Since Amazon first opened its virtual doors, there have been concerns about reviews. Not just for books but for all the products sold through its site. It is no secret that authors have paid for reviews — and some still do. Or that there have been fake accounts set up to give sock puppet reviews. There have been stories about sellers and manufacturers planting fake reviews as well, all in the hopes of bolstering their product rankings and ratings. From time to time, Amazon has taken steps to combat this trend. One of the last times they did it, they brought in a weighted review system. This one differentiates between “verified purchasers” and those who did not buy the product viz Amazon. Now there is a new policy in place, once that should help — at least until a new way around it is found.
Simply put, Amazon now requires you to purchase a minimum of $50 worth of books or other products before you can leave a review or answer questions about a product. These purchases, and it looks like it is a cumulative amount, must be purchased via credit card or debit card — gift cards won’t count. This means someone can’t set up a fake account, buy themselves a gift card and use it to get around the policy.
Eligibility
To contribute to Customer Reviews or Customer Answers, Spark, or to follow other contributors, you must have spent at least $50 on Amazon.com using a valid credit or debit card. Prime subscriptions and promotional discounts don’t qualify towards the $50 minimum. In addition, to contribute to Spark you must also have a paid Prime subscription (free trials do no qualify). You do not need to meet this requirement to read content posted by other contributors or post Customer Questions, create or modify Profile pages, Lists, or Registries
Whether this change will work in the long run, I don’t know. But, for now, I welcome it.
There is, however, one change I wish they would make. There are a number of readers who are active reviewers but whose reviews aren’t weighted as “verified purchases” because they get their books through the Kindle Unlimited Program. Those downloads are as easy to track as “verified purchases”. So why aren’t they given more weight than those reviews from people who have not gotten a particular book from Amazon?
On a totally different topic, I came across this article earlier this morning and it left me not only shaking my head but wanting to rip someone a new one.
Landing a traditional publisher can be a frustrating, convoluted process. Yet, most speakers, professionals and fiction writers want to publish a book. The main reasons being: credibility and retail distribution, followed by logistical help producing and fulfilling sales.
Self-publishing lacks legitimacy, especially now that anyone with internet access can publish on amazon and call themselves an expert on whatever topic they choose. It’s lowering the legitimacy of Amazon bestsellers every single day, while traditional publishing remains an elusive endeavor.
That’s what Loren Kleinman had to say at the beginning of the “interview”. Yeah, way to alienate a lot of authors right off the boat. But I kept reading and I kept wanting to reach through the screen and shake someone. I’ll leave it to you to draw your own conclusions, but here are some of my concerns about what Publishizer does.
The first thing that stood out to me as I looked at their site (which did not inspire a great deal of confidence) is the second step in their process. You “raise funds by selling preorders for 30 days, using our book marketing tools.” This is before you submit your book to publishers. So, how are you going to follow through with these sales after you have signed a contract with a publisher? More importantly, if Publishizer uses these “preorders” as part of their sales package when they market your proposal, I have several more questions: 1) what if you don’t have a large enough number of preorders to show your book has serious traction? 2) Who determines what that number is? and 3) How doe the publishers know these are legitimate sales?
Then there is the fact their “software” determines where to pitch your book. The questions about this are numerous but they boil down to one or two. First, how do they gather their information to make this determination? Second, what publishers are in their main database and how many of those publishers have they actually submitted to? There’s a third question that goes hand-in-hand with all this: how often do they update their database and submission parameters?
If you scroll down, you see they have no cost to “set up” your campaign and you get to keep 70% of your preorders. Oh-oh. That rings more alarm bells. That means they keep 30%. What do the publishers you are trying to sell to think about this?
In the fine print down below, they have some questions and answers. It seems they will pitch at least 30 publishers. This is where it gets interesting. They say they will pitch traditional, advance-paying publishers but also “independent publishers and high-quality hybrid publishers”. Anyone want to take a bet one which type they sign with more often? In the links at the bottom of the page, they have a list of publishers. Another knock because that list is not alphabetical.
Now, this site might be completely legit and it might have successfully helped authors get viable contracts. I don’t know. What I’m saying is if you are contemplating using it, be sure to read all the fine print first and do an in-depth search on it before “signing” anything.
Kristi Belcamino is really being messed around by Amazon. Yesterday morning, she was rank-stripped for the third time, and it appears to be happening every time she puts a book free – even before she hits the promo sites or moves up the charts.
Back in September, Kristi was one of the unfortunate (and innocent) authors who were unfairly rank-stripped by Amazon for several weeks. She had a BookBub promotion which catapulted her up to #3 in the Free charts on September 18, was then rank-stripped, and didn’t have the sanction lifted until October 22 – over one month later.
Along with all the other authors I wrote about in October’s post Amazon’s Hall of Spinning Knives, Kristi received the standard form letter about rank manipulation from Amazon KDP’s Compliance team, regarding her book Blessed are the Peacemakers.
Hello,
We detected that purchases or borrows of your book(s) are originating from accounts attempting to manipulate sales rank. As a result, your sales rank will not be visible until we determine this activity has ceased.
While we fully support the efforts of our publishers to promote their books, we take activities that jeopardize the experience of our readers and other authors seriously. Please be aware that you are responsible for ensuring the strategies used to promote your books comply with our Terms and Conditions. We encourage you to thoroughly review any marketing services employed for promotional purposes.
Kristi did as anyone would in this situation and asked for more information, as she was confused and didn’t understand what she had done wrong. But Amazon refused to engage meaningfully on this, or to provide any evidence for its claims.
This was the response:
Hello,
As we previously stated, we still detect purchases or borrows of your book(s) are originating from accounts attempting to manipulate sales rank. You are responsible for ensuring the strategies used to promote your books comply with our Terms and Conditions.
We cannot offer advice on marketing services or details of our investigations.
Please be aware we will not be providing additional details.
Best regards,
[Name Withheld]
After a few weeks of “investigating,” Amazon returned the rank to Kristi’s book. She did not receive an apology from KDP, or any kind of compensation for this visibility-killing sanction. In fact, Amazon threatened to take similar action in the future.
And Amazon made good on that threat.
In early December, Kristi made another book free – Gia in the City of Dead – as part of a KDP Select promotion from December 1 to December 5. When she woke on December 1, she saw that her book had been stripped of its rank – before any promotion had even kicked in. She immediately emailed Amazon to ask them why this had happened. This was the nonsensical reply she received the following day:
Hello,
In the Kindle Store, the Bestsellers Rank is divided into Free and Paid lists. During the period when your book is being offered for free, it will have a ranking in the Free list. Once the free promotion is over, your title will show up again in the Paid list.
The Bestsellers Rank calculation is based on Amazon sales and is updated hourly to reflect newer and historical sales of every item sold on our website, with recent sales being weighted more heavily. With this in mind, titles that are part of a free promotion may see a drop in the sales rank under the Paid list after the promotion is over. However, since your sales rank takes into account recent and historical sales data, your previous Paid rank will influence your new Paid rank.
Category rankings will appear in the Product Details section of a book’s detail page to display the appropriate rank information.
While monitoring your book’s Amazon sales rank may be helpful in gaining general insight into the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns and other initiatives to drive book sales, it is not an accurate way to track your book’s sales or compare your sales in relation to books in other categories, since a particular item’s sales rank does not absolutely reflect its sales.
While monitoring your book’s Amazon sales rank may be helpful in gaining general insight into the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns and other initiatives to drive book sales, it is not an accurate way to track your book’s sales or pages read. Neither is it an accurate way to compare your sales in relation to books in other categories, since a particular item’s sales rank does not absolutely reflect its sales or Kindle Unlimited (KU) / Kindle Owners’ Lending Library (KOLL) activity.
Your paperback which is linked to your eBook shows the following:
Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars 26 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #409,199 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
#1296 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers & Suspense > Crime > Organized Crime
Thanks for using Amazon KDP.
[Name Withheld]
It appears that a customer service rep has rushed a reply after misreading Kristi’s query and pasted in a bunch of irrelevant canned responses. I merely copy it here to show that this kind of botched reply is becoming typical with KDP customer service – a situation which is frustrating normally, but critically so when you have a major issue like Kristi did at the time.
Two of the four guiding principles of Amazon are “customer obsession” and “commitment to operational excellence” – I’d love to know if KDP thinks it is meeting those benchmarks with this type of response.
Anyway, Kristi persisted until she got someone to actually read her email. This is where things got really weird. On December 4, she received this unsigned email from KDP’s Compliance team:
Hello,
We detected that purchases or borrows of your book(s) are originating from accounts attempting to manipulate sales rank. We take activities that could jeopardize the experience of our readers and other authors seriously and may temporarily remove sales rank while we investigate. The sales rank(s) of your book(s) is now available.
Note that while the email stated that “The sales rank(s) of your book(s) is now available” – this was not the case. The rank had not been returned to Gia in the City of Dead, as I can vouch for myself. Kristi was in contact with me throughout this episode and I was able to watch events unfolding and verify her claims.
Kristi’s rank didn’t return the following day either, but when her free promotion ended on midnight of December 5, as scheduled, her rank returned. On December 6, Kristi received this email:
Hello Kristi,
I understand your frustration and I really appreciate your patience while we investigated this further. There was a technical issue that prevented your sales rank from displaying while our system was updating the rank. Our Technical Team has corrected the issue and your sales rank is now displaying accurately. Again, I’m very sorry for the inconvenience this has caused. You can confirm the sales rank is now appearing by accessing the link below.
[link to book]
Regards,
[Name Withheld]
Executive Customer Relations
Kindle Direct Publishing
Bizarrely, KDP was now claiming that a “technical issue” prevented her sales rank from displaying. This was obviously stretching credulity given the rank manipulation form letter that Kristi had again received from Amazon’s Compliance team, and she said that in response to this message. Then she received this message:
Hello Kristi,
I’m sorry for the misunderstanding. The email you received from crm-sra-compliance@amazon.com on December 4 was sent in error and the sales rank did not disappear due to free promotions or manipulation. Our Content Review team confirmed there was no manipulation and our Technical Team discovered that the disappearance of your sales rank was due to a internal issue.
Best regards,
[Name Withheld]
So, an “internal issue” caused the rank disappearance, and the rank manipulation email was sent in error. Hmmmmm. Quite the coincidence, don’t you think?
Nevertheless, at this point Kristi was relieved that her rank had been restored, even if Amazon had – once again – completely ruined a promotion which she had spent money on, killing her visibility and crippling her downloads.
Kristi was worried about this happening again in January, when she had a BookBub promotion scheduled. This time she decided to get ahead of the problem and emailed the same person she had been dealing with throughout at KDP Executive Customer Relations, explaining when her book would be free and detailing the (legit) promo sites she would be using. She expressed hope that there would be no “internal issue” like in early December.
I should note that Kristi has been remarkably restrained throughout this entire episode, showing much more composure than I would. For example, this is the email she sent in advance of her January promotion:
Dear [Name Withheld],
I’m hoping you can help prevent the rank stripping from happening to me a third time.
I’m going to have a Bookbub ad run Jan. 4 and I expect the ranking for my book, Gia in the City of the Dead, to change dramatically and I’m hoping this won’t trigger another bot to flag me for doing something wrong or trigger the internal issue situation like last time.
I’m writing to you in the hopes that you can alert someone that this is happening so I don’t get hurt by losing rank again in January.
Thank you for your time and help. It is greatly appreciated.
Best,
Kristi Belcamino
PS The book is this one: https://www.amazon.com/City-Dead-Santella-Crime-Thriller-ebook/dp/B0751LCQLQ
You might think that Kristi’s case would merit some careful attention from KDP at this point, given how they had mistreated her previously, but this is all she received in response. Note that this reply came from the Compliance team – the person at Executive Customer Relations didn’t even bother replying to her exceedingly polite email:
Hello,
We do not sponsor or endorse any 3rd party marketing services. You’re welcome to promote your book through third-party websites and other services, but we encourage you to monitor the tactics they use to promote your books. You are responsible for ensuring that no tactics used to promote your book manipulate the Kindle publishing service and/or Kindle programs.
We advise against using any sites that “guarantee” a return on your investment. We support our authors’ efforts to promote their books worldwide, but at the same time, we work to prevent any manipulation of the Kindle publishing service.
If you have any questions, please email us at crm-sra-compliance@amazon.com.
Thanks for publishing with Amazon KDP.
Best regards,
[Name Withheld]
Despite Kristi flagging her promotion in advance to Amazon, her book was rank-stripped yesterday. And it was rank-stripped as soon as it went free – before any promotion kicked in.
There’s something else bizarre going on here. I generally use affiliate links on this blog – when I remember to put them in, that is. I often forget. I can’t remember if I used affiliate links to point to rank-stripped books before, but I noticed something very strange when attempting to link to Kristi’s currently rank-stripped book Gia and the City of Dead.
In case you can’t read the above text, it says:
This product is one of the Amazon Associates Program Excluded Products. We do not support direct linking to this product. Please direct customers to another product or the category for this product instead.
In other words, Amazon is currently not supporting affiliate links to this book; it appears that rank-stripping sanctions have yet another dimension.
Kristi is due to have her BookBub promotion on January 4, something she would have spent a considerable amount on, and her book will be denied crucial visibility if this sanction isn’t lifted.
When a book is rank-stripped, it disappears from the charts completely, and is largely invisible to Amazon’s recommendation engine. In short, it kills downloads for a title while the rank is removed. It’s very damaging.
And to be absolutely clear: Kristi has done nothing wrong.
Authors are rightly angry about this, but I want to make an important distinction: this isn’t a BookBub problem. Most of the authors rank-stripped never used BookBub. It’s also not some kind of move by Amazon to squash third-party sites and force everyone to use AMS – that’s equally nonsensical, and demonstrably false: some of those rank-stripped didn’t use any third-party sites.
And as Kristi’s experience should prove: the rank-stripping is kicking in now before promotions even begin. In other words, this isn’t a BookBub problem; it’s an Amazon problem.
KDP is applying serious sanctions to authors who are completely innocent of any wrongdoing, refusing to show any evidence for its determinations or give authors any chance to appeal its decisions. And it’s doing all this while ignoring widespread scamming and cheating in the Kindle Store.
We must demand change.
UPDATE:
Some have asked in the comments here and on Facebook, how we can demand change and what form that should take.
First, I think we need to make as much noise as possible. Share your feelings on this with Amazon. Spread the word as much as possible. If you are a member of a writers’ org, then see if they will take an interest in this (RWA already has). If you have a press connection, see if they wish to write about it.
As for what Amazon should do, I don’t think KDP cares what I have to say, but here’s my suggested template for handling cases of suspected rank manipulation.
1. Investigations can and should happen quickly – there is no possible need for it to take weeks and weeks.
2. No sanction should be applied until guilt has been determined.
3. If guilt is determined, Amazon should furnish the purported evidence, and authors should have a right of appeal.
4. If innocence is established, Amazon should apologize to the author, and compensate them for any losses suffered under applied sanctions, if applicable.
Aside from how KDP handles such cases, I strongly suggest that it looks at its fraud detection systems which appear to be throwing up a large amount of false positives. If that’s NOT the case, and some third-party is targeting innocent authors to kick up dust or test the thresholds of the system, thus manipulating rank unbeknownst to the author, then Amazon needs to sanction that third-party, as clearly something malicious is in play.
UPDATE 2 (Jan 4):
Kristi’s rank is back, in time for her BookBub promotion, which is great news. Amazon called to apologize and say that she hadn’t done anything wrong, but haven’t given any explanation beyond a “technical issue.”
Unfortunately, Kristi is not out of the woods yet. There is still something strange going on with this book. First, it’s invisible in the API – just gone. I’ve never seen that before. Second, when I tried to build an affiliate link to this book, I was informed that it is an “Excluded Product” as per the above screenshot.
Questions and issues remain, and obviously Kristi needs a full explanation, all issues resolved, and an assurance this won’t happen again. In the meantime, if you feel like helping Kristi recover some of her lost visibility, Gia and the City of Deadis free for the next couple of days.
Something else came up yesterday, which was quite timely. One of my main bugbears with Amazon right now is that they are being extremely heavy-handed when dealing with innocent authors, and are letting extreme gaming of the Kindle Unlimited system go unpunished – even rewarding those authors with All-Star bonuses every month.
It’s extremely difficult to get traction on the issue as it is quite technical. Author Heather C. Leigh has put together a helpful video explainer. As you watch this, and your blood boils, remember that Amazon is aware of ALL of this, and refuses to do anything – while cracking down on authors like Kristi who have done nothing wrong.
On Wednesday, the French parliament passed a long-debated law that will end Amazon.com’s ability to offer a combined 5% discount and free shipping on books shipped to France, according to Livres Hebdo (as translated on Frenchculture.org).
France’s fixed book price law, dubbed “The Lang Law,” was passed in 1981 and allows for a maximum 5% discount under varied positions.
“The ‘Anti-Amazon Law,’ was created to prevent ecommerce sites like [the American giant] Amazon from stamping out the iconic network of independent French bookshops that currently struggle to compete,” wrote Livres Hebdo.
French Minister of Culture Aurélie Filippetti commented: “As we have just seen again, laws pertaining to the book economy always generate consensus, if not unanimity. This is a sign of our deep attachment to books in this nation, and it demonstrates the belief that France builds itself through its past and its future.”
France has some 3,500 bookshops in France, including 800 independent stores.
Amazon releases Kindle apps and e-books into China
Amazon has started its Chinese Kindle incursion by launching the reader app for Android and iOS in that market, along with a large selection of e-books. There’s no mention of any Kindle devices like the Fire HD in the nation yet, but Amazon just did a similar launch in Brazil and said the hardware would be along there in a few weeks. Four Kindle devices recently showed up China’s FCC-like Radio Management Agency as well, according to TNW, another good omen for those anxious to get the devices in that country. And the number who want one could be considerable — China’s been carrying on an illicit love affair with the Kindle for quite a while, after all.
First Edition Design Publishing is the world’s largest eBook and POD (Print On Demand) book distributor. Ranked first in the industry, First Edition Design Publishing converts and formats manuscripts for every type of platform (e-reader). They submit Fiction, Non-Fiction, Academic and Children’s Books to Amazon, Apple, Barnes and Noble, Sony, Google, Kobo, Diesel, 3M, Ingram, Baker and Taylor, Nielsen, EBSCO, and over 100,000 additional on-line locations including retailers, libraries, schools, colleges and universities. The company’s POD division creates printed books and makes them available worldwide through their distribution network. First Edition Design Publishing is a licensed and approved Aggregator and holds licenses with Apple and Microsoft.
The Kindle was not guaranteed to catch on when Amazon introduced its e-reader five years ago, but e-books are now a routine alternative to hardcovers and paperbacks, constituting about 25% of publishing’s revenues.
Give an eBook as a gift
That’s good news for the trees, but it presents holiday shoppers with a quandary: How do you give and wrap an e-book?
First, it helps to know what kind of device your recipient has. There are dozens of e-readers and tablets on the market, with prices ranging from $69 for text-only Kindles to the $829 top-of-the-line iPad. In between, there’s Barnes & Noble’s Nook ($199-$299), Microsoft’s new Surface ($499-$699), and an electronic store’s worth of choices.
This year, independent bookstores have gotten in on the e-reader action for the first time. They began selling the Kobo e-readers before Thanksgiving. “We don’t expect to make a lot of money from the devices,” says Skylight Books co-owner Kerry Slattery. “They’re a signal to our customers that we sell e-books, and they don’t have to go elsewhere.”
If you are shopping online, most major companies make it surprisingly simple to give e-books as gifts. Beyond the oh-so-common giftcards, both Amazon and Apple offer online gift purchases of specific e-books and apps. Instead of buying an item for yourself, click the gift button — you can even schedule electronic delivery ahead, for just the right holiday moment.
First Edition Design Publishing is the world’s largest eBook and POD (Print On Demand) book distributor. Ranked first in the industry, First Edition Design Publishing converts and formats manuscripts for every type of platform (e-reader). They submit Fiction, Non-Fiction, Academic and Children’s Books to Amazon, Apple, Barnes and Noble, Sony, Google, Kobo, Diesel, 3M, Ingram, Baker and Taylor, Nielsen, EBSCO, and over 100,000 additional on-line locations including retailers, libraries, schools, colleges and universities. The company’s POD division creates printed books and makes them available worldwide through their distribution network. First Edition Design Publishing is a licensed and approved Aggregator and holds licenses with Apple and Microsoft.
Kobo is the major player in the ebook world that you’ve never heard of.
You’ve probably never heard of it because in the U.S. it is thought to have something like a 2% or 3% share in the growing ebook market. In Canada, however, where the company is based, it’s thought to be the market-share leader. It was acquired near the end of last year by Rakuten, a company considered the “Amazon of Japan,” and has started to build an ebook business there (for what it’s worth: a hard-to-crack market that isn’t promising for ebook publishers despite being one of the largest economies in the world with a very literate and technological population). In other countries, like the UK, South Africa and New Zealand, Kobo has a presence and is one of the only international players. Kobo is now in more than a dozen countries and is aggressively adding more.
This little upstart from Canada is trying to compete with the likes of Amazon, Google, Apple and Barnes & Noble.
Like those other companies, Kobo has its own set of devices that have been positively reviewed. Unlike Amazon, Google and Apple, it’s primarily focused on ebooks and e-reading. And, unlike Barnes & Noble, which is extremely U.S.-centric at this early stage of the game, it has international in its DNA. The company has been figuring out how to launch its business in other countries since early on when it expanded to the U.S. And Kobo has inked deals with the American Booksellers Association, a trade group for independent bookstores, and its equivalent in the UK to have indie bookshops sell its devices and ebooks.
Kobo Glo
Recently, Kobo became the first major international ebook player to launch in Brazil, which it did in Apple/Google/Amazon-like gala fashion with a celebrity-studded event at Brazil’s largest bookstore chain, Livraria Cultura. And it also recently came out that Kobo intends to support full EPUB 3 functionality by the third-quarter next year (this is very wonky, I know, but what it basically means is that it’s the first e-reading company to come out and say that it would support the latest accepted standard ebook file formats at some point — it makes the company somewhat cutting edge).
But wherever Kobo goes, Amazon and the others are already there or not far behind. Take Brazil. Hours after Kobo launched there, so did Amazon and Google.
The international ebook wars are going to be a dogfight — but underdog Kobo has a fighting chance.
First Edition Design Publishing is the world’s largest eBook and POD (Print On Demand) book distributor. Ranked first in the industry, First Edition Design Publishing converts and formats manuscripts for every type of platform (e-reader). They submit Fiction, Non-Fiction, Academic and Children’s Books to Amazon, Apple, Barnes and Noble, Sony, Google, Kobo, Diesel, 3M, Ingram, Baker and Taylor, Nielsen, EBSCO, and over 100,000 additional on-line locations including retailers, libraries, schools, colleges and universities. The company’s POD division creates printed books and makes them available worldwide through their distribution network. First Edition Design Publishing is a licensed and approved Aggregator and holds licenses with Apple and Microsoft.
Kobo expands to South Africa to compete against Kindle
E-reader company Kobo is expanding to South Africa and hopes to make up 50 percent of the country’s small ebook market within a year, competing against Amazon’s Kindle.
Ebook retailer Kobo announced its first African launch Tuesday evening: The company is partnering with South African retail chain Pick n Pay to sell the Kobo Touch e-reader and ebooks. Kobo promises local content available in Afrikaans and English.
The Kobo Touch will retail for 995 rand (USD $114). Amazon ships the Kindle to South Africa and it is also available in some retail stores there. The country’s ebook market is estimated to make up less than 1.5 percent of the total books market.
Pick n Pay, which also sells iPads, operates 847 stores in South Africa and 94 stores in other southern African countries like Botswana and Namibia, though the Kobo partnership is limited for now to its South African stores and will roll out among those gradually: “Pick n Pay’s general merchandise manager Paula Vieira said that the Kobo Touch would be available in 41 stores within a few days, expanding to 71 within a few weeks,” South African books website Books Live reported from the launch, with the Touch in “the majority” of the chain’s stores “within months.”
Books Live also reports that Kobo business development VP Todd Humphrey “said the company wants to own 50 percent of the SA ebook market within one year.”
First Edition Design Publishing is the world’s largest eBook and POD (Print On Demand) book distributor. Ranked first in the industry, First Edition Design Publishing converts and formats manuscripts for every type of platform (e-reader). They submit Fiction, Non-Fiction, Academic and Children’s Books to Amazon, Apple, Barnes and Noble, Sony, Google, Kobo, Diesel, 3M, Ingram, Baker and Taylor, Nielsen, EBSCO, and over 100,000 additional on-line locations including retailers, libraries, schools, colleges and universities. The company’s POD division creates printed books and makes them available worldwide through their distribution network. First Edition Design Publishing is a licensed and approved Aggregator and holds licenses with Apple and Microsoft.
The online retailer Amazon charges publishers a UK tax rate despite having a tax dispensation because it is based in Luxembourg.
Amazon is making British publishers pay 20 per cent VAT on ebook sales, despite their true VAT cost for UK ebook sales being closer to 3 per cent.
From 2006, the online retailer has been based in Luxembourg, where the company only has to pass 3 per cent VAT to the government for UK ebook sales. (There is no VAT on printed books in this country.) Despite this, Amazon starts negotiations with UK publishers on the basis that the UK VAT rate of 20 per cent must be lifted from the cost price.
The difference between the UK VAT levy imposed on publishers and the actual 3 per cent that Amazon pays amounts to an extra £1.38 of profit every time it sells a £10 ebook in the UK.
The company negotiates further discounts on top of the VAT subsidy, which in some cases can result in publishers receiving less than 10 per cent of the price paid by the online customer.
Richard Murphy, founder of the Tax Justice Network, told Sky News Luxembourg’s 3 per cent tax rate on ebooks is being taken advantage of by Amazon.
“Luxembourg has this low VAT level to make publishing more accessible – and although Amazon is exploiting this, it is not passing it on to the industry.”
Amazon said: “Our goal is to make it easy for readers to discover and read the books they love by expanding access to millions of books in both digital and print.
“We’ve been able to do this by focusing on innovation, as exemplified by Kindle, and by offering customers the widest selection at the best possible prices and service.”
A publisher, who refused to be named said: “These are not pleasant people to do business with,” one senior publishing executive said. “They have no compunction in shutting down the buy button on their site on our titles if we step out of line,” a practice that can be carried out in seconds.
Amazon holds huge power in the digital publishing market, selling nine out of ten ebooks in the UK.
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
About First Edition Design Publishing:
First Edition Design Publishing is the world’s largest eBook and POD (Print On Demand) book distributor. Ranked first in the industry, First Edition Design Publishing converts and formats manuscripts for every type of platform (e-reader). They submit Fiction, Non-Fiction, Academic and Children’s Books to Amazon, Apple, Barnes and Noble, Sony, Google, Kobo, Diesel, 3M, Ingram, Baker and Taylor, Nielsen, EBSCO, and over 100,000 additional on-line locations including retailers, libraries, schools, colleges and universities. The company’s POD division creates printed books and makes them available worldwide through their distribution network. First Edition Design Publishing is a licensed and approved Aggregator and holds licenses with Apple and Microsoft.
Are you ready to take your book collection digital and buy your first e-book reader? We’re here to help. We break down the best e-readers from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and others.
If you’re looking for a new e-reader, whether you’re upgrading or buying your first device, you’ll find there are a lot of options. There are four big names in the e-book reader market and they each offer a range of e-readers to suit different budgets and requirements. There’s a reason these companies are dominating the e-reader scene, so if you want quality, great features, and reasonable prices, there’s no need to look beyond them.
We are going to focus on dedicated E Ink devices for reading e-books here, so we won’t delve into full-fledged tablets. We’ll also ignore discontinued lines, although there are bargains to be had out there in the secondhand market. Let’s take a look at the options and then we’ll compare at the end.
Barnes & Noble Nook
The popular Nook from Barnes & Noble comes in two flavors. There’s the Barnes & Noble Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight, and the Barnes & Noble Nook Simple Touch Reader.
For the basic Reader you’ll need to shell out $100. It has an E Ink display, which is easy to read, even in direct sunlight. It also has a 6-inch touchscreen and can hold up to 1,000 books, magazines, or newspapers. A single charge will last you up to two months based on an average of 30 minutes reading per day.
The GlowLight version is $20 more at $120. It is essentially the same, but it has a backlit touchscreen so that you can read in the dark. The GlowLight reduces the battery life to a, still respectable, one month. That’s also based on an average of 30 minutes reading per day.
Both devices have a microSD card slot so you can expand memory by up to 32GB. That’s a lot of books.
Amazon Kindle
A perfect marriage of content and hardware has allowed the Kindle range to really drive the widespread adoption of e-readers. You have quite a few choices if you want to buy an e-reader from Amazon. There’s the basic Kindle, the Kindle Keyboard 3G, the Kindle DX, the Kindle Paperwhite, and the Kindle Paperwhite 3G.
At just $70, the basic Kindle is a steal. It has a 6-inch e-ink display that’s easy to read, even in direct sunlight; it can hold up to 1,000 books, magazines, or newspapers; and a single charge will last you up to one month based on an average of 30 minutes reading per day.
The Kindle Keyboard 3G costs $140 and it adds a physical keyboard into the mix and 3G connectivity. It also has double the storage of the basic Kindle and it boasts stereo speakers. A single charge will last you up to two months based on an average of 30 minutes reading per day. It is also larger and heavier.
For anyone seeking something even bigger, there’s the Kindle DX. It has a 9.7-inch screen, free 3G, stereo speakers, 4GB of storage, and a physical keyboard. However, it costs a whopping $380 and battery life is just three weeks.
The Paperwhite is Amazon’s answer to the GlowLight Nook. It also allows you to read in the dark, but the screen is not backlit, instead there’s a light at the top. The basic Kindle Paperwhite is $120. It boasts an extremely sharp 6-inch touchscreen, can store over 1,000 books, and can also last up to two months on a single charge, once again, based on a half hour of daily reading.
The top of the range choice is the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite 3G which costs $180. It simply adds free 3G to the basic Kindle Paperwhite.
You can pay an extra $20 for any of the entries in the Kindle range in order to avoid any advertising. The special offers take the form of adverts on your screensaver and at the bottom of your home screen. There is no intrusion on your actual reading.
Kobo
It doesn’t have as big a name, but Kobo does offer a good e-reader range. There’s the Kobo Mini, the Kobo Glo, and the Kobo Touch.
The Kobo Mini costs $80. It has a 5-inch e-ink touchscreen. It can store 1,000 books and the battery can also last up to one month, but no usage estimates in terms of daily reading are provided. The one month battery claim is also contradicted in the Kobo FAQ which says two weeks.
As you might expect, the Kobo Glo allows you to read in the dark and it costs $130. It has a 6-inch E Ink touchscreen, can also hold around 1,000 books, and the battery will give you 55 hours of continuous use with the light on.
The Kobo Touch also costs $130, although you’ll find it discounted in a lot of places. It has a 6-inch E Ink touchscreen. It has the standard 2GB storage which is room for up to 1,000 books. The battery life is up to one month.
The Kobo Glo and the Kobo Touch also have microSD card slots so you can expand the storage by up to 32GB.
Sony Reader
You current options are the Sony Reader PRST2HBC and the Sony Reader PRST2RC. As far as we can make out both devices are the same except for the color options. The Sony Reader PRST2HBC is standard grey/black while the PRST2RC comes in white or red.
he Sony Reader costs $130. It has a 6-inch E Ink touchscreen. There is just 1.3GB internal memory, but there is a microSD card slot so you can expand storage up to 32GB. It can also last up to two months on a single charge, once again, based on a half hour of daily reading.
What to buy?
If low price is your prime concern then you can’t beat the basic Kindle at $70. We’d give second place to the Barnes & Noble Nook Simple Touch Reader at $100. You could also consider the Kobo Mini at $80 but it has a smaller screen and poorer battery life.
If you want to be able to read in the dark then it’s a head-to-head between the Barnes & Noble Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight at $140 and the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite at $120. The Nook has expandable memory, but the Kindle has a sharper screen, and coupled with the lower price, it edges this one. The Kobo Glo could also be worth a look at $130 as it boasts superior battery life.
The presence of 3G, which will allow you to connect to a mobile network and download books even when you are out and about, is only available on selected Kindles now. Is it worth the premium? We think probably not. Most people will be happy to load up books using Wi-Fi and won’t feel the need to connect all the time.
As with any expensive purchase, we would strongly recommend that you try these out before you buy. The feel of an e-reader is very important. If you want something light then the Kobo Mini and the Sony Reader are actually the lightest, closely followed by the basic Kindle. The sharpest screen on the market is the Kindle Paperwhite at 212 ppi.
Ultimately, the Barnes & Noble Nook and the Amazon Kindle range get our strongest recommendation. You are unlikely to be disappointed with either.
SOURCE: www.digitaltrends.com BY: Simon Hill
About First Edition Design Publishing:
First Edition Design Publishing is the world’s largest eBook and POD (Print On Demand) book distributor. Ranked first in the industry, First Edition Design Publishing converts and formats manuscripts for every type of platform (e-reader). They submit Fiction, Non-Fiction, Academic and Children’s Books to Amazon, Apple, Barnes and Noble, Sony, Google, Kobo, Diesel, 3M, Ingram, Baker and Taylor, Nielsen, EBSCO, and over 100,000 additional on-line locations including retailers, libraries, schools, colleges and universities. The company’s POD division creates printed books and makes them available worldwide through their distribution network. First Edition Design Publishing is a licensed and approved Aggregator and holds licenses with Apple and Microsoft.
I am a published author. My first two books published by a small regional press sold out the print run in six months. There were only two thousand copies which became popular on a local level based on folklore of Northeastern Native Americans. During that time the publisher filed for bankruptcy and closed. With less than $1500 in royalties I could not afford to reprint.
Amazon sold more of my books than Barnes and Noble and both companies were selling and asking for used copies and still are to this day. A friend mentioned that I should try to record the books. I had been a road musician for seventeen years and she convinced me that my voice would work as a professional reader. We already had most of the equipment and all I needed was a sound room. We built a tiny studio set up the microphones and equipment and I embarked on a new path for my writing. After several months of trial and error I made a demo disk and sent it to Audible thinking they would reject it. Two days later the acquisitions department called and offered a contract.
The phone call was one of the nicest experiences I’ve had. She was professional, polite and excited with my projects and asked for an exclusive. I accepted the contract and believe it or not I did not know that Audible was a wholly owned subsidiary of Amazon. Many articles and blogs complain that Amazon is too big, a monster that consumes everything possible. My experience with Amazon up to this point was as a customer and they do go out of their way for customer satisfaction. Client satisfaction is however not on the same level.
Something wicked this way comes?
My projects were assigned to an engineer whom I came to know as the Dragon Lady. I sent over three dozen CDs to start as this was an acceptable format outlined in the contract. Two months went by without notice of receipt, something else outlined in the contract and I worried that my audios were lost in the mail room or misplaced due to the sheer size of the company. Seven e-mails were not answered so I sent an e-mail to the woman who offered the contract. She forwarded my mail to the Dragon Lady and I received a reply within forty minutes. Yes my CDs were there – end of note. Sending a mail through another department was a fatal error. Dragon Lady took great offense that a nobody such as I would dare to contact her by a third party.
From that time on I walked through Audible hell for six months as Dragon Lady rejected my work six times. These were her rules: If one mistake is found it cannot be repaired by sending a single MP3 track even though the contract says this is acceptable. The project has to be reloaded with every track (chapter) in numerical order. Each project takes up to six weeks to process and at the end of each month she found something else wrong most were simple things that could have been repaired and reloaded in five minutes. Because I had enraged Dragon Lady with the e-mail she sought revenge month after month until I became convinced that she was possessed by the ghost of Leona Helmsly and reigned as Audible’s official Queen of Mean.
The only defense was to send another mail to the legal department asking that the contract be reduced and reinstated as non-exclusive due to the abuse of this small minded bully who simply refused to process my work. Legal contacted Dragon Lady and informed her that she breached the contract and to put my work on line without further delay. Dragon Lady did so without apology or even notice that the projects went live. She made sure the audios were not listed or advertised, another breach of contract.
Author trapped in audible hell.
To answer the above question, yes Amazon is too big. Their subsidiary programs have too much control and again client satisfaction is nothing while customers are given anything they want. I had the same problem with Create Space though not as bad as the Dragon Lady. The books they print are inferior with misaligned covers, faded ink and one book was actually put into distribution with twenty one blank pages in the middle of the book. Lucky for me the investment was tiny and I made them refund the cost of the misprints and you guessed it, I did this by complaining to another department.
Kindle select was another mistake by allowing them exclusivity I have lost valuable markets for two books that would have expanded sales. Amazon programs do not care after your signature is on the paper or the agreement is made on line. I have stopped all advertising for Audible and Create Space. I do run ads for Kindle but those will stop too after I withdraw from select, which will be soon then I will send the books to other publishers.
If you are an author, I strongly advise working with a credentialed e-publisher. Paying the fee will buy some piece of mind and your book will have a better chance with multiple venues. All e-books go to Kindle anyway so do not make them the single source.
If you are thinking of audio books follow the same rules. 1. DO NOT make an audio with an artificial voice – most distributors will not handle them and the ones who do are not worth the trouble and fees. 2. DO NOT make any company a single source distributor – you are cheating yourself this way, depriving your work of multiple venues. 3. Last but not least – DO NOT sign a contract in a hurry because you are so grateful, so thrilled that someone says they like your work. The sad fact is that most e-book companies do not even glance at your manuscript and they will publish a shopping list hand written on toilet paper if you pay the fee. Remember that e-publishers do not advertise your work unless it is for a fee and I’ve seen ad packages for as much as $3000. This is another rip off. You have to advertise your books like everyone else on FB, Twitter and other social media programs and for the stout-hearted ones who believe in their own work consider running local newspaper ads for under $50.
I hope this information helps someone who wants to publish their first book and the final fact is if your work is good, word of mouth will sell it in time, it may take a lot of time but it is the best method – no returns. I wish all of you the very best of luck because you will need it. Cheers from Audible Hell—Jamie Sutliff.
n This post solely reflects the views and opinions of its author.
About Jamie Sutliff:
Jamie Sutliff is an artist/sculptor/author living in the Adirondack Mountains of New York. He specializes in life-sized wildlife sculpture for museums and private collections, including 2 Museums of Natural History. His work has appeared in over a dozen national magazines, most recently, The Smithsonian, Oct 2004. His research on early northeastern Native American tribes has led to the writing of three novels on the subject. Two of these novels in a three book series, “The Elves of Owl’s Head Mountain” and “The Land of the Nen-Us-Yok” were published in 2007 (regional small press) and awarded four star reviews from Foreword magazine for the learning curve offered to young adults with lessons in Native American languages, math, global warming and modern day issues woven through fast-paced fantasy plots. First Edition Design Publishing published these three illustrated books as a trilogy in May 2012 and the edition is available on eBook venues world-wide. Sutliff has written six novels (two premises for graphic novels) and a short story collection. He has five novels available in trade paperback.
Sutliff has critiqued aspiring writer’s work for various groups and workshops. Visit him at www.jamiesutliff.com
About First Edition Design Publishing:
First Edition Design Publishing is the world’s largest eBook and POD (Print On Demand) book distributor. Ranked first in the industry, First Edition Design Publishing converts and formats manuscripts for every type of platform (e-reader). They submit Fiction, Non-Fiction, Academic and Children’s Books to Amazon, Apple, Barnes and Noble, Sony, Google, Kobo, Diesel, 3M, Ingram, Baker and Taylor, Nielsen, EBSCO, and over 100,000 additional on-line locations including retailers, libraries, schools, colleges and universities. The company’s POD division creates printed books and makes them available worldwide through their distribution network. First Edition Design Publishing is a licensed and approved Aggregator and holds licenses with Apple and Microsoft.
On Wednesday, the French parliament passed a long-debated law that will end Amazon.com’s ability to offer a combined 5% discount and free shipping on books shipped to France, according to Livres Hebdo (as 
First Edition Design Publishing - a hybrid publisher 