Amazon sticking it to the little guy

Daithi · 02-27-2012, 11:14 AM

BoingBoing has an article written by Cory Doctorow describing the plight of author Jim C Hines, who was independently offering some of his books through the Amazon site. Hines states that he had priced the books at $2.99 but Amazon repriced them at $.99. When he complained Amazon basically sent the guy a boilerplate response that said they may reprice books if they have found them offered elsewhere for a lower price. However, Hines maintains that the books were not offered elsewhere for a lower price.

I like Amazon, but they better be really careful here. They could find themselves in a major class action lawsuit with lots of bad publicity.

MrsJoseph · 02-27-2012, 11:20 AM

You know, I'm not surprised. This will be the future of publishing if Amazon is the major player.

Amazon recently gave another author the finger, too.

Quote:

In a strange turn of fate, Amazon is ignoring the authors wishes and releasing a book before it's determined release date:

On her LiveJournal, author Seanan McGuire posts the situation with her latest book, Discount Armageddon, which is supposed to street on March 6th.

McGuire writes:

Quote:

As of midnight Monday/the very beginning of Tuesday, Amazon has been shipping copies of Discount Armageddon. Consequentially, Barnes & Noble is doing the same thing. I haven’t been saying anything because DAW is trying frantically to fix it, and I didn’t want to drive sales to the sites which have chosen to release my book early. (I don’t blame B&N for reacting when they saw that the book was on sale; they’re a business, after all. But it’s not helping my stress level any.) Please, please, do not buy my book early. I know it’s hard. I know that the urge to have the shiny thing now is strong within us. I’ve ordered dolls from Japan and Australia, and DVD sets from Canada and the UK, for just this reason. But those things were legitimately released in the regions where I was ordering them, and Discount Armageddon has not been legitimately released anywhere at all. Please wait until March 6th. Don’t punish independent bookstores, and local brick and mortar stores, for some computer’s hard-to-fix mistake. Please. I am literally begging you here.

SNIP

This is pretty bad, too. While I hate authors telling consumers when and where to purchase...Amazon has no right to grandstand the book's release.

Daithi · 02-27-2012, 11:24 AM

A little update from reading the comments on this article. It may be that Amazon is using some type of bot system to check the price of other retailers. So if another retailer drops the price of an author's book without his permission then Amazon will also drop the price of the author's book, and there is little the author can do about it.

One of the problems small authors have with Amazon is the lack of an actual person to speak with when an issue arises. I even noticed that if has become much harder for Amazon customers to find a phone number in which to contact a customer support representative. Although, the email only customer support seems to be becoming prevalent throughout the online retail sector.

HarryT · 02-27-2012, 11:24 AM

Amazon's price changing system is totally automated. If it reduced the price, it's because their search system really did (or thought it did) find it cheaper elsewhere. There's no human intervention in the system at all.

DiapDealer · 02-27-2012, 11:26 AM

To be fair... retailers have been guilty of selling/shipping books before the official release date long before Amazon came along.

But, yeah, I think they should be required to provide evidence of the lower priced ebook before they automatically reprice an author's book.

soondai · 02-27-2012, 11:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

There's no human intervention in the system at all.

There should be a human override. and like Diap said, they should not just say the book was priced lower elsewhere, they should provide details of where, how much, and when.

MrsJoseph · 02-27-2012, 11:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

To be fair... retailers have been guilty of selling/shipping books before the official release date long before Amazon came along.

But, yeah, I think they should be required to provide evidence of the lower priced ebook before they automatically reprice an author's book.

True. Very true.

I think the problem is that B&M stores that did that were...manageable a lot of times. But not Amazon can ship out a pre-release to hundreds of thousands of customers.

But again, I am not a fan of the author telling the reader when and where to buy...

TimW · 02-27-2012, 11:39 AM

Unless my searching skills are flawed, Jim C. Hines has no books at $0.99. Four are priced at $2.99, one at $3.99, and the remainder are at $7.99. Since the Doctorow piece was posted yesterday, I assume the problem was fixed.

DiapDealer · 02-27-2012, 11:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TimW

Since the Doctorow piece was posted yesterday, I assume the problem was fixed.

But it was still egregious before it got resolved, right?

Daithi · 02-27-2012, 12:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TimW

Unless my searching skills are flawed, Jim C. Hines has no books at $0.99. Four are priced at $2.99, one at $3.99, and the remainder are at $7.99. Since the Doctorow piece was posted yesterday, I assume the problem was fixed.

Nice catch TimW. I should have done that check myself. It does look like Amazon resolved the problem. I wonder if Cory Doctorow will be posting any updates?

Redcard · 02-27-2012, 12:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daithi

Nice catch TimW. I should have done that check myself. It does look like Amazon resolved the problem. I wonder if Cory Doctorow will be posting any updates?

I would not expect him to.

He's generally an outrage blogger when it comes to people messing with other people's rights.

AnemicOak · 02-27-2012, 12:53 PM

According to his blog it's been $0.99 at Kobo (although it isn't now)...
http://www.jimchines.com/2012/02/amazon-ebook-price/

I know he made less per copy on any books sold at the reduced rate. It would be interesting to see if sales volumes .vs other time periods made up for the reduced royalty. I notice he says...

Quote:

Goblin Tales sold sixteen copies at the reduced rate, meaning I was underpaid by a whopping $21 or so.

...but would he have sold that many at the higher price during the same period? Is it really a $21 loss?

MrsJoseph · 02-27-2012, 01:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

According to his blog it's been $0.99 at Kobo (although it isn't now)...
http://www.jimchines.com/2012/02/amazon-ebook-price/

I know he made less per copy on any books sold at the reduced rate. It would be interesting to see if sales volumes .vs other time periods made up for the reduced royalty. I notice he says...

...but would he have sold that many at the higher price during the same period? Is it really a $21 loss?

dammit! I wish I had caught this before the pricing went away...

...I've been planning to read him but I don't do Agency6.

Redcard · 02-27-2012, 01:13 PM

Oh, wait. It was at .99 , despite the author claiming it never was, and then, somehow magically he raised it's price at Kobo and amazon did the same.

Stunning.

I hope he enjoyed the good press

MrsJoseph · 02-27-2012, 01:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Redcard

Oh, wait. It was at .99 , despite the author claiming it never was, and then, somehow magically he raised it's price at Kobo and amazon did the same.

Stunning.

I hope he enjoyed the good press

I'm going to say that the book was not being sold at Kobo for $.99 - at least not in the last two weeks. I have this book on my TBR list and have been debating on purchasing (in ebook format). I checked the price on it very recently when the new Kobo coupons game thingy came out.

02-27-2012, 11:14 AM	#1
Daithi Publishers are evil! Posts: 2,418 Karma: 36205264 Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Rhode Island Device: Various Kindles	Amazon sticking it to the little guy BoingBoing has an article written by Cory Doctorow describing the plight of author Jim C Hines, who was independently offering some of his books through the Amazon site. Hines states that he had priced the books at $2.99 but Amazon repriced them at $.99. When he complained Amazon basically sent the guy a boilerplate response that said they may reprice books if they have found them offered elsewhere for a lower price. However, Hines maintains that the books were not offered elsewhere for a lower price. I like Amazon, but they better be really careful here. They could find themselves in a major class action lawsuit with lots of bad publicity.

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02-27-2012, 11:24 AM	#3
Daithi Publishers are evil! Posts: 2,418 Karma: 36205264 Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Rhode Island Device: Various Kindles	A little update from reading the comments on this article. It may be that Amazon is using some type of bot system to check the price of other retailers. So if another retailer drops the price of an author's book without his permission then Amazon will also drop the price of the author's book, and there is little the author can do about it. One of the problems small authors have with Amazon is the lack of an actual person to speak with when an issue arises. I even noticed that if has become much harder for Amazon customers to find a phone number in which to contact a customer support representative. Although, the email only customer support seems to be becoming prevalent throughout the online retail sector.

02-27-2012, 11:24 AM	#4
HarryT eBook Enthusiast Posts: 85,544 Karma: 93383099 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: UK Device: Kindle Oasis 2, iPad Pro 10.5", iPhone 6	Amazon's price changing system is totally automated. If it reduced the price, it's because their search system really did (or thought it did) find it cheaper elsewhere. There's no human intervention in the system at all.

02-27-2012, 11:26 AM	#5
DiapDealer Grand Sorcerer Posts: 28,400 Karma: 203720150 Join Date: Jan 2010 Device: Nexus 7, Kindle Fire HD	To be fair... retailers have been guilty of selling/shipping books before the official release date long before Amazon came along. But, yeah, I think they should be required to provide evidence of the lower priced ebook before they automatically reprice an author's book.

02-27-2012, 11:39 AM	#8
TimW Wizard Posts: 1,022 Karma: 6824104 Join Date: May 2011 Location: Southeastern Kentucky Device: KK3G, KPW1, Sony PRST1, Sony PRS350, iPod Touch 5G	Unless my searching skills are flawed, Jim C. Hines has no books at $0.99. Four are priced at $2.99, one at $3.99, and the remainder are at $7.99. Since the Doctorow piece was posted yesterday, I assume the problem was fixed.

02-27-2012, 01:13 PM	#14
Redcard Addict Posts: 235 Karma: 1202269 Join Date: Mar 2008 Device: Kindle	Oh, wait. It was at .99 , despite the author claiming it never was, and then, somehow magically he raised it's price at Kobo and amazon did the same. Stunning. I hope he enjoyed the good press