Authors are protesting Amazon's 'read and return' e-book policy

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Seriously? So, you, what, enabled the author to keep the money, without a bad review or a return?

Where did I ever say that?

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Feel free to add bad reviews. Maybe if others had done that, you wouldn't have bought the book in the first place. Help out your fellow man!

Noooo. Why should I? Amazon has enabled any Tom, Dick or Harriet to publish, which is all well and good, but does that mean I have to endorse and enable them with MY hard-earned? No, brother. No. I'm helping them if they understand that they've done something wrong in that book. I still maintain that they'd rather have me return the dough, then write a review. The dough is a pain in passing--a bad review lasts forever. (Given how few authors today use crit or writing groups....which they should, and don't, they're lucky if they don't engender more bad reviews.)

Why are you so into protecting bad authors from the bad reviews their books deserve? You keep mentioning it as if you are some sort of hero. If the book sucks, tell others 'hey, this book sucks!'

Sorry, but the free sample doesn't always show you the heinous flaws. As I said--I had one that started out pretty great and then, OMG, it hit the saggy middle and it simply fell through the floor. Tedious doesn't begin to describe it. And I've seen some that simply cobbled together an ending, that made NO sense. I just had a book from an author that I typically like--and if that ending wasn't the writer's equivalent of DWI, I'm damned. The book was fine; it had this plot element that made me scrunch up my forehead and then they had this idiotic explanation for it. DUH. I didn't return it, but...I was tempted. It was soooooooooooo stupid. For a writer with her experience--over 15 years'--it wasn't just a mistake, it was laziness.

Because before ebooks, that never happened? Again, were you in the habit of returning your half finished paper books, explaining your problems with structure or murkiness of themes to the cashier in order to justify your demand for a refund?

Hey, maybe if that book already had a review that said something like:
"started out pretty great and then, OMG, it hit the saggy middle and it simply fell through the floor. Tedious doesn't begin to describe it. And I've seen some that simply cobbled together an ending, that made NO sense. I just had a book from an author that I typically like--and if that ending wasn't the writer's equivalent of DWI, I'm damned. The book was fine; it had this plot element that made me scrunch up my forehead and then they had this idiotic explanation for it. DUH. I didn't return it, but...I was tempted. It was soooooooooooo stupid. For a writer with her experience--over 15 years'--it wasn't just a mistake, it was [I]laziness." you might have avoided a bad purchase.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by issybird

The TL; DR: going to the movies involves a lot more effort on the part of the customer and as a result, they’ve vetted the purchase more carefully in advance, but increased sales overall probably result from taking advantage from “see, click, have” when some buyers know they can change their minds if it doesn’t work out. Cheap prices on self-pubbed books are another example; make it cheap enough and most won’t bother to return it anyway.

Or: Since it is convenient, I didn't bother to do any due diligence and now I want a company to protect me from mistakes that I made by being lazy.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Or: Since it is convenient, I didn't bother to do any due diligence and now I want a company to protect me from mistakes that I made by being lazy.

You misapprehend my point, namely, that Amazon and the author make more money in the long run by promoting such laziness. They want to encourage people to buy without a lot of due diligence and forethought. Some will renege, but most will live with it. You’re ignoring other buyers: “I bought it because it was easy and I could return it since it stinks, but I can’t be bothered.” And: “I bought it only because I could return it if I didn’t like it, and I liked it.” (This one’s Hitch.) There are more, all resulting in increased sales. Good authors should embrace easy returns and even bad ones will do better than without it.*

Allowing returns of ebooks costs Amazon and the author nothing at all at the individual sale level and results in a lot more sales in the aggregate. And while sometimes Amazon gets things very wrong, mostly it doesn’t. I can’t help thinking it knows exactly what’s going on with this policy.

I honestly don’t know why you’re making a moral crusade out of something that’s strictly business.

*The risk for a bad author, of course, is that once burnt a customer will never try them again. But even here, easy returns mean someone might chance them again.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by issybird

Allowing returns of ebooks costs Amazon and the author nothing at all at the individual level and results in a lot more sales in the aggregate. And while sometime’s Amazon gets things very wrong, mostly it doesn’t. I can’t help thinking it knows exactly what’s going on with this policy.

I wonder why Amazon doesn't embrace this wisdom on sales of other digital content?

From Amazon's help page:

Amazon Appstore and Digital Music purchases are not returnable after purchase. If you're having difficulty accessing, playing, or downloading an item after purchase, contact Contact Us

Purchases from Prime Video can be canceled within 24 hours of purchase provided you have not attempted to stream/download the video. For more information, go to Cancel an Accidental Prime Video Order.

Why not use the same philosophy across the board?

I honestly don’t know why you’re making a moral crusade out of something that’s strictly business.

Slow day at work

[slm]

Amazon does some funky things with ebooks. I once purchased an ebook and discovered I had also purchased the audio book when I look at my Kindle library. I have no idea how. Amazon's return policy made it easy to fix.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by issybird

You misapprehend my point, namely, that Amazon and the author make more money in the long run by promoting such laziness. They want to encourage people to buy without a lot of due diligence and forethought. Some will renege, but most will live with it. You’re ignoring other buyers: “I bought it because it was easy and I could return it since it stinks, but I can’t be bothered.” And: “I bought it only because I could return it if I didn’t like it, and I liked it.” (This one’s Hitch.) There are more, all resulting in increased sales. Good authors should embrace easy returns and even bad ones will do better than without it.*

Allowing returns of ebooks costs Amazon and the author nothing at all at the individual sale level and results in a lot more sales in the aggregate. And while sometimes Amazon gets things very wrong, mostly it doesn’t. I can’t help thinking it knows exactly what’s going on with this policy.

I honestly don’t know why you’re making a moral crusade out of something that’s strictly business.

*The risk for a bad author, of course, is that once burnt a customer will never try them again. But even here, easy returns mean someone might chance them again.

@Zodwallop, et al: I want to be clear that Amazon's EZ-return policy on eBooks has, in fact, encouraged me to try Indy authors that I never would have tried, otherwise. And become a devoted reader of their various and sundry series/books/etc.

I have very limited time--as do most of you, in today's world--and I like to use as much of that time as I can, reading things that have value to me, whether fictive or non-fic. (It's not even the damned money so much, as it is not wasting my time. It is vexatious to invest half a book, only to find out that the book itself is so depressed about the plotline that it wants to throw itself off a cliff...)

And I've been happy finding those new-to-me Indy authors. I probably would not have been as willing to try them, were the books not returnable in some relatively sane fashion.

And as far as reading OPR--Other People's Reviews--oh, spare me. Today's reviews are like...firstly, 80% of them are plot regurgitations and worthless reading. The next 10% are "I liked it," or some other eloquent description of their reading enjoyment.

That leaves, perhaps, 10% that might be worth reading. Of that 10%, unless I'm already familiar with the reviewer, who's to know if their review is worth reading or simply insipid trash? I mean, ever read all the RAVE reviews for the crash-and-burn that describes Laurell K. Hamilton's descent into Trashocracy for the ABVH series? Yet still, apparently, hundreds of thousands of (largely female) customers bought those things, moving them into hardcover and still raved about them. That boggles me. And, OMG, 50SOG? Twifright? Yuck.

Nay, nay, I say, Zod--if I could be certain that the group of reviewers I was reading had more than two braincells to rub together, hey, that would be great. But alas, I'm not sure and thus, those reviews aren't that helpful. Sure, if you see 10,000 ratings for a book and they are largely 4+ star, great. You can probably rely upon those to some extent. But...the, the...trying to think of the word--the the junkyard that is Amazon book reviews might yield some gems, but it more likely yields that for which it is named--junk.

So, yes--returns and preferably, EZ Returns. (FYI, in KU, Kindle Unlimited, when I stop reading a book that is effectively a return. The author only is paid for the pages I read--not those that I do not read and when the file is returned, they're never paid for those. Unfortunately, yes, they're paid for the pages that I did read--can't be helped--but at least the author likely knows that the book went unfinished. When they get enough unfinished borrows like that, perhaps it will drive home a point.)

On the "try again" front--for me, that's possibly true--but I will say that once an author burns me with a cliffhanger at the end of a novel, that's it for me. Never again. That's just rude and greedy, IMHO. (And yup, Melanie Rawn, to this day, is responsible for my feelings about that one! Ruins of Ambrai my ass!)

Hitch

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I wonder why Amazon doesn't embrace this wisdom on sales of other digital content?

Amazon sells a lot of self-published e-books. Its great that they are creating a market for those books, but the lack of the quality control exerted by most regular publishers makes their purchase more risky.

I doubt that Amazon are selling home videos and garage band recordings. If they were then it would make sense for those would also be refundable.

[ZodWallop]

So reviews are untrustworthy as they are left by idiots:

Originally Posted by Hitch

And as far as reading OPR--Other People's Reviews--oh, spare me...

Yet it is kinder to get money back on a book you've read because leaving a negative review would be too damaging:

Originally Posted by Hitch

Does anybody here really think that the author would rather have me leave a review, explaining why the book is godawful, than simply getting back my $0.99-$2.99 or so???? I doubt that they would.

Got it

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by jhowell

Amazon sells a lot of self-published e-books. Its great that they are creating a market for those books, but the lack of the quality control exerted by most regular publishers makes their purchase more risky.

I doubt that Amazon are selling home videos and garage band recordings. If they were then it would make sense for those would also be refundable.

The ebook return policy doesn't only apply to self-published books.

And I enjoy an indie band out of Dallas called MOTORCADE. They are the equivalent to an indie author. Their music is for sale on Amazon using the same 'no returns on digital music' policy as Beyonce.

[Deskisamess]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

If an account abuses the ebook return policy, I suspect Amazon would take action. Up to and including closing the account.

That was always what we would tell users on the old Amazon forums. There were users who posted that the return option was removed from their accounts after they returned too many books. It's been a long time, but the limit seemed to be 4-6 books returned.

I've returned 3 over the years, one was a re-release of book with a different title that I had already bought. The other two were "fat-thumbed" and I returned them within a minute or two of purchase.

Retailers have always taken action against serial returners. Amazon should be no different.

[Cactus Chef]

I'm not opposed to at least some kind of return policy. I had to help my mother return a Kindle book recently that she was strong-armed into buying, because Amazon search on a Kindle seems to bend over backwards to hide free books from the results. She wanted to grab Moby Dick to read for a reader's group, and despite the fact that the book is in Public Domain and has several free copies available (including an AmazonClassics Edition!), she was only seeing paid copies available.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Deskisamess

I've returned 3 over the years, one was a re-release of book with a different title that I had already bought. The other two were "fat-thumbed" and I returned them within a minute or two of purchase.

Yeah, 1-Click Purchase means books have to be returnable in some fashion. It's the attitude of 'I'll buy the book, read the book and if it isn't up to my standards I will return the book' that I'm arguing against. Sometimes you pick a dud. C'est la vie.

I honestly didn't expect anyone on this board to be supportive. Shows what I know.

Also, why not make the return policy for ebooks the same as it is for movies or music?

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Cactus Chef

...She wanted to grab Moby Dick to read for a reader's group, and despite the fact that the book is in Public Domain and has several free copies available (including an AmazonClassics Edition!), she was only seeing paid copies available.

The Kindle doesn't have some sort of 'sort by price' filter? (I've not used a Kindle, so this is a real question, not some sort of shade).

[Deskisamess]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Yeah, 1-Click Purchase means books have to be returnable in some fashion. It's the attitude of 'I'll buy the book, read the book and if it isn't up to my standards I will return the book' that I'm arguing against.

Also, why not make the return policy for ebooks the same as it is for movies or music?

I agree. I wouldn't return a book because I disliked it. You have to read/consume it to know it's terrible, so you "used" what you paid for. I don't buy any books without a certain amount of info beforehand, so if I still buy it after negative reviews or past experience with the author, it's on me if it's no good.

That said, the bulk of my reading is sourced from my public library and KU. I can stop reading and send the book back if it turns out to be a stinker, no harm, no foul.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Deskisamess

I agree. I wouldn't return a book because I disliked it.

I wouldn’t either. The reasons I cited in my own case for thinking the seven-day return window reasonable were fat-fingered purchases and poor formatting. But I’m also not going to judge those who use the policy, perfectly legitimately, as a generous sampling program and am content to let Amazon police the serial abusers. And while I’m repeating myself, I’m highly confident that the policy results in more sales than not allowing returns would. Amazon tends to know what it’s doing.