Kindle Geographic Restrictions On US Website - Against US Buyers

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by meraxes

Hi - thanks for this info. Do you have any idea how much you get for every book sold? And how much is the book itself?

And what does that have to do with the topic at hand?

[igorsk]

Originally Posted by kennyc

What's a CC download?

Creative Commons.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by igorsk

Creative Commons.

Ah, yeah, I'm familiar with that, just didn't connect it to the context and abreviation. Thanks!

[PaperNotIncluded]

Do you have any idea how much you get for every book sold?

Around 14% of what is paid for it in the shop. (Although my second book is on a 50/50 profit share, I'm yet to get the figures back on that). It's rare to get rich off writing books.

-----

More on topic, my publisher at Harper is incredibly pro-ebook, and should I get a third book published I'll be raising the desire to treat the ebook market as one 'region'. And the only reason why I will be asking this will be because I'm an ebook lover and because I'm made aware of this format because of the vast amount of time I spend on the internets.

The point being, unless this sort of desire is raised with authors themselves, how can they realise that this is the right thing to do. If publishers get enough authors asking for this treatment, perhaps they will start listening.

I suggest doing what I do - when there is an ebook that I can't get due to regional issues I send a polite email to both publishers. If you know the author's email (or that of the agent), perhaps send an email to them as well letting them know that I'd really rather like to give them my money.

I'm not saying it works, but it does at least let the people who have that power to make ebooks available that there is a market out there...

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by PaperNotIncluded

Around 14% of what is paid for it in the shop. (Although my second book is on a 50/50 profit share, I'm yet to get the figures back on that). It's rare to get rich off writing books.

-----

More on topic, my publisher at Harper is incredibly pro-ebook, and should I get a third book published I'll be raising the desire to treat the ebook market as one 'region'. And the only reason why I will be asking this will be because I'm an ebook lover and because I'm made aware of this format because of the vast amount of time I spend on the internets.

The point being, unless this sort of desire is raised with authors themselves, how can they realise that this is the right thing to do. If publishers get enough authors asking for this treatment, perhaps they will start listening.

I suggest doing what I do - when there is an ebook that I can't get due to regional issues I send a polite email to both publishers. If you know the author's email (or that of the agent), perhaps send an email to them as well letting them know that I'd really rather like to give them my money.

I'm not saying it works, but it does at least let the people who have that power to make ebooks available that there is a market out there...

And that's exactly what we (readers and authors) all need to do and continue to do.

Thanks!

[meraxes]

Originally Posted by PaperNotIncluded

Around 14% of what is paid for it in the shop.

So out of the 6.99 the average non-discounted paperback costs in the UK, you the author will get less than a pound. Would it then be correct to say that if all the people who have bought your book through the normal channels could pay you directly instead for a direct download from your own website (say, 2 quid each, to cover the services of the editor and of listing on some putative universal book catalogue/review/rating site), you'd be no worse off financially than you are now? Or am I missing something? Is the advertising paid for by the publisher a major factor? What does the publisher do for you, apart from getting your book onto a shelf in Waterstones, that you could not do without them?

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by meraxes

apart from getting your book onto a shelf in Waterstones, that you could not do without them?

I think you've hit the nail on the head there.

There is, of course, also editing and copy editing and typesetting and printing, but those are all relatively straightforward for any idividual to do or contract out.

It's distribution into bookshops that the main thing that publishers do for authors. The vast majority of book sales are still paper books from physical bookshops.

And if PaperNotIncluded is getting 14% of RRP from a paperback sale, that's very good indeed. The publisher is probably only seeing 50%, out of which they need to pay the editors, copy editors, typesetters, printers and transport. (& the author's 14%)

[PaperNotIncluded]

And if PaperNotIncluded is getting 14% of RRP from a paperback sale, that's very good indeed.

Yep - it starts out at 12.5% and goes up to 14-15% depending on how many books are sold.

I'm thinking that Meraxes and pdurrant's comment are worthy of a thread of their own.

[Krystian Galaj]

Originally Posted by meraxes

Not in a civilized country. Certainly not in the United States. In Poland? You tell me.

"Federal laws prohibit discrimination based on a person's national origin, race, color, religion, disability, sex, and familial status. Laws prohibiting national origin discrimination make it illegal to discriminate because of a person's birthplace, ancestry, culture or language. This means people cannot be denied equal opportunity because they or their family are from another country..."

http://www.justice.gov/crt/legalinfo/natorigin.php

No, certainly not in United States. I'm not sure about Poland as I'm no law expert - but if in Poland there is such a law, I don't think anyone has tried to use it to make other people pay money or intervene in the way they do business yet. And somehow the economy is working. I don't consider this law a step towards civilisation, and hope US will turn back towards freedom someday.

EDIT: It might be interesting seeing e-publishers being sued for discrimination, but they would probably say that they're not allowed to sell to people from different countries, so the decision is not theirs, just a result of the contracts. I wonder if that would mean they should stop selling ebooks altogether to refrain from breaching the law.

Sorry for the offtopic, as I see that the discussion has drifted.

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

There is, of course, also editing and copy editing and typesetting and printing, but those are all relatively straightforward for any idividual to do or contract out.

I've made the point before that virtually every function current publishers do could be separated and farmed out on a for-hire basis. Especially advertising.

[CommanderROR]

It's nice to get some info from an author here, that gives us another important bit of input and helps us puzzle together the whole picture.
The point of sales argument is also something that I'll have to ponder, I doubt it's going to change, so we'll have to get used to it and learn to work around it somehow.

The best course of action right now (IMHO) would be to:

1) Write reviews of the Amazon Kindle on amazon.com pointing out the geo-restriction problems
2) contact as many publishers and authors individually and point out the problem and possible soultion to them. I found that authors often don't really know what their publishers do with ebook rights...I posted on one author's blog a while ago asking why the ebook version of her book was not available despite the publishers website stating that it is available. She was very surprised and said that "she thought that nobody buys ebooks anyway" but promised to investigate. The ebook was available shortly afterwards, whether because or despite my inquiry I do not no, but it's always good to talk to people if possible...

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by PaperNotIncluded

Yep - it starts out at 12.5% and goes up to 14-15% depending on how many books are sold.

I'm thinking that Meraxes and pdurrant's comment are worthy of a thread of their own.

There are similar threads discussing this sort of thing in the writers subforum, might be a better place to continue.

[Argel]

So anyway, I got my shiny new reader from a certain internet-based book supplier and cunningly registered it with a US address so that I would have access to their full range rather than the pathetic UK list.

Then I set out to buy the first few books in Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus series - to be told that, sorry, they were only available to UK purchasers.

[Ea]

Originally Posted by Argel

So anyway, I got my shiny new reader from a certain internet-based book supplier and cunningly registered it with a US address so that I would have access to their full range rather than the pathetic UK list.

Then I set out to buy the first few books in Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus series - to be told that, sorry, they were only available to UK purchasers.

Many of those books I wanted to buy from Fictionwise and couldn't because of geo restrictions, I've found available at Amazon now. There's still big names and best-sellers that's restricted, but it was far from as bad as I had feared. They're still $2.5-3.5 more expensive though.

[fugazied]

Just technical hitches floating around still, just make sure everyone lodges bug reports to their web team.