Amazon is Screwing Over Authors and Publishers ONCE AGAIN!

Amazon is Screwing Over Authors and Publishers ONCE AGAIN!

The latest action by Amazon that hurts authors and publishers is explained in Publisher’s Weekly.

To summarize:

  1. People can buy an audiobook from Audible, which is Amazon’s audiobook division.
  2. Those people can listen to the entire audiobook.
  3. If the customer “returns” the audiobook (which is actually a download, not a physical product) within 365 days, they can get a full refund!

“If you’re unhappy with your purchased book, you can return or exchange it easily as long as it’s within 365 days of the original purchase.”

Amazon then deducts the author’s or publisher’s royalties they’d previously earned on that “sale” from their future Amazon royalties!

Now, why in the world would Amazon let people who’d completely used and benefitted from a product “return” it for a full refund? I know why. They’re trying to get more people to sign up for Audible, which has an annual fee of $7.95 to $14.95 per month.

So, even if a customer “returns” a book, Amazon still gets THEIR money. It sure seems to me that they couldn’t care less about screwing over authors and publishers in the process!!

So, if you’re thinking about selling your audiobook through Audible, you might want to think again. You may end up giving it away instead.

POSTSCRIPT

Amazon issued this statement after receiving the complaint letter with more than 12K signatures: “…in recognition of these concerns, moving forward and effective as of January 1, 2021, Audible will pay royalties for any title returned more than 7 days following purchase.”

Still not good enough! If Amazon is tracking the number of pages customers read of ebooks, you can bet they’re tracking the amount of time a customer has listened to an audiobook in their system. One or two chapters is enough for someone to determine if a book is right for them. No customer should be given a full refund after listening to an entire audiobook, whether it takes them seven days or just seven hours.

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Angela Hoy is the publisher of WritersWeekly.com, the author of 19 books, and the co-owner of BookLocker.com (one of the original POD publishers that still gets books to market in less than a month), PubPreppers.com (print and ebook design for authors who truly want to self-publish), and Abuzz Press (the publishing co-op that charges no setup fees).

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3 Responses to "Amazon is Screwing Over Authors and Publishers ONCE AGAIN!"

  1. Pamela Allegretto  December 11, 2020 at 5:33 pm

    I am just as shocked by the buyers who return an audio or ebook, or a paperback for that matter.

  2. Donna S Cohen  December 11, 2020 at 11:34 am

    Angela,

    Donna Cohen here! Absolutely! I never could stand Amazon. You get yourself in that KDP select or whatever it is, and loads of people read you book for free,

    Here on the island, we do have to use Amazon to shop but although this is a revolutionary idea–I do not trust my work with them. I like FREE, but unless I am signing up to be a volunteer then I do not like free.

    Sincerely,

    Donna S .Cohen RN

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