Hi,
My name is Shahid and I own Arc Manor/Phoenix Pick. I just wanted to address ATDrake’s (genuine) concerns about us going exclusively to Amazon and readers losing their choice of formats.
I made a decision when we were starting off to make the formats as reader-friendly as possible. With that in mind we have always supported multiple formats and DRM free ebooks and I think the only ones who offer lifetime money back guarantee on ebooks sold directly from us (for paperbacks it’s a lifetime money-back no matter where they were bought from).
So why are we suddenly giving Amazon exclusive rights to some of our ebooks?
We can’t utilize their most effective promotional programs without doing so. Now one can complain all one wants to about the unfairness of this, but you know what…it’s their house…their rules.
I wish Barnes and Noble and the others would get on board with coming up with their own creative programs…but they still are playing catch-up and I have given up hoping that they can be as creative as Amazon. It’s almost like they wait for Amazon to come up with an idea and then follow up with their own program.
In any case, as a publisher (a for-profit-publisher) I can’t ignore the reach Amazon has. There is too much money involved.
For example, our sales of Tau Ceti were doing poorly. That is the first book I put in the KDP select program and then enrolled in some of their promotional programs. I have earned more from Tau Ceti in the last two weeks than I have in January and February combined..
It would not only be stupid for me to ignore numbers like that, it would be unfair to my authors as well.
On the other hand I do realize that I have readers who have been loyal to us and without whom we would be nothing and not all of them are fans of the Kindle.
So I’m trying to come up with some compromise, and here is where we stand right now vis-à-vis Amazon’s (Exclusive Rights) Select Program.
1. All our books continue to be DRM free, even those sold through Amazon. That means that all books bought from Amazon are just a couple of clicks away (from a program like Calibre) from being made available for all formats.
2. Our current plans are to keep the number of books enrolled in the Select program limited to a small subset (about 10% to 20%) of our catalogue, and to have them enrolled in the Select Program on a rolling basis. Thus some books may not be available through other venues, but that will only be for a limited time (hence the greying out of options, not deletion…the grey will be becoming black in a couple of months).
3. You will see a number of books being offered free through Amazon. This, combined with the ability to easily convert the books, means you will actually get more free ebooks from us. In fact, I’m planning to announcethe titles of at least three additional freebees from Amazon in addition to our free ebook of the month in April’s newletter.
4. We will continue our own free ebook of the month program without any change (and here’s a heads up…Mike Resnick’s Adventures is going to be next month’s free ebook).
5. And if you buy any book directly from us through a promotion, like Captive Dreams (the one ‘Melodies’ is a lead for), you will either get them via email or get a coupon to get them directly from our store and those will always be available in multiple formats.
I hope this addresses some of the issues raised. I know it will not satisfy all of you, but I just wanted to give you our perspective. Feel free to respond to me here on the forum or email me directly at
Shahid@arcmanor.com . I always welcome email from our readers.
Shahid