Lending, Shmending--My take on the Amazon hooplah

It's been almost 2 weeks since Amazon unveiled its new Kindle Lending Library, and from the uproar among authors, you'd think they've already got plans to Occupy Amazon.

So, let me (briefly) recap what Amazon offers:

Anybody with a Kindle can lend their books to friends, but only for 14 days max. Not new. At least for several years. And I honestly have no problem with this feature. The cool thing about Kindles (from an author’s angle) is that Kindle owners can’t make a copy of a book file and send it out 557 times to whoever they want, or upload it to some file-sharing site. It’s between their Kindle and Amazon. Period. (and of course, that friend who can temporarily borrow it) Do I have a problem with a reader sharing the story she loves with another reader, thus doing my publicity for me, and spreading my fan base? Never. At least with Amazon, it’s a limited thing... PDFs, notsomuch.

Now, if you have Amazon Prime ($79 per year), you can A)watch movies/TV streaming B)Get free 2-day shipping all year on all purchases and 3)Borrow (for yourself) 1 book per month, like a library book. Amazon has “over 100,000 bestselling titles” available for this.

Now this is what's causing authors to twitch. My thoughts on the matter?

• Yayy Amazon! I’ma get me a Kindle. (LOL) And one for dear daughter, too.
• People can already check out damn near all books via ebook from their libraries anyway (and if your local library doesn’t have them or doesn’t have many, try your state library system, like for me the Denver Public library gives out cards to anybody with a Colorado license, and I can get ebooks there). And true, we authors do get a tiny stipend back from OverDrive when somebody checks out our book from the library, but...
•  Hello? 100,000 bestsellers. Uh, yeah. I’ve never been in the top 100,000 on Amazon. (well, maybe once, but that was when I was buying copies of my books for a convention) They sell upward of 5 gajillion books. So the people who you’d think might possibly feel the crunch from lost sales because of this (best selling authors) most likely sell enough books that they will not, in fact, feel the crunch.
• If by some chance my book ends up in the Amazon lending library and some lady wants to read it, I am SO for it. I’m betting she’ll like it, and tell other people she liked it, which means they might, in turn, buy it (and that reader who borrowed it just might write me a good review---which I am forever salivating for).
• I’m betting most Kindle owners who opt into the program will use it to buy those pricey bestsellers (you know, the ones Big 6 pubs have decided to put astronomical prices on?) rather than waste their 1-per-month on a $5.50 or less title from Lyrical Press. Kindle owners are comprised mainly of voracious readers who see from the outset that they’ll save money on books in the longrun, because they buy so dang many.
• And the bottom line is: Amazon did it because Amazon can. Our other option includes (and is limited to) NOT selling our books there, which—as somebody who has been published with other houses which did not sell my books through Amazon, I can attest to—is virtually shooting yourself in the foot, sales-wise. Amazon has been, and continues to be, our top-selling vendor, most of the time selling as many books as all our other vendors combined.

Like it or lump it, but move on, already. If it was 30 years ago and your book was only available in print, readers could buy that hardback, read it, then lend it out to 20 of their closest friends and finally sell it on the yard sale for a quarter. That--and libraries--would've been your best means of spreading the word and growing a fanbase. And guess how many times you'd have earned a royalty? So get over yourself and get back to NaNoWriMo, already.

Piper Denna

Romance is sexy. Whining? Not so much.

Before we call authors "greedy", who really won the ebook pricing war?

Much dust has been kicked up since certain large publishers began fighting Amazon over ebook pricing.

Even though Amazon has been paying publishers $12-$14 for the bestseller ebooks (based on a discounted print price) it then resells to consumers for $9.99, a strategy to dominate the ebook market with its Kindle reader, publishers and some authors felt this devalued their books. All sorts of backlash name-calling ensued. Authors were deemed greedy bastards and if they spoke out in this battle, their books were given very low ratings on Amazon. Eventually, in part due to the deal Apple has offered publishers, Amazon was forced to kowtow to the pubs. Or so they say. Let’s do some math, because to me, it looks like the new business agreement isn’t going to pay the authors more – it’s going to pay them less.

The first model is an example of a BIG author, with a BIG publisher and her requisite agent. I’ll present a small author afterward.

Brandi Bigbritches’ novel A Million Heartbreaks, sells for $20 in hardcover. She earns 15% of cover price, which is $3.00, minus her agent commission (also 15%), so she nets $2.55 per sale. This is a best-case scenario, assuming her agent drove a hard bargain, by the way. Because lots of contracts are for 8%, or 10, or 12. And many are based on publisher net, not list price… Still. That sounds like plump potatoes. So let’s see how much she previously earned on those ebook editions through Amazon. Amazon paid her publisher $13 per copy they sold, of which she gets 25% (ebook royalties are higher than print, and the authors are really pushing big pubs to pay more, because smaller pubs pay higher), which is $3.25. She’s still got to feed Agent Lady, so she ends up with $2.76. That sounds even better! What was she screaming about? Answer – it wasn’t her screaming, it was the publisher, and because the prices are low at Amazon, readers at other etailers also think the price should be the same there. How much would she earn on a sale at Fictionwise? Well. Fictionwise discounts books as it sees fit, sending out awesome coupons to customers for 30 or 50% off their entire purchase, and that’s after their membership discount of 15%. So let’s see. Even if Brandi’s book started out listed at $15 on Fictionwise, then it was on sale for $12, then a member used a 30% off coupon for it, Dear Reader ended up scoring the book for $7.14. Fictionwise then pays the publisher 50% of its net…$3.57, and the author gets her royalty of $0.89, pays Agent Lady, and gets taxed on $0.76. Yowch. Doesn’t sound like much now. Remember her publisher pushing for higher pricing? Keep in mind that her publisher just took a much bigger hit per book than she did. Now let’s look real quick at the “new and improved” business deal her pub just made with Amazon. The publisher will set the ebook price – higher at first and then reduce it when it’s not so new. So let’s say she’s a real popular read and they set her price at $14.99. Amazon will now sell it and take 30%, so her publisher will net $10.49. (Of course, this is based on the Grand Assumption that Dear Reader is willing to pay this price…) Then they’ll pay her 25% of net (hopefully her contract is set up right and she won’t have to pay any of their overhead fees in this “net”. We’ll assume it’s all good since she’s got the stellar agent on her side). Now she gets a whopping $2.62!!! Her net just went down $0.14 per book… for now. In a year, when her book isn’t new and the retail price goes down, to, say for argument’s sake, $9.99… she’ll end up with $1.75. I bet she’s so happy her publisher made that fantastic deal! And I also bet she’d rather Amazon was still taking the loss per book, and not her.

Do you still think the “greedy authors” were behind all this? Keep in mind, to Brandi, she’s feeling like every ebook sale gained is one print sale lost. Food for thought. It doesn’t “cost” authors any less to produce ebooks than it does print. Big name authors are slower to jump on the ebook bandwagon for a reason, it seems.

In case anybody’s interested, here’s what an author with a small press probably earns: Susie Smallslacks has a book out in ebook (list price, $5.50) and print-on-demand trade paperback (lists at $16.00). Her smaller publisher doesn’t get the star treatment with Amazon, so currently each copy of her book sold on Kindle nets her publisher $1.93 ( the new and improved business model might be a boon for her; then again, some of Amazon’s stipulations, such as pricing being the same or lower as on any other site, might hurt her when Fictionwise has a big sale…). Her royalties with a small epublisher can be anywhere from 20% to 40%. For this example, we’ll stick with best-case, and give her 40. So she earns $0.77. Now for print, she gets a flat 8% of list price (other publishers pay 10% of net, not list price, so there is some variation here). Sure, it’s lots lower than Ms. Bigbritches’, but she won’t feed an agent… on her $16 print book, she earns $1.28 per copy. Fictionwise? After a healthy sale and a coupons, she’ll end up with around $0.52… all in a day’s work.

A very small number of authors were actually cited in any of the articles I read regarding the ebook pricing controversy. I’m guessing most of them leave this stuff up to their agents. Methinks in a few months when the royalty checks start coming in, the new and improved deal might not look so good from the authors’ and publishers’ side. But hey. Maybe my numbers are messed up. Maybe Amazon didn’t just get the upper hand… Maybe.

(Amazon’s previous cost per copy of A Million Heartbreaks: $13. Retail price: $9.99. Net loss of $3.01 per copy. Amazon’s current cost per copy: $10.49. Retail price: $14.99. Net profit of $4.40 per copy.)

Piper Denna

Romance is sexy!

Amazon did what?

If you're anywhere close to the publishing industry or are a regular Amazon customer or just generally like books, you may have heard the hoopla this week regarding Amazon stripping sales rankings from anything remotely homosexual.

Well. I was slow to jump on the bandwagon when I saw the "calls to action" to sign a petition and be mortally furious with Amazon, in part because the evidence given just didn't make sense or add up. It rather looked like some people patched together a few comments from Amazon spokespeople, but still didn't manage to make the case. These folks insisted Amazon had taken sales rankings from anything gay (including a children's book about a little girl with two moms) but left rankings on hetero porn and erotica (e.g. Playboy books, which appear to be the ultimate nemesis of all GLBT writers). The hoopla crowd also claimed these books wouldn't come up in searches anymore, or if they did, they placed way down the search list.

Low and behold, after two days of viral forwarding and shouts of "censorship!!", Amazon steps forward to announce they'd had a technical problem which had dumped thousands of items, not just GLBT material. The roar has settled to a few mumblers who insinuate Amazon is "covering its tracks" due to the uproar. Uh-huh.

Newsflash: If a company decides to take a particular "moral" stance, it's not going to simply change its mind and lie about it days later. If the issue is important enough for a behemoth company like Amazon to stand up for, then said company will surely expect and deal with complaints.

Geez. You know, I'm pretty rile-able, when I find something that seems like it needs some backing. What I don't get is people who are so wishy-washy that they'll let themselves be riled at the drop of a hat, just because somebody tells them they should be.

Signing off and heading to middle school again (where someone is always riled!),

Autumn
Got romance?