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Amazon Won’t Pay Self-Published Author For Books It Mistakenly Gave Away

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Re: Amazon Won’t Pay Self-Published Author For Books It Mistakenly Gave Away

#41

Post by nicwest »

ck2 wrote: post #14

Who sells in a marketplace where someone else sets your price for you automatically without your approval? Amazon isn't a distributor in this case any more than the person who owns the tent at a fleamarket allows people to sell underneath it. In any case, Amazon's automatic algorithm to save themselves money from having to pay humans to do it nipped them this time and they owe the author. Do the right thing and settl…

Amazon isn't a distributor in this case any more than the person who owns the tent at a fleamarket allows people to sell underneath it.

I don't feel this is quite true. in the ebook-fleamarket example Amazon are also the person that handles any transactions under the tent, helps the customer find what they are looking for, designed the structure of the flea market, and is not insignificantly responsible for way in which a fair few people take their products home.

Re: Amazon Won’t Pay Self-Published Author For Books It Mistakenly Gave Away

#42

Post by feralchimp »

_delirium wrote: post #28
illumen wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'Who sells in a marketplace where someone else sets your price for you automatically without your approval?' Most people who sell products do. You sell at your wholesale price, and the retailer sets the retail price.

True, but the tricky part here is that Amazon got to set the wholesale price, too. Larger publishers have negotiated fixed wholesale prices (against Amazon's attempt to push back), but self-published eBook authors get a percentage of the retail price, so when Amazon varies the retail price, the wholesale price varies accordingly.

(To split a maybe-relevant hair) in a purely royalty-based resale model, with no pre-negotiated minimums, there is no wholesale price. There is only the retail price, and revenue flow per the royalty calculation.

Amazon clearly believes: - the cost/benefit for this guy to sue doesn't work out in his favor - no (or an insignificant number of) other authors will pull their content in an attempt to negotiate a change in the contract terms

Sucks.

Re: Amazon Won’t Pay Self-Published Author For Books It Mistakenly Gave Away

#43

Post by jxcole »

Am I the only one who read this and though, well that's sad for the author, but isn't Amazon asking for too much in general? I mean, we're talking about e-books. I imagine I could probably make an online bookstore that sells ebooks and gives the author 75% of the selling price. Amazon is taking $5.99 and offering him 35 or 70 cents. I fail to see how it could remain in business with the relative ease with which you could make a competitor.

Re: Amazon Won’t Pay Self-Published Author For Books It Mistakenly Gave Away

#44

Post by hxa7241 »

The book appears to have been on sale for about 2 weeks, during which time 6 copies were sold through Amazon. So that is about 3 sales per week (from Amazon).

One would expect that this publicity will do a lot more for profits than the 'lost sales' would have.

Re: Amazon Won’t Pay Self-Published Author For Books It Mistakenly Gave Away

#45

Post by danssig »

slowpoke wrote: post #23
danssig wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Here, it's more like the distributor left their books around in a library, and some people got to read them for free. I would say it's more like some people walked out of the library with them. The author most certainly did lose something: sales.

>I would say it's more like some people walked out of the library with them. No. If anything, they are walking out of the library with a perfect copy of the book, while the library still has the original. Nobody looses anything. People need to stop clinging to paid distribution of content as a business model. It's obsolete.

But your model isn't right either. An author has to have a way to be compensation and depending on charity (of thieves no less) just isn't valid. The book has value or it doesn't. If it has no value then it shouldn't be created.

Re: Amazon Won’t Pay Self-Published Author For Books It Mistakenly Gave Away

#46

Post by peteysd »

I think that Amazon should probably admit the error and pay the guy. However, the publicity that the author is now receiving over this is probably worth far more than the price of 6,000 books.

In the end, he'll probably be secretly thanking Amazon for allowing him to rise above obscurity.

Re: Amazon Won’t Pay Self-Published Author For Books It Mistakenly Gave Away

#47

Post by danssig »

cbr wrote: post #16
danssig wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Here, it's more like the distributor left their books around in a library, and some people got to read them for free. I would say it's more like some people walked out of the library with them. The author most certainly did lose something: sales.

> The author most certainly did lose something: sales. But they didn't lose 6000 sales, they lost however many sales they would have made at $6. So it's tricky to quantify the damages.

Agreed. I'd say 10% is probably fair.

Re: Amazon Won’t Pay Self-Published Author For Books It Mistakenly Gave Away

#48

Post by dminor »

jxcole wrote: post #43

Am I the only one who read this and though, well that's sad for the author, but isn't Amazon asking for too much in general? I mean, we're talking about e-books. I imagine I could probably make an online bookstore that sells ebooks and gives the author 75% of the selling price. Amazon is taking $5.99 and offering him 35 or 70 cents. I fail to see how it could remain in business with the relative ease with which you c…

They're offering 35% or 70%, not 35 or 70 cents.

Re: Amazon Won’t Pay Self-Published Author For Books It Mistakenly Gave Away

#49

Post by Tyrannosaurs »

nknight wrote: post #34
toyg wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Content piracy is unauthorized distribution. Amazon here was authorized to distribute the material; they are in trouble if and only if the authorization was somehow revoked when the price reached zero. My point that there was no real loss is tangential to the actual case.

They were authorized to distribute the content according to the terms of the contract . It appears they distributed the content outside of those terms. I'm sure there's language to ensure they won't get hit with damages, but they should be.

And the same contract says that they are not liable for damages in the event of an error.

The contract does not support a claim for money, that case is a moral one rather than a legal one.

Re: Amazon Won’t Pay Self-Published Author For Books It Mistakenly Gave Away

#50

Post by [deleted] »

jxcole wrote: post #43

Am I the only one who read this and though, well that's sad for the author, but isn't Amazon asking for too much in general? I mean, we're talking about e-books. I imagine I could probably make an online bookstore that sells ebooks and gives the author 75% of the selling price. Amazon is taking $5.99 and offering him 35 or 70 cents. I fail to see how it could remain in business with the relative ease with which you c…

[deleted]
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