If you care about the condition of books you buy, don't buy from Amazon. They'll throw a $100+ hardcover in a lightly padded envelope and chuck it around. Or they'll put it in a box with some other random item and a few inflatable shipping bags, but not enough to keep things from shifting around freely.
Amazon allegedly resells damaged books
51–60 of 123 posts
Re: Amazon allegedly resells damaged books
#52I rarely buy new books anymore. I just use ThriftBooks. Haven’t had a problem with any of the books they’ve sent me.
ThriftBooks is great most of the time but the quality can be quite hit-or-miss.
I've had a few outright duds with them, but mostly their product has been as expected.
EXCEPT, they ship mostly in plastic envelopes. And the items not infrequently get damaged during transit.
I have a set of "very good" Magnum PI DVD's that I expect shipped that way. But the DVD's weren't secured in their box. The season 4 plastic case slid far enough out of the boxed set to get dinged and broken. The internal DVD holder's mount is destroyed and the DVD's are just floating around in there.
I was stocking up on some older, "classic" CS titles, and I ordered several together (free shipping on orders over X dollars...). They arrived all crammed into one plastic envelope that looked like it had been dragged along for a while behind the delivery truck. (In reality, this is what the distribution center belts can do to an object, and a heavy package in a thin plastic envelope does not fare well.)
With just a thin, flexible plastic layer for protection, a number of corners on these "very good" books were bent and beat up. I've had covers arrive abraded. One title had one end of the binding crushed.
I still appreciate getting several titles I've wanted for way off cover price. But I wish they'd take a bit more care when shipping.
And, you never know what you're going to get. With them, I've taken to trying to order such that DVD's and Blu rays won't ship together with books (you can imagine what happens). But, when an item may not effectively ship for up to a week, this takes some schedule juggling and follow up. Plus, that used item may sell out in the meantime. And it also means sometimes foregoing the free shipping you get by clustering items.
I guess these are all first world problems, but it's frustrating. Plus, good condition items get trashed for the sake of lack of care / expediency in one step. Wasteful.
Re: Amazon allegedly resells damaged books
#53Ironically books are the one thing I don't buy on Amazon. eBay has a much better experience, easily 9 times out of 10 I'm confident I'm buying the book in the picture, and usually there are several pictures of the exact condition.
Re: Amazon allegedly resells damaged books
#54If you care about the condition of books you buy, don't buy from Amazon. They'll throw a $100+ hardcover in a lightly padded envelope and chuck it around. Or they'll put it in a box with some other random item and a few inflatable shipping bags, but not enough to keep things from shifting around freely.
Their packing has gotten comically bad, particularly for sensitively items like books and such. I've greatly reduced my Amazon buying over the years due to issues with damaged items, and lately, Amazon is getting more aggressive about discouraging returns. But I'm not going to pay $30+ for a new hardcover that comes damaged and covered with dirt and grime.
Re: Amazon allegedly resells damaged books
#55My favorite, or I suppose least favorite…, was when I received a “new” book that came with a bookmark of a single square of toilet paper. Unsure about you all but there’s only one reason I might use a square of toilet paper as a bookmark.
This exact thing happened to me and for weeks it would spontaneously cross my mind. I thought one of my kids did it yet I couldn't guess why, until one day it hit me: they were on vacation with their aunt when I received the books and found the toilet paper, and the book was slightly damaged when I got it. Then it dawned on me that someone had read this book before, likely while on their toilet.
For that and a few other reasons, I don't get books from Amazon anymore.
Re: Amazon allegedly resells damaged books
#56Amazon does this with everything damaged that is returned.
Except for clothing, which apparently is fired directly into the landfill. Both cases are not cool.
Re: Amazon allegedly resells damaged books
#57Author from original post here! For clarification, this is not a new thing, but something I learned to do from this post: https://bsky.app/profile/kristadb1.bsky.social/post/3kb4wbix... In her case, she ordered author copies (that gives you no royalties, of course) and got the same copies sold again to herself as author copies. In my case, I also ordered author copies, but they were resold to a normal customer after…
Thanks for chiming in! If you don't mind, I'm trying to understand the exact accounting implications of this for you.
In the context of self-publishing, what does it mean to order "author's copies"? Are they: A) offered for free, like they would be as part of a traditional publishing contract? B) Sold to you "at cost" of printing and shipping without any markup? C) Sold above cost but with a discount greater than or equal to size of the royalty? D) Sold above cost but with a discount smaller than the size of the royalty? E) Sold at full retail price but without any royalty?
I very much doubt A because then Amazon would basically be operating what amounts to a free vanity press. But maybe they'd throw in a couple as a perk.
I also doubt B because then they would be operating a revenue-neutral vanity press, but maybe it would still be worth it to them if they counted on gettong enough non-author sales to make enough margin to fund the operation.
I also doubt D or E, because if so, then why would anybody order "author's copies" of their book?. Just get your friend to order them for you and reimburse them and you'll come out ahead.
I would guess the answer is C. But in that case, it seems to me that you are getting implicit royalty on those "author's copies", but those royalties are baked into the discounted price rather than being distributed to you later. (I suppose this might also have advantageous tax implications for you on those implicit royalties, compared to the alternative where you just order normal copies and get your royalties later.) Am I wrong about this?
Re: Amazon allegedly resells damaged books
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The way this is said makes it seem like they're expecting to be paid twice for two orders, one returned. Are you referring to the Dec 30 tweet text, the Dec 28 tweet text, or the paper note in the Dec 28 tweet's photo?
Yes. The four tweets (not counting one from someone else) and photo of the note that I can see without clicking 'show more replies' and logging in.
Hm. I'm not logged in, and I only see 2 tweets, neither of which discuss royalties. What I'm seeing is only concerned with the poor customer experience of receiving damaged goods.
Re: Amazon allegedly resells damaged books
#59I guess I believe it's possible, but I've ordered hundreds of books off Amazon for going on 25 years now, and I've never not gotten books in the condition I paid for. It feels like it would be a weird and ineffective scam for them to pull, not exactly lucrative and pretty easy to get caught on. As I say, possible, but weird if true.
Re: Amazon allegedly resells damaged books
#60> Of note: if a customer orders a copy from Amazon, and a damaged, returned book is shipped to them instead, no new KDP printing orders kick in. This means I don’t get paid at all, because they only pay me when a book is printed.
That statement jumped out at me too, but I'm not sure what to think about it. I also hate to say anything that might seem sympathetic to Amazon, a company I consider somewhat unethical. These two statements below should be uncontroversial: 1. If Amazon prints a defective book and rejects it in QC then Amazon should get no revenue nor should the author. It should be recycled. Another copy should be printed and shipped…
Amazon shouldn't be in the business of printing books in first place, they are really bad at it. I recently received a copy printed by them (of an MIT press book), very low quality, similar as printed by a copy centre. Anyone on solid online book stores in Europe?