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I regret that Amazon has sent me a “nice” e-mail that they have detected my stories on the site...so...I regret I will need to have them removed.
I have contacted Erin about the issue.
The following stories will be removed from the site:
To Be a Different Someone
Who I am
A Window to Your Heart
Bloomsday
Desert Rose
Comments
Nice Control
Have I mentioned how much I do not like Amazon? They pay nothing for the publishing rights. Their contract is well written by the lawyers working for Amazon. Authors are "blessed" to be allowed to post stories on their site. Their take of the slice of the pie for allowing authors to put stories there would be called loan shark for the percentage they take.
Publishers and writers alike have asked, begged, pleaded for some sort of level playing field in dealing with Amazon. So far no one in gov is willing to go head to head with the 600lb gorilla.
I understand why writers keep on dealing with Amazon. It is the only option to the publishing market for most. It grinds my teeth to admit Amazon provides a service to aspiring writers they could never find among established book publishers. It's just so one sided deal. I wish there were other options.
always,
Barb
Life is too short to take seriously
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
I agree and for a while it
I agree and for a while it seems like they didn’t care but it looks like their robots (spiders? guy-in-The-basement-with-nothing-better-to-do?) are out to stomp out everything else.
Considering the fact that they don’t seem to care if my work is stolen and put on sale on pirate sites...I mean I WANT them to be here on BC. It makes sense to have them here..BUT, I did sign my author soul (or at least the content of the stories) to the mighty Zon for now.
It is the only option
Not so. Smashwords offers publishing of ebooks without all the restrictions of the Amazon KDP platform. The only thing they watch out for is the same work being published else where with a different author.
Amazon won't allow you to publish under multiple names, whereas Smashwords will. Amazon won't allow you to offer a free book unless it's published elsewhere free, Smashwords will. Amazon insists on exclusivity, Smashwords doesn't. Amazon does promote your work better, but only in the Kindle friendly mobi format and only at Amazon. Smashwords publishes your work over a broad spectrum of ebook sites (60% to the author) as well as at Smashwords (80% to the author). Smashwords publishes in all ebook formats so that any reader, including Kindles users can buy there Amazon requires you to have a Kindle or Kindle app.
The only real bummer about Smashwords is that BCTS doesn't have an agreement with the for a cut for sending customers their way, but they could.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
True.
True.
Has smashwords fixed the “meat grinder” where it’s less cryptic ?
No more Amazon Affiliate Monies....
In all fairness, we no longer have this arrangement with Amazon either. A fix is in the works, but not live as of yet.
-Piper
The Darth Vader of Business
They are predatory with buyers also. Just try to buy something, anything, without getting charged $90 for 'Amazon Prime'. My Vision is not good enough to read 'Paperbacks' so I used Kindle for PC for years. The other day, I decided to read one of the books I'd purchased from them and they said my permission to read it had expired. No more letting books moulder away on the shelf until you wish to read them again. :(
And yes, I found at least one of my stories on a paid porn site. The site had made my story into porn through malicious editing.
IF I write anymore, I will likely just put it here and let it go at that, and now my ability to write may be departing because of old age. Nothing lasts forever.
I am sorry for your pain.
Gwen
Amazon is like the Empire
Amazon is like the Empire
We don’t even own the books we buy. Just the right to read them.
Different Stories
Perhaps the solution is having a Big Closet story about thirteen year old John, "John's Adventure in Cheerleading" and write a "new" story about thirteen year old Mark, "Mark's Adventure in Cheerleading"?
Michelle B
Amazon
It is a good thing I am in late middle age. I have sworn never to buy anything from Amazon, and think that if I were still alive in a few decades I would probably starve to death because they would have a monopoly on all sales of EVERYTHING.
Google used to have a famous motto: "Don't be evil." I have never heard of a motto for Amazon, but I suspect that Jeff Bezos thinks that Page and Brin were too verbose and just drops the first word.
Amazon is the last resort for me
these days.
They want to become the only store left operating and then we'll be beholden to the money grabbing Bezos and co. I'm not going to surrender willingly.
I buy so much more locally these days. Much of my meat comes from a Butcher who's shop is just a few hundred yards from my home. It is fully traceable right back to the farm from where it came. Fruit and Veg comes from the market stall on a Thursday if I don't grow it myself.
And 'stuff' that I once bought from Amazon comes from other suppliers. Just as good if not better service to go direct to them.
I'll buy some stories for reading once or twice a year but that is it.
Amazon is in my 'avoid' camp and has been for several years now.
Samantha
there is a loophole
There is this idea that you can't publish anything on websites or with other publishers if you want to publish with Amazon. Not true, what they don't like is being undercut. If you enter into the KDP programme that is exclusive and they tell you that from the out but you don't have to sign up to it.
As you may notice I publish on Amazon and Lulu simultaneously (if you don't like A buy from Lulu, i'm giving you the option!), A gets a lower price but gives higher commision % to me so from my point of view it makes little difference where the product is purchased from.
Then of course I can release individual chapters on free sites at some future point.
I used to write and post free immediately but I don't think it's unreasonable for any publisher to not want that, after all, that cuts them out of the loop (and the author out of the commision loop too),
If you just want to publish for vanity and a few pennies on the side don't use A, Lulu (other sites are available) don't have the same restrictions and offer a wider range of publishing options.
So instead of pulling your stuff from here, pull your publisher!
Mads
Madeline Anafrid Bell
Amazon and the monopoly?
Do you really have to pull everything ? As I understand it, though I may be wrong, it is only complete stories that you are publishing with them that they have any control over
They cited the text from the
They cited the text from the stories I have on both Amazon and here...so the ones that escaped detection will remain.
Amazon does not require exclusivity...
They do require your stories to not be offered for free (fair enough honestly. We would love for things to work otherwise, but they don't really see the value of a free version and paid version for the most part). They do give a "bonus" for being exclusive to them, which is a higher percentage and inclusion in Kindle Select and whatnot.
-Piper
I do think they are being a
I do think they are being a bit draconian. The fact that they ID’d the stories on the site is a bit...weird...as they haven’t done this before and seem to not care if the book was pirated and on some other site.
Amazon Reviews, Complaints and HATBOX!
Readers turn them in... We used to think Spiders were involved, and this has happened in the past, just not very often, what we have actually noticed is that Amazon are often clued in by a comment in a review where someone will state it's free on XXX website, or just report the book directly to amazon.
One of the way's we have successfully kept books available on BigCloset is by putting them in Hatbox. Inside hatbox they aren't "free" so amazon doesn't care nearly as much.
-Piper
Amazon bashing is popular,
Amazon bashing is popular, but are people being too hard on them?
Before Amazon self-publishing was much harder, and harder to monetize.
If you managed to sign on with a publishing house, they bought all rights, so you couldn't print and distribute copies of your own work in competition with them. What Amazon is doing now is pretty much the same.
The only real change is that people are so used to getting things for free on the Internet that they find any restriction on free distribution onerous.
Kris
{I leave a trail of Kudos as I browse the site. Be careful where you step!}
Which is why I removed the
Which is why I removed the content in question. I wanted to honor the agreement made and yes, it’s great to be able to create a physical copy.