Amazon pursuing me for buying US books outside of USA

[thinkpad]

Originally Posted by ChristopherTD

Sorry - I was being a bit obscure. By "arrived" I meant that I had changed my address to a USA address. It was a virtual arrival...

That explain things. So the safest bet for non US citizens is still to go through a VPN which will put your IP location in the US.

[Clytie]

I noticed one poster saying a Swedish customer would have access to most books at Amazon U.S. This has not been my experience from Australia. I do not have access to most of the books I want, whether old or new, and I read a wide range.

Also, I don't think this is just about old contracts. It seems to me that publishers are imposing old structures on a new situation (ebooks), and continuing deliberately to make things more difficult for customers. For example, a few weeks back three earlier volumes in a very popular series (the Argeneau series) were made available in ebook. I rushed over to Amazon to grab them. I bought volume 2, then volume 3, but was told I was not allowed to buy volume 4 because I was in Australia!

How can three consecutive ebooks in the same series, by the same author, released by the same publisher to the same retailer on the same date, have different "geographic limitations"? Does this make sense to you?

I queried Amazon, and they just sent me a pre-digested response blaming the publisher. So I wrote to the publisher (MacMillan). I'm still waiting for an explanation.

I'm willing to accept "this book was released under an old contract which didn't make it available to Australia", but I'm not willing to accept "we're not trying to release books to more countries" or "we're not trying to release books consistently". The whole geolims situation was created by the publishers, it's extremely inconvenient and costing them sales, and they don't see a problem?

[thinkpad]

Originally Posted by Clytie

Also, I don't think this is just about old contracts. It seems to me that publishers are imposing old structures on a new situation (ebooks), and continuing deliberately to make things more difficult for customers.

This is also how I feel, they're trying to fit the e-book model into a model that was designed for the print world. Internet has no borders so why the publishers are still trying to fight it and put up geographic restrictions has more to do with greed. I don't know the publishing industry well enough but how hard could it be for a publisher to get worldwide rights when it comes to e-books. Is the author reluctant to go with only one publisher or is it the publisher who's unwilling to buy the worldwide rights?

[nashira]

Originally Posted by thinkpadx

This is also how I feel, they're trying to fit the e-book model into a model that was designed for the print world. Internet has no borders so why the publishers are still trying to fight it and put up geographic restrictions has more to do with greed. I don't know the publishing industry well enough but how hard could it be for a publisher to get worldwide rights when it comes to e-books. Is the author reluctant to go with only one publisher or is it the publisher who's unwilling to buy the worldwide rights?

I think way back when, Authors could earn more money by having publishers in different regions? Especially before things like airmail to deliver books to far off countries and what not.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by thinkpadx

This is also how I feel, they're trying to fit the e-book model into a model that was designed for the print world. Internet has no borders so why the publishers are still trying to fight it and put up geographic restrictions has more to do with greed. I don't know the publishing industry well enough but how hard could it be for a publisher to get worldwide rights when it comes to e-books. Is the author reluctant to go with only one publisher or is it the publisher who's unwilling to buy the worldwide rights?

Greed? A company has to make money.

The author now make more money selling to different markets. The publishers are probably not setup to handle promotion and such things for world wide rights.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Clytie

I'm willing to accept "this book was released under an old contract which didn't make it available to Australia", but I'm not willing to accept "we're not trying to release books to more countries" or "we're not trying to release books consistently". The whole geolims situation was created by the publishers, it's extremely inconvenient and costing them sales, and they don't see a problem?

What makes you think they aren't trying? The situation definitely is improving - eg I noticed the other day that John Grisham's books are now available to purchase in the UK; they were not a few months ago. There really is progress being made.

[thinkpad]

Originally Posted by tompe

Greed? A company has to make money.

The author now make more money selling to different markets. The publishers are probably not setup to handle promotion and such things for world wide rights.

Sorry I should have been more specific. I'm not talking about non english titles or translated versions, I'm talking about the books published in English that gets blocked with geographic restriction. As for promotion, I don't think I ever seen as much as an ad for books written in English here in Norway. The only promotion you see is for the translated versions.

I don't want the publisher or author to decide in which language I can read the book.

[Urbs]

Originally Posted by thinkpadx

Sorry I should have been more specific. I'm not talking about non english titles or translated versions, I'm talking about the books published in English that gets blocked with geographic restriction. As for promotion, I don't think I ever seen as much as an ad for books written in English here in Norway. The only promotion you see is for the translated versions.

I don't want the publisher or author to decide in which language I can read the book.

Exactly the way I see it. But I think, as mentioned above, that it has to do with them trying to fit in ebooks in the old print publishing model. I gave up on waiting for localized versions of my favourite authors in the early 90's and nowadays prefer to read in english.

Edit - hey you're in Oslo too! Nice to know that I'm not the only Kindle owner here. :-)

[tompe]

Originally Posted by thinkpadx

Sorry I should have been more specific. I'm not talking about non english titles or translated versions, I'm talking about the books published in English that gets blocked with geographic restriction. As for promotion, I don't think I ever seen as much as an ad for books written in English here in Norway. The only promotion you see is for the translated versions.

I don't want the publisher or author to decide in which language I can read the book.

Yes, I thought about the main markets. Selling English books to countries like Norway and Sweden would probably not matter if everybody was allowed to sell to such small countries. But since the number of customers are small for English books they will not have any incentive to change the current system for these countries.

There might be a problem if you belong to EU. If you can buy the american edition you are probably allowed to sell it to UK also if you are en EU country.

[Clytie]

I have read blogs/comments by authors saying they've asked to release their books worldwide, but their publishers haven't allowed it. (I've seen similar comments about releasing without DRM.)

Sorry I didn't save any of those links.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Clytie

I have read blogs/comments by authors saying they've asked to release their books worldwide, but their publishers haven't allowed it.

The publisher would have no say in the matter, if they only have country or regional distribution rights for a book. It's no use an author selling, say, UK-only distribution rights for their book to a publisher, and then asking the publisher to sell the book world-wide - they just can't do it. At the end of the day it's down to the author, not the publisher.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The publisher would have no say in the matter, if they only have country or regional distribution rights for a book. It's no use an author selling, say, UK-only distribution rights for their book to a publisher, and then asking the publisher to sell the book world-wide - they just can't do it. At the end of the day it's down to the author, not the publisher.

I really do not under stand what you are saying here.

But if a publisher have regional rights they of course have in the contract that the author cannot sell rights for that region to somebody else.

[nashira]

Originally Posted by tompe

I really do not under stand what you are saying here.

But if a publisher have regional rights they of course have in the contract that the author cannot sell rights for that region to somebody else.

eBook rights, I believe, can be done separately to paper rights.

[pietvo]

Originally Posted by tompe

The author now make more money selling to different markets. The publishers are probably not setup to handle promotion and such things for world wide rights.

But how can an author make more money by not selling to certain countries? Because that's what we are talking about.

[ATimson]

Originally Posted by pietvo

But how can an author make more money by not selling to certain countries? Because that's what we are talking about.

Marketing.

If they only sell worldwide rights to a US publisher, while the book may be available internationally it's not going to have any sort of marketing push behind that. Some international bookstores might order a couple of copies, but not many.

If they sell NA and European rights separately, their UK publisher is not only going to pay the author a second advance for the book (guaranteed money), but there will also be marketing to flog the book in the UK too. (To the bookstores if nothing else, which should lead to wider availability on store shelves.)

However, by splitting the print rights, they also split the ebook rights - and since UK publishers seem to be behind the curve when it comes to ebooks (it looks like Ebury is finally getting their books out day-and-date with the print version, which is better than they managed as recently as May), that means that part of the world can't buy any ebook yet.