Amazon for 'foreign' authors -- at a price

[neilmarr]

Amazon has proudly announced that non-US based independent writers and small publishers can now upload their work in English, German and French for the Kindle store. (They have been barred in the past for various red-tape reasons.)

Cut out the middle man, they say. Handle the job direct.

That's fine ... until you read that Amazon will take a cool SIXTY FIVE PERCENT of cover price of all titles. They, of course, put it the other way and say YOU can 'grab 35%'.

Who's doing the 'grabbing' in this shabby deal?

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10435753-93.html

Cheers. Neil

[koland]

Ok, obviously you've never seen a publishing contract. 35% is actually well above the standard.

I thought you were going to complain about the withholding for income taxes, which is 30% for non-US authors (unless you meet certain qualifications and live in selected countries).

[neilmarr]

I have been a full time professional in the publishing industry for almost 45 years, Koland, and have seen more contracts than you've had hot dinners. A thirty-five percent royalty on an ebook or a ten percent on a treebook is a fair deal in a publishing agreement with an author. But we're talking here not about a royalty after all publishing costs ... this is RETAIL commission. It is not good. Neil

[koland]

Amazon DTP is the publisher, Amazon.com is the retailer. It does seem that they are the same, but they are not. These are publishing contracts with individual authors, not with publishing houses (which they also do and authors end up getting 5-15%, depending on their pull with the publisher). The very low rates paid by most publishers is one reason that RosettaBooks formed, to publish only ebooks and well published authors with a backlist. Other than Smashwords (which gets you into the Kindle store with a 42.5% rate, as well as into the Sony and B&N and Kobo stores, although most authors say they aren't selling many thru them, yet), Rosetta is probably the one one paying higher than Amazon DTP. Publishing on your own will get you a higher cut (100%), but not the exposure or sales (since Amazon at this point is accounting for 90% of all ebook sales).

[Winter]

Originally Posted by koland

Amazon DTP is the publisher, Amazon.com is the retailer. It does seem that they are the same, but they are not. These are publishing contracts with individual authors, not with publishing houses (which they also do and authors end up getting 5-15%, depending on their pull with the publisher). The very low rates paid by most publishers is one reason that RosettaBooks formed, to publish only ebooks and well published authors with a backlist. Other than Smashwords (which gets you into the Kindle store with a 42.5% rate, as well as into the Sony and B&N and Kobo stores, although most authors say they aren't selling many thru them, yet), Rosetta is probably the one one paying higher than Amazon DTP. Publishing on your own will get you a higher cut (100%), but not the exposure or sales (since Amazon at this point is accounting for 90% of all ebook sales).

As an author myself, I can tell you that Amazon 'exposure' counts for absolutely nothing in the sales department. Their contract is terrible regardless of whether what services they provide or whether they can be considered an 'e-publisher'. 65% of the cover price is almost in the area of print on demand, not bloody ebooks.

At the end of the day, sales through Amazon don't count as extra sales that you wouldn't have had otherwise. They're sales to people who already know about your product and want it, going through Amazon for convenience's sake. Simply listing on Amazon is not some magical font of sales like people believe. This is a rip-off, and you shouldn't be defending Amazon when you don't know how it works.

Regards,
Ryan

[neilmarr]

I'm sorry that you're taken in by Amazon, Koland. It is not by any stretch of the imagination a 'publisher'. It provides a retail platform only and offers zero editorial, design or promotional input in its GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) system.

It is merely cashing in on the self-publishing boom in the same way it did when it bought BookSurge to produce PoD paperbacks a couple of years ago and withdrew books by independent authors and many publishers who used outside printers like Lightning Source.

No way in a million years does a company offering a mere upload service to authors or small publishers merit a penal 65% of the cover price.

You mention Smashwords. They take only 18% ... and that's after converting books to all digital formats. Of course, retail commission to outside retailers is also taken into account. But my ten-year experience with online stores (including Amazon) is that we can keep commissions on paperback and ebook around the 25% mark.

Just for interest, my own small independent house -- which often has a book in professional edit for a full year, contracts pro cover artists and designers and proof readers, and which handles all costs, legal and administrative, library placement, and goes all out on promotion and marketing gives authors a royalty of 45% on ebooks.

If the term 'publisher' must now be used so loosely as to include packagers and retailers, Koland, let me ask you this: If your local supermarket sells you a can of carrots from its shelves with its own logo on the wrapper does that make the shop a farm and the manager a farmer?

Neil

[DrZoidberg]

I've only published one book, (an e-book) but I got 50% and an editor (who was excellent). After four weeks this shrunk to 20%, but at which point I'd made most of my sales. I have no idea if that is a fair deal. Those who I've spoken to say it is.

[koland]

Originally Posted by neilmarr

I'm sorry that you're taken in by Amazon, Koland. It is not by any stretch of the imagination a 'publisher'. It provides a retail platform only and offers zero editorial, design or promotional input in its GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) system.

Not assuming much there, are you?

As for what they "provide" as a publisher - for the average author (not the Grishams of the world or the instant reality show celebrities), they provide about the same as a traditional publisher ... nothing. Even with big names these days, it's obvious that publishers no longer do much, if any, editing and no proofing before hitting the print key at the presses. They no longer read new manuscripts that are sent in unsolicited, without a publicist/agent (paid by the author); one recent story claimed that even at a publisher with a slush pile, they had not printed anything form it since 1991 and most will do what I do with unsolicited resumes - shred them, unread, and not respond to them in any way.

Authors are expected to present a formatted, ready to print manuscript in electronic format to their publisher, just as with Amazon (or Mobipocket or Smashwords, etc). And then do their own publicity, in most cases. That doesn't make their publishers any less of a publisher (and some of them are selling retail direct to customers, as well, just not as successfully).

It's true that some publishers do more. Then again, so does Amazon for a very, very small set of "their" authors (an extremely small subset). The biggest drawback of Amazon as a publisher is that you end up in only one retail store (albeit one that is selling 90% of all ebooks worldwide, for the moment). Choosing Mobipocket might give you "larger" coverage, but much smaller sales; the same can be said of many of the other avenues.

If the term 'publisher' must now be used so loosely as to include packagers and retailers, Koland, let me ask you this: If your local supermarket sells you a can of carrots from its shelves with its own logo on the wrapper does that make the shop a farm and the manager a farmer?

Since most of what they sell as "organic" is shipped around the world (and treated with who knows what, in order to be allowed inside out borders at the shipyards; at least it isn't supposed to be a lethal as what clothing is fumigated with before entry) and "local" might mean anywhere on the same coast, they might as well claim it as their own. Not that it has anything to do with publishing.

You can use Amazon and choose a different publisher. Smashwords is one; unfortunately, in order to provide all their formats, they have chose to accept one document and convert it, but not a very good ebook format source was chosen, so the Kindle (or mobi on their site) version looks much worse that what you could otherwise be selling in their store. Mobipocket is another, with it's own drawbacks (one format, for one). And there are some small publishers created by small groups of authors, who then deal with Amazon as a group - these may potentially be a better fit.

However, getting 25% of a paperback vs 35% on an ebook may strike you as "unfair", for many of the authors with Amazon DTP, their sales in paper can be counted on one hand per month (if not per year) and their ebook sales may only be slightly better. Unless, of course, they get just the right publicity and see sales hit triple digits per day; get high enough into the bestseller list of your category and that success multiplies, simply because your book can be seen in the default searches at Amazon. For most of these authors, getting a larger cut through a publisher that gives them essentially no market isn't an improvement. Nor is using pricing similar to paperback (let alone any of the vanity press/trade paperback pricing you see many try for), for an unknown author (and for you to be using DTP, you fit into this category, for the most part, or you could grab up that large house publishing contract and get the "higher" cut you seem to think comes with that).

Going it alone may give you a bigger percentage, but it doesn't provide more income.

[pdurrant]

I sell paper books through Amazon, and they take a 20% cut of the RRP. For them to take 65% when selling my ebooks is just ridiculous.

[neilmarr]

I'm terribly sorry, Koland, but I just remembered that I have to go and stand over there. Best wishes. Neil

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by koland

Even with big names these days, it's obvious that publishers no longer do much, if any, editing and no proofing before hitting the print key at the presses.

You may not like what's coming out of modern publishers, but they do provide editing and proofing services. They may not be as good as they used to, but they provide more than nothing. (And for some fields, notably nonfiction, they provide extensive editing, proofing & formatting.)

I suspect you haven't seen what's floating around as free PDF downloads on Lulu.

Authors are expected to present a formatted, ready to print manuscript in electronic format to their publisher, just as with Amazon (or Mobipocket or Smashwords, etc).

No, they're not. They're expected to provide formatted (bold, italic, indented; styles are generally optional) Word docs in almost all cases, usually on letter-sized/A4 pages, with 1" or 1.25" margins, sometimes double-spaced. They generally want 12 pt Times or Arial, which is easy to read on a screen & allows for easy methods of reformatting for print.

They're certainly not expected to provide 4.5x7" pages with single-spaced body text in 10-pt Georgia, with chapter starts having a 2" top margin, and chapter titles in a script font. Nor are they expected to provide three different formats: one for hardcover, one for trade, one for mass-market paperback. The publisher handles the difference between those editions.

[neilmarr]

Oh, dear. Oh deary me. With the best will in the world, chaps, some folks have no idea of a publisher's input before a book reaches the release stage (and for long afterwards). And the raw ms arriving in sweet order has absolutely nothing to do with the process. That's laughably putting the cart before the horse. Do you honestly think a serious publishing house would trust an author with layout and formatting? We can't even trust him to use good grammar, construct his story and characters properly or even spell his title without an error. The most creative author out there is just the first vital step in the publishing process -- he's not to be allowed out to play alone. Ask any author who's had the good sense and the good luck to work with a good house. Neil

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by neilmarr

Do you honestly think a serious publishing house would trust an author with layout and formatting? We can't even trust him to use good grammar, construct his story and characters properly or even spell his title without an error.

The more comments like this I see about the publishing industry, the more I love the fanfiction communities that encourage beta readers.

I've read excerpts of self-published works at Smashwords & a few other places, and I'm often appalled at them--I keep thinking, "you could've run this past *one* other person, who could've caught all those your/you're problems, and told you when you switched tenses every third paragraph, and would've chopped that long chapter into two. Oh, and someone should've told you that the Golden Gate Bridge doesn't connect to Oakland."

[netseeker]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

The more comments like this I see about the publishing industry, the more I love the fanfiction communities that encourage beta readers.

From time to time i think similiar. Anyway, neilmarr's wording may sound a little bit harsh, though what he wrote is true. It's not such a big deal if you write fiction but non-fiction authors usually can hardly recognise their own writing when they read the final version made by the publisher...

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by koland

Amazon DTP is the publisher, Amazon.com is the retailer.

That should read Amazon DTP is the distributor and Amazon.com is the retailer. Except in a couple of specific cases Amazon isn't acting as the publisher.