory I have merely suggested another option instead of closing accounts. I have neither defended nor objected to Amazon's move to start closing accounts.

For the record here is my opinion on it: It is a good move on Amazon's part to finally do something, anything, to proactively fight scammers. Before they merely changed the rules. Amazon cannot do anything wrong? Well they did this time by waiting so long to do something.

If it sounds that way to you, then I suspect it's more because you are projecting things that I am not saying into my posts. I never mentioned publishers in my post. For the most part, I tend to ignore publishers. I'm mostly focused on authors that I like to read.

Certainly, it can not be denied, or at least not with a straight face, that Amazon's business model of pushing most of the work on to the publisher, be they a company or an individual author, and to the customers with regards to ratings and reviews, lends itself to being gamed. People do what is in their best interest, and generally their best interest and Amazon's best interest are not one and the same. Amazon has had issues with people gaming the system since day one.

The people gaming the ebook catalog system have basically made it useless to me as a tool for finding new books. Thus I use other sites. Authoralert was a pretty handly site for finding out when my favorite authors have new books coming out. It wasn't perfect by any stretch, but it was better than nothing. If Amazon's follow feature actually worked, I wouldn't need them.

People who do business with companies like Walmart and Amazon ought to know what they are getting into. Both companies are notorious for playing hardball with suppliers.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by Blossom

I can't donate at the moment but I removed all the books I had on watch it was 1000 or more so that should help lighten some of their cost. It's the best I can do. I don't buy books at the moment so it was just wasted use. I was a heavy user of their FreeReadFeed for years. It's well worth to donate too.

Don't worry about your lists--keep them going. The best thing to do to support them is to keep using them and let others know if they are useful. The real death knell is when readers go elsewhere. They're a good site and I think they've worked really hard to provide a reader service that works.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

If it sounds that way to you, then I suspect it's more because you are projecting things that I am not saying into my posts. I never mentioned publishers in my post. For the most part, I tend to ignore publishers. I'm mostly focused on authors that I like to read.

Certainly, it can not be denied, or at least not with a straight face, that Amazon's business model of pushing most of the work on to the publisher, be they a company or an individual author, and to the customers with regards to ratings and reviews, lends itself to being gamed. People do what is in their best interest, and generally their best interest and Amazon's best interest are not one and the same. Amazon has had issues with people gaming the system since day one.

The people gaming the ebook catalog system have basically made it useless to me as a tool for finding new books. Thus I use other sites. Authoralert was a pretty handly site for finding out when my favorite authors have new books coming out. It wasn't perfect by any stretch, but it was better than nothing. If Amazon's follow feature actually worked, I wouldn't need them.

People who do business with companies like Walmart and Amazon ought to know what they are getting into. Both companies are notorious for playing hardball with suppliers.

Amazon's follow doesn't work that great for me either, but I've seen improvement in it recently. I also use https://www.fictfact.com/ and it's been way better and has been around a long time. I've been pretty happy with them (their most useful feature is the alert for new books, but they have the typical "rate books" and catalogue features).

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

Amazon's follow doesn't work that great for me either, but I've seen improvement in it recently. I also use https://www.fictfact.com/ and it's been way better and has been around a long time. I've been pretty happy with them (their most useful feature is the alert for new books, but they have the typical "rate books" and catalogue features).

Thanks, I'll give it a try. Is it just for new books, or do they notify when a backlist comes out in ebook?

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Thanks, I'll give it a try. Is it just for new books, or do they notify when a backlist comes out in ebook?

I am pretty sure they notify for any book that is out by that author that is in a series. They are not so good at non-series titles, but I've gotten some of those too (I think it depends on who adds them. I've added some books that were missing.) I should have noted that it is largely for series (as I think that is their main intent).

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

Don't worry about your lists--keep them going. The best thing to do to support them is to keep using them and let others know if they are useful. The real death knell is when readers go elsewhere. They're a good site and I think they've worked really hard to provide a reader service that works.

I disagree if you are not using the service you are wasting their resources which is why I removed the books from the watchlist. I haven't had a book budget in two years so this was my way of helping out.

Sent from my XT1528 using Tapatalk

[pwalker8]

One of the things that occurred to me in thinking about the back to paper thread in discussions that probably is more associated with this thread is that there are potentially a lot of value added services that web sites can provide. Notifying customers when new books or ebooks are published, rating books, focus on specific genres, etc. The one issue that hasn't really be solved though is monetizing that value, i.e. how to stay in business. This is especially difficult since many such ideas require cooperation by the ebook sites.

At one time, there was a volume called "Books in Print" that many bookstores had, that listed all the books that were available for order. It sure would be nice to have access to an online database that listed all ebooks, but I have no idea how such a service would be monetized or maintained.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Blossom

I disagree if you are not using the service you are wasting their resources which is why I removed the books from the watchlist. I haven't had a book budget in two years so this was my way of helping out.

Well, really it is just another table in a database somewhere, and emails are very cheap to send.

I cannot see it making much of a difference one way or another.