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Amazon allegedly resells damaged books

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Re: Amazon allegedly resells damaged books

#2

Post by lepus »

> 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.

Re: Amazon allegedly resells damaged books

#5

Post by OJFord »

The way this is said makes it seem like they're expecting to be paid twice for two orders, one returned.

I assume what's being left implicit is that they're actually not paid for the 'KDP printing order' if it ends up returned? So then when someone else orders and receives that one and doesn't return it, there's a printed copy that was never paid out for?

Re: Amazon allegedly resells damaged books

#9

Post by sparky_z »

Before getting pitchforks out, I'd like to see what this person considered "damaged". If - and I know this is a big if - but if it's something extremely minor, such that almost anyone would consider it to be in "like new" condition, then frankly that would be a case of Amazon doing the right thing, rather than pulping a perfectly good book and printing a new one. The fact that this person is apparently not providing any photos of said damage makes this hard to judge (and honestly raises my suspicions a bit).

> 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.

Why wouldn't this be true? Why would a return that is then resold result in a double royalty payment? Is that something that happens for traditionally-published books that are returned and resold?

It might have to do with the fact that these particular books were "author's copies" but I don't have enough information about how those work in a print-on-demand context to know whether this actually results in a loss of royalties in this case. Did they pay for them to be printed as a self publisher or were they provided for free as part of a contract with an external publisher? Does Amazon's internal system distinguish between "author" copies" and other orders, or do you just order some copies of your own book via the standard interface? Would the author's replacement copies go through that same system or would they be printed like normal and incur royalties? No idea.

Re: Amazon allegedly resells damaged books

#10

Post by gumby »

lepus wrote: post #2

> 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 and the revenue distributed as normal.

2. If Amazon prints a defective book and it is shipped returned due to defect then amazon should get no revenue nor should the author. It should be recycled. A new book should be printed and sent to the customer (assuming they didn't ask for a refund) and no payment to author / no extra revenue recognition to Amazon.

But then:

3. It's better that Amazon resells products that are returned in perfectly good condition rather than trashing them (https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/28/amazon-returns-what-really-h... https://www.howtogeek.com/what-happens-to-amazon-returns/ and a ton of other easy to find links)

4. Amazon should not resell products returned that are defective.

The problem is: how should it know? They can't take the word of the customer returning the product. Amazon does resell high value returned items like TVs and monitors after checking them. But the cost of looking for the defect in the book is quite high -- I'd be surprised if it gets more than a casual glance/flip through.

I'm not sure what they should be doing in this case, but I do think the comment "This means I don’t get paid at all, because they only pay me when a book is printed" is a side distraction.

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