Breach of contract?
I’ve explained a few times here in articles in this blog how I’ve chosen prices for my books, both ebooks and print versions (also see the little course “Writing Fiction,” the free PDF download). Some prices of print versions are out of my control for books published by my two small-press publishers, Penmore Press (Rembrandt’s Angel and Son of Thunder) and Black Opal Books (The Last Humans). Now pricing is out of my control for my other print versions—not that there are many (most of my books are only in ebook format), but there are some important changes for YA readers. Amazon has decided to unilaterally force price changes in all self-published print books that were published using their KDP POD service (print on demand—it used to be called Create Space), completely ignoring any considerations self-published authors might have against taking such an action.
This self-serving and egregious action by Amazon is basically a breach of contract, the one entered into between Amazon’s KDP and self-published authors. In other words, we authors who use that service chose Amazon over some other POD service (such services existed long before Amazon’s Create Space got in on the act, even before ebooks) because of the contract details existing at that time. Amazon shouldn’t be able to legally change that contract without the self-published author agreeing to the changes.
To give that breach of contract charge a bit more oomph, we self-published authors should make it into a class action lawsuit: All self-published authors with print books published (and sold!) by Amazon should sue the retailer for breach of contract. Of course, that probably won’t occur. People let Amazon get away with murder…at least commercially. They’ve ruined retail competition in the US and worldwide, basically creating a retail monopoly in so many consumer areas. The big evil Bezos bot and all his little evil bots at the top get rich on the backs of suppliers and consumers. It’s time they’re taken down a notch!
“Oh, stuff it!” you might say after reading that last paragraph. “You have a place to publish and market your books.” OK, but that choice is fast becoming a bad one because Amazon’s trail of crimes is long. I’ve been doing my small part by boycotting Amazon for my publishing needs ever since the evil Bezos bots confused the first and second books in “The Last Humans” trilogy. (Come to think of it, Black Opal Books should have sued Amazon for that! It’s clear that egregious error affects sales of that first book in the series, the one that they published. But Black Opal Books is still struggling with reorg problems, to put it mildly.)
My last book published by Amazon’s KDP was the ebook short-fiction collection Sleuthing, British Style, using Draft2Digital software, not KDP’s! (Not recommended praxis, by the way, because Amazon puts absurd constraints on Draft2Digital and other book aggregators and distributors who want to sale at their website!) But prices for the print versions of A. B. Carolan’s sci-fi mysteries for young adults are also adversely affected by Amazon’s recent price increases. I chose those prices carefully so that young readers (and their parents!) could easily afford them, unlike most prices chosen for YA novels by Big Five publishers (and Scholastic, which is like a Big Five publisher for YA—they published the Harry Potter series!).
Now, with Amazon’s forced price increases, who gets smacked in the face? Let me put it in this way: I either would have to pay Amazon royalties for every Carolan book they sell (to cover the print version’s cost increase artificially created by Amazon) or charge readers more per book. After being cajoled and clubbed by multiple nasty Amazon emails, I gave in and forced to do the latter, i.e. charge more for each book. Neither A. B. nor I nor any other self-published author can write stories if we receive negative royalties! That would be absurd! (Most of Amazon’s business model is absurdly egregious for suppliers and consumers, so they’re at least consistent.)
Unfortunately, this egregious change in pricing forced upon us by Amazon’s KDP affects all our print books, mine and A. B. Carolan’s. (I don’t know what Penmore or Black Opal will do, but they deal with Ingram. Lucky them!) Every A. B. Carolan and Steven M. Moore print version will suffer a price increase. Even worse, I’ll have no idea what those new prices will be for some time! (An indeterminate time, according to the latest email from Amazon’s evil bots.)
Amazon is tyrannically staging a coup so they, not the publishers or authors, can determine book prices. Their egregious practices must be stopped if self-publishing is to survive!
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Some Travels of Esther Brookstone. The first three books in the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series (there are nine in total) have both ebook and print versions. Rembrandt’s Angel and Son of Thunder were published by Penmore Press; Death on the Danube was self-published (don’t ask me; ask Penmore), formatting and cover art by Carrick Publishing. Readers will find all three have Esther traveling here and there about Europe, the Middle East, and South America, usually accompanied by Interpol agent Bastiann van Coevorden.
The first book takes readers to various parts of Europe and South America as Esther tries to recover a painting stolen by the Nazis in World War II. The second covers three time periods as well as travels in Europe and the Middle East as Esther tries to find the tomb of St. John the Divine that the Renaissance painter Botticelli had also searched for. The third novel finds Esther and Bastiann on their honeymoon cruise down the Danube when a mysterious fellow passenger is assassinated. All print versions are reasonably priced (although I have no idea what the price-point of the third will be now). Ebook versions are priced even less, of course.
Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!