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Originally Posted by najgori
@hitch
sometimes when pubilisher updates a book on amazon you can choose to update book on kindle.
this worked on kawasakis "ape. author, publisher, enterpreneur" until 1.1 version of the book. now i cannot update to 1.2 version.
i could never update henkels book to 2nd edition. |
Assuming that I understand your quandary, don't you think that it's most likely that this is the doing of the publisher?
My other observation about that topic is, hell, if I were Amazon, I wouldn't just leap through hoops, pushing out updated books whenever an author decides that s/he needs to issue a new version. I have no idea what bandwidth costs at a company like Amazon--certainly cheaper than I'd get it, for sure--but still, it's a cost. As is the personnel time to make it happen, and then answer all the questions and complaints from buyers who didn't get the updated version (or, who did, and didn't want it.)
Given what I see daily, and the thousands of posts I've seen over the years, with authors talking about how they have updated and republished their books 2, 3, 5, or more, times, I'm frankly surprised that Amazon is willing to push out updates at all. It's of no benefit to them, really.
FYI, I own APE, purchased through Amazon in October of 2013, and
I've never received an update indication. So...I didn't notice that Kawasaki said, in your linked page, that former purchasers were
entitled to updated copies at no cost--did you? Anywhere? Do you have factual knowledge that we are entitled to those updates on APE?
Kawasaki is a very, very clever marketer. Perhaps the update tracking is simply a way of telling potential buyers that the book is still relevant, rather than, "oh, here, we've updated it and the content is all yours."
Just an observation. Given that I've received zero notification on updates for that book.
In Guido's case, initially, he incorrectly told people that all they had to do was delete a book from their device, and then redownload it, and they'd magically recive the updated copy. That information has been wrong since 2014. Then, his post on 6/2/2015 indicated that
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Amazon responded that I will have to provide exact details about the changes for them to consider pushing information of the update to owners. I just sent them the info and hopefully they agree with me that it is really important to let people know about it, because, after all, it addresses things that are constantly in flux, and because it is in their best interest as well to make sure people stay aware of the formatting issues and learn how to get around them.
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on June 12th, he then added:
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Amazon refuses to notify my "Zen of eBook Formatting" readers of the revised edition, so would you please help me spread the word?
Owners of the book can get the revised version of the book by contacting Amazon Customer Service or by calling 1-866-216-1072 and requesting the update.
Going forward, it may just be best to sign up to my newsletter so I can keep readers informed about "Zen" updates to the book in the future.
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...and the discussion continued in that vein until it was resolved that
you had to email and/or call Amazon CS to get the new version.
Presumably, you did that, right? And you still can't get the 2nd edition of Guido's book? I'd just email them again. {shrug}. And if you can't get it from them, why not email Guido for a copy?
My attitude about the whole kerfuffle with updates--when I read posts from authors complaining about Amazon, as if they are
entitled to that service--has always been that Amazon is doing Indy pubs a favor, spending the time and money to "push" out new versions of books that have already been published and then bought.
I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't start to monetize that process, if for no other reason than it might force authors to be a little less cavalier about proofreading, etc. From what I see on the KDP forums and other places, there are FAR too many "Indy Pubs" that treat Amazon's customers like their critique and proofreading group.
My $.02, for what it's worth.
Hitch