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Old 11-29-2007, 11:05 AM   #61
Steven Lyle Jordan
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Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT View Post
I suspect that they probably just remove stuff if a sufficient number of people complain about it.
I'd hope it wouldn't be that simple. Just because people complain about something, doesn't mean it isn't worth making available. How many people claim Harry Potter books are about the Devil, and should be banned? There needs to be a legitimate reason behind it, or it shouldn't be done.

But you're probably right... with tens of thousands of books, I'm sure Amazon doesn't pay anyone to check them out, or even run screening programs over them. They probably wait to get a complaint, then manually check out the book in question and make a decision.
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Old 11-29-2007, 01:01 PM   #62
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A screening program would work as fast as a virus program.
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Old 11-29-2007, 05:56 PM   #63
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Originally Posted by Steve Jordan View Post

Uploading Lambs made me realize something: There is no provision on the Amazon pages for disclaimers about book content, including language, sexuality, etc (of which Lambs has some). I suppose Amazon isn't overly concerned about what people buy, any more than most US bookstores worry about how appropriate the content is for the purchaser. But it makes you wonder where the limit is, how much Amazon monitors all this unsolicited content, and how Amazon will exercise their right to remove "inappropriate material." Let's see how long it takes before we see mainstream news items about Amazon removing pedophile and neo-nazi literature from its Kindle uploading service...
The 120 Days of Sodom, by the Marquis de Sade

They're not too worried about carrying very extreme print books. I would hope they won't filter the ebooks. After all, no one ever treats digital content differently than print content...

Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Obviously paedophile literature would probably be illegal, but surely you don't think they should remove neo-nazi material, do you? Isn't freedom of political expression a right in the US? One may disagree with the agenda of neo-nazis (and I certainly do!), but (in this country at least) they have a legal right to express their viewpoint, as long as they aren't committing any crimes.
In fact, as you can see by the above book (banned at least in France, if not the rest of Europe), the US has very liberal freedom of expression laws. Paedophile literature isn't illegal - there's very little literature that is, as long as it's in hardcopy print form. What you can write in a book you can't necessarily say on the radio, broadcast on TV, or (they're working on it) publish on the Internet.
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Old 11-30-2007, 10:12 PM   #64
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bingle View Post
Paedophile literature isn't illegal - there's very little literature that is, as long as it's in hardcopy print form. What you can write in a book you can't necessarily say on the radio, broadcast on TV, or (they're working on it) publish on the Internet.
Good point... still, even in the US, there's a limit to what you can sell "over the counter" to a minor. IOW, pornography, even in print, is still considered pornography.
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Old 11-30-2007, 11:17 PM   #65
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I just checked Amazon for "Steve Jordan" and found Lambs Hide, ... in position #3 of the search results. Clicking there led to the description page and clicking the "Steve Jordan" on that page led to a listing of four (4) books -- all Kindle editions.
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Old 12-01-2007, 04:26 PM   #66
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Right. FYI, 2 more are in the uploading process, which leaves 4 more to put into the system! It's kind of strange, the way the new books sort of "percolate" up, with the titles and covers appearing within 12 hours, the books themselves appearing within 24-48 hours, and the final product descriptions appearing within 48-72 hours...
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Old 12-03-2007, 09:29 AM   #67
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Another update

After having problems formatting my Product Descriptions (Kindle uploaders apparently cannot create breaks, headers, italics, links, etc, the way they are displayed in Amazon's other book sections), I have sent yet another message to technical support, but received no answer yet. Reviewing the tech support forums, I've noticed a distinct lack of responses from support regarding many of the features of the DTP platform, including formatting (or lack thereof), server download issues (of which there are many), and cancelling an item before publishing and/or unpublishing (you just can't).

For the record, someone also asked specifically, "How many Kindles have been sold?" and that question was also dodged. (Answer: "We sold out early in our first run, but we don't have sales figures.")

Clearly Amazon is not treating the DTP system with the same support that they would give Big Publishers. On one hand, why should I expect them to, when they are not getting any money for advertising, etc, from me? But on the other hand, they are collecting 65% of every sale I make... you'd think that could count for something.
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Old 12-05-2007, 10:20 AM   #68
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They're all in. Initial DTP report card.

As of this morning, I've uploaded all 10 of my novels into Amazon's DTP system, which means that within the next 12 hours, all will be visible, and within another 72 (or so) hours, they will all be purchasable. (I haven't uploaded the free short stories, and don't plan to at this time.)

Overall, I have mixed feelings about the experience. Getting the novels in, of course, wasn't hard. Most of the books I downloaded were from the original Word documents, with formatting cleaned up to correspond to the DTP conversion process. Although I don't know firsthand how a book will actually look on the Kindle screen, I'm fairly confident that the preview display captured the book as I intended, and any differences in font sizes, etc, can be dealt with on the reader.

Concerning DTP, I am not satisfied about how well it functions. Amazon has taken steps to limit the control an indie has over what they publish--possibly to avoid hacking or other vandalism, I'm not sure--but as a result, I cannot create a nicely-formatted Product Description. Right next to my entry, Big Publishers have entries with nicely formatted descriptions, reviews, headers, etc... indies get one paragraph, however long it ends up.

Other indies have complained about a number of other DTP functions, many of them requesting the ability of being able to set up descriptions, list multiple authors, add reviews, etc, much like standard (ie, Big Publisher) entries. Some of those requests have been denied outright... most have simply never been responded to by DTP support.

Speaking of DTP support... they don't speak of much. They have not been very forthcoming about the hows and whys of their system, they do not respond to many questions other than "We're looking into it," and they haven't even pretended that they give a rat's a$$ about any indie's suggestions or complaints. (And we thought Adobe support was bad...)

Also, now that the books are in... I cannot remove them. Amazon has apparently left DTP indies no choice in the matter. If I decided to not make my books available, I'd probably have to upload a blank file and alter the product description warning people that the book was no longer available. Which may work, but it won't exactly leave people talking favorably about the guy who has blank pages for sale on Amazon.

And is there any way for me to promote my e-books? No, there is not. They are in, but that's pretty much all. I do not have the funds to buy my way to the top of the search engines, as the Big Pubs do, nor to buy banner ads. So, unless I am discovered by someone else, somewhere else, who spreads the word around, my e-books won't be percolating up to anyone's "favorites" or "also boughts" categories anytime soon.

So, overall, I'm giving the Amazon DTP process a D grade... D for Below Average, as is befitting my ongoing status in the Amazon universe... and only because the end result of getting your e-book available on Amazon.com is, yes, a bit of a rush. Not a victory, not even a score--after all, I might never be found in there--just a vague thrill for being even a small part of the largest online bookseller on the planet.
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Old 12-07-2007, 06:20 PM   #69
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They have a link about self-published content at http://forums.digitaltextplatform.co...2&categoryID=4 for some rough guidelines.
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Old 12-18-2007, 01:04 PM   #70
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Well, well... 2 sales!

I just checked, and discovered that I have managed to get a grand total of 2 sales of Kindle-formatted books!

Actually, I'm making that sound snide, but in reality I'm surprised that I've gotten even those two... I'm such a small fish in a big, big pond, and I didn't expect to see any sales for quite some time.

Amazon's report system lists individual sales, with detail of what was sold and in what quantity, what Amazon made on the sale, and what you made on it (my total so far: $2.44). There are no details on who bought it, of course... Amazon clearly keeps those details to themselves, unsurprisingly.

Any guesses on the buyers? It could be someone who heard about me through Mobileread... although if they did, they also know that they can get the e-books for less by ordering them from me directly, and in non-DRM'd mobi format. It could be someone who just wanted to see how the books came out on Kindle, but if they have, they haven't reported anything to me, so maybe not.

My guess is this: I recently set up an account at Shelfari.com (devoted to reading, reading, reading... and then talking about their reading), and I listed my books there, with links that take you directly to the Kindle pages (and no comments about my books site). I'm thinking the orders came from there. (I plan to strike up a thread or two about the group's perception of e-books, to see what kind of responses I get, but probably after the holidays are over.)

But this is only a guess, and I am not privy to any of Amazon's info about who bought my books, or from where. I have no way to track the purchases. So, unless some direct feedback is forthcoming, from here, Amazon or elsewhere, all I can do is sit here and watch. Again, I suspect that Big Publishers get a lot more info than this from Amazon, and again, I suspect it's directly related to exclusive contracts and agreements (and money changing hands).
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Old 12-20-2007, 12:37 AM   #71
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What is the cheapest you can price a book?

I would think they would not let you drop the price of a book/short story to below $.10 because that is probably near their cost of the bandwidth.
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Old 12-20-2007, 06:47 AM   #72
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I seem to remember someone saying it was $0.25, but I could be mistaken.
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Old 12-20-2007, 06:53 AM   #73
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Suggested progress

The other day, I went into the Amazon forum and made a slight stink about the fact that big publishers had tools, specifically, the ability to use HTML to format the Product Descriptions section, that indie DTP users do not have, citing it as highly unfair and stating that DTP users must have the same tools.

Although I had touched upon this on earlier threads, and received little or no response, this time, the ubiquitous "DTPadmin" responded:

Quote:
Hello,

We are currently working to make sure DTP-uploaded content has the same options available to users as all other Kindle Editions.

I've made sure to let the team know how important this is to everybody, and it should be coming soon!
The DTP forum allows you to mark a question as answered, once the response comes in from DTPadmin. However, I don't consider "should be coming soon" to be a satisfactory answer, so I have left it marked as "unanswered". I could try to press them, but I already know that to be pointless.

Last edited by Steven Lyle Jordan; 12-20-2007 at 09:32 AM. Reason: Quoted reply added
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Old 12-21-2007, 11:36 AM   #74
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Update: Suggested progress

Amazon's DTP added a reply to my "not good enough" reply on user tools:

Quote:
the way in which some content was brought on-site in bulk prior to the Kindle launch enabled different formatting options.

We are working to make those options available for DTP as well, but those were simply different means of publication. Rest assured that we are very keen to see DTP succeed and provide the best platform possible, and we're dedicated to ensuring your content looks great.
I imagine they are referring to the fact that they used existing html-based print book content from publishers when later setting up their Kindle editions, and just pasted it into the Kindle descriptions. This still doesn't answer the question of why we don't have those tools, IMO.

What I believe they are specifically not saying is that, although HTML can obviously be used in the descriptions, Amazon didn't trust the public not to input obscene or defamatory text, viruses and other rogue HTML into text fields that they were clearly not vetting first. I imagine their "efforts" to permit HTML to be used are mainly about protecting themselves from HTML-based attack or vandalism.

And since I can't get them to admit it one way or the other, this is the explanation I am sticking with. (If anyone out there has any other theories, please speak up.)
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Old 01-12-2008, 09:00 PM   #75
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Steve -

Just thought I'd let you know that after reading this thread I checked out your books and just finished reading Sol. Nicely done! I not only enjoyed reading the book, but the formatting was mostly good. From time to time a section would be indented (as if there was a missing image on the left) but that was not a big deal.

I read a lot, and read a lot of science fiction. Your book was one of the most fun things I've read in a while.

Although I did find one spelling mistake (grin).
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