After undercutting them, Amazon to teach third party sellers how to “succeed”; Amazon drivers laid off even as that business grows; Newspaper offices permanently switching to “work from home”
MORE: Indie bookstores and industry leaders furious at Amazon for violating book embargo (if you don’t know what that is, read this!); If you get your morning paper in your undies, you probably do NOT want a free doorbell from Amazon; MSNBC sued for outrageous allegation; “Almost Everything About Goodreads Is Broken;” Politician sues CBS and we’re betting that gets thrown out of court. And, DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, MISS THIS AWESOME OBITUARY!
As we all know, books are a very popular holiday gift idea! Don’t you want as many people as possible to unwrap YOUR book on the morning of December 25th? What do you need to do TODAY to make that happen?
Why would Amazon have copies of a book no one ordered yet, and keep it on the shelf? I thought that’s not how print-on-demand works?
After deducting your time and expense to “sell” one or two copies to a bookstore, you can be pretty far in the hole! Your time can be used far more efficiently to sell far more books!
I am just starting out and my book is generating some local interest. A bookstore wants to give me a purchase order, and pay me next month. I have to purchase my books up front from my publisher and I really don’t want to wait to get reimbursed. But, I also don’t want to lose […]
I received the following question from an author last week:
Why would any author buy copies of their book instead of referring people to Amazon or another store?
His email went on to say that he knows we don’t usually recommend book signings at bookstores and he was curious why an author would need copies for any reason other than a bookstore signing.
It’s considered very bad form to send free copies to a bookstore or library with only a note instructing them where to place the book in their store/library…
You’re a new author or a self-publisher and you’ve always thought accepting book returns would greatly increase your bookstore sales. (That actually rarely happens with unknown authors.)
After your book goes live, you notice a few sales. But, a few weeks later, you start getting returns. You have agreed to pay the distributor to send the books back to you. Yes, at your expense. Some of the books are dusty, dirty, bent or otherwise unsellable. You’re even being billed for the printing costs of those books.
Pretty soon, you’re receiving so many returns that you’re losing money on your book…
Bookstores have a long history of ordering too many books, and then returning them for credit or a refund, often damaged, bent, and/or dirty, and at the expense of the publisher (or self-published author). At other times, the books are simply destroyed (or sold to a big salvage bookstore), again, at the expense of the publisher or self-published author. Bookstores, like other retailers, should be financially responsible for their own sales forecasts. Period. I just can’t find anything in the “returns” equation where the publisher or author should be financially responsible for a bookstore’s poor estimation of sales…
