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Post by garyweston on Oct 15, 2015 10:40:43 GMT -8
I expect to get plenty of flack over this, but here it is anyway. I backed off this site, mostly because of how boring it has become. Hardly even any input in the general section for weeks by the look of it. But that isn't what I'm calling terminal, but the non-Amazon sites like smash and the affiliates. Like you I had a read of M. Coker's moan.(sorry, blog) about how big bad Amazon has been naughty again with their kindle unlimited. Boo hoo. Poor us being left out in the cold. And isn't it up to Indie writers to resist the urge to plunge into the abyss of K U. I have said this before and I'll say it here, expecting it to be ignored. M C. Once an innovator and an inspiration. As your bunch of affiliates drop off one by one, get proactive and combine forces and offer us Indies a viable alternative to Amazon and especially Amazon K U. What? In the too hard basket? Gas tank empty? Can't work together? I read one contributer to that blog who was saying he hadn't had any extra sales from tossing a few of his titles in the K U pot. I checked him out and guess what? He had pathetic sales and only a few scathing reviews BEFORE KU. What was he expecting to change? Barnes and Noble ran with the ebook / Indie ball before they dropped it and Amazon took over. If B and N had the ball now they wouldn't know which way to run with it. Apple has probably the worst navigational site for ebooks on the planet. Etc. And they wonder why big bad Amazon can rule the world. So, M C. Impress me as you once did by building a collective force of all non- Amazon retailers and offer us Indies a serious alternative before even more affiliates fall by the wayside. Two things will happen now. A couple of one book wonders will have a go at me and Mark Coker will completely ignore this. At least it might ignite some debating fireworks this site was once known for. Your turn.
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Post by Ted on Oct 15, 2015 17:39:43 GMT -8
Valid points about Apple and B&N, Gary. If an online business is to succeed its site has to be easy to use and deliver expected professionalism in its customer service.
Some online business models leave me scratching my head; Amazon being one. Amazon makes no profit yet it stock soars on pronouncements by Bezos of more customers using its services. The real cash cow of Amazon is its web services arm, that is where money is being made, but that profit is gobbled up by the other Amazon services like its web site and ebooks/kindle devices which aren't profitable.
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Post by garyweston on Oct 15, 2015 23:52:52 GMT -8
ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2014/9/4/why-amazon-has-no-profits-and-why-it-worksTed is right about no profits at Amazon as the above blog details, although there is little about the book section. But that is a distraction from my thread. Amazon's business model is ruthless against competition. That is called business. My understanding is that Amazon have about 60% of the book market, which means the non-Amazon retailers have the other 40%. The problem is that those retailers are acting independently. As an Indie, I am also in competition with all other Indies for my slice of the pie. I have no choice. As a prolific writer I have a truckload of titles out there but only the same few selling and this pretty much all on Amazon. Before K U I was selling just a few steadily via smash and co but not even that modest amount now. If Smash kicked me out I wouldn't even notice the difference. And yet I have daily sales on Amazon. I am in the process of placing my non movers into K U because I have no real alternative. More Indies will follow me because like me they are given no real alternatives. This situation is getting worse and a year from now as M C and his pals turn off the lights for one last time, I expect them to be cursing Amazon instead of admitting they themselves have done nothing to turn things around. WHEN that happens, it will be game over and a sad day for all of us. I've said my piece and now it is time for you others to do the same. M C and the others need to get their heads out of the sand and beat Amazon at their own game. I predict they won't and it is already too late to stop the rot. Don't just read this and say nothing as most of you do, but actually have a debate and even if you don't agree with me, fine. If you do agree, don't let me be that lone voice and say something because soon you won't be able to.
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serbanvcenache
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Post by serbanvcenache on Oct 16, 2015 1:56:20 GMT -8
Coker doesn't have the capital to take on Amazon. I didn't feel bad for Flipkart, or any other ebook vendor who isn't able to properly update content such as description, ebook file, and cover in a timely fashion. That's why I gave up on Kobo too. Yes, Amazon knows how to get market share - while all the rest (especially Apple) are scratching their ass. But like Ted mentioned, Amazon is a different kind of beast, and it can afford to leave its ebook division to run a deficit because it can cover it from its other business activities. B&N is not able to do that. Apple & Google are able to do that, but that's not what they're aiming for. So Coker is left with 3 options, either bitch about Amazon, bitch about lack of opposition to Amazon, or all 2 combined. He has chosen the first option, sadly (in my opinion). Anyway, he's too small financially to be a "game changer". He's done his job as an aggregator. In the end, consumers (demand) shape output.
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Post by garyweston on Oct 16, 2015 2:31:32 GMT -8
Hi, Serbs. I agree none of them on their own can fight the beast which is why I said they should combine. And it isn't about heavy financial investment but innovation and using what they already have differently. They won't of course, so we can watch the inevitable demise of much of what remains of Amazon's opposition. Apple is big enough to hang on the longest in a smaller way. Because M C and the others have done nothing so far, I doubt if they can get their A into G in time to save the day now. The knock on will be the painful demise of the Indie revolution. With the inevitable lack of alternatives, Amazon will have us all jumping through more of their hoops until most will simply give up due to diminishing returns for our efforts. I don't think Amazon really have killing off Indies as their goal, because I can't see the logic in it as it benefits nobody in the end. Serbs. You say consumers shape things out. True. Amazon know this and have used innovation to take advantage of it. Maybe if there was a version of K U by an M C / affiliates consortium WITHOUT Amazon's exclusivity barbs, that would be more attractive to us Indies AND readers. As long as the fragmentation exists, Amazon will take the advantage. It is all academic because it seems beyond the affiliates to put an alternative together.
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Post by Ted on Oct 16, 2015 2:35:37 GMT -8
Forbes magazine article: 19.5%: The proportion of all books sold in the U.S. that are Kindle titles. E-books now make up around 30% of all book sales, and Amazon has a 65% share within that category, with Apple AAPL +1.42% and Barnes & Noble NE +0.00% accounting for most of the balance.* www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2014/02/10/amazon-vs-book-publishers-by-the-numbers/$47: The amount Amazon Publishing paid “Laverne & Shirley” star Penny Marshall for every print copy it sold of her memoir, “My Mother Was Nuts.” Marshall received an $800,000 advance, but the title only sold 17,000 copies. With competing retailers refusing to sell Amazon Publishing titles, other authors choosing to publish through its imprint, including Tim Ferriss and James Franco, have encountered similar problems. (Same source as above) According to the latest Global eBook report from Rudiger Wischenbart, "Self-publishing’s share of ebook sales is reckoned to be around 12% in the US and 11% in the UK, but taking up to 20% in genre markets such as romance, crime, science fiction and fantasy." The report states Amazon may have a lock on UK sales but less than 1/2 in Europe. It should be noted that the UK Kindle sales may be slewed due to the pricing by Amazon for grabbing market share; "Looking at ebook prices in Europe, the survey puts the UK as having the cheapest average ebook price while Germany is the most expensive at more than double the UK average. The pricing pressure in the UK was illustrated this week when eight of the top 10 Kindle UK best-sellers were priced at under £1, with several being considerably lower than £1." rogerpacker.com/blog/amazon-owns-uk-ebook-market/
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serbanvcenache
SWF Writers
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Post by serbanvcenache on Oct 16, 2015 3:01:33 GMT -8
Don't know about you guys & gals, but I've seen A mazon's arbitrary review removal policy on my own skin. I had 3 reviews removed by them & I'm not the only one with this problem. See here imysantiago.com/2015/07/02/amazon-a-virtual-marketplace-or-big-brother/I was contemplating the idea of putting out all of my stuff for free, but I'm reluctant about it, since the power of "freebies" seems to be dying with each passing day. I even put out An Empire Of Traitors & Talking Crows on wattpad for a week now, but I've seen even poorer results than on the SW store. I've also been experimenting with other ebook promotion gigs out there. Got burned on freeebooksdaily.net I paid the bastard after he replied that he had my date free & then I never heard back from him. I had to push a claim via PayPal to get my money back, then the bloke replies to me about a week or two after that & apologized & promised he would do my promo for free, which he didn't. Anyway, stay clear from this site & don't confuse it with freeebooksdaily.com which is legit & costs only 3 bucks. I had good experience from Ebooks Soda for only 10 bucks, and now I've scheduled 3 promos for the 24th of this month with Ebooks Habit, ItsWriteNow, and the Fussy Librarian. Using similarweb.com I found that BKnights really suffered a downfall in their visits & email responses.
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Post by garyweston on Oct 16, 2015 3:16:33 GMT -8
Serbs. We are whistling in the wind. Indies are trying to put petrol in a horse and cart. Not sure if smash etc even have a horse, if they insist on still flogging the dead one. Promote all we like, it means nothing until there is a two horse race. (enough with the horses already)
Indies can and do compete (against the Trads and each other) on price. Most would rather have 100 sales at 99 cents than 0 sales at $9.99. Although interesting, this is still another distraction from the thread which is to urge M C and Affiliates to do something more than bitch and moan about Amazon. Forget about book pricing for now. As things spiral downwards, the main objective should be to at least try to stop the rot and become a force to be reckoned with. I would love to think that things as yet unknown to us plebs are going on behind closed doors to this aim of providing alternatives but M C's blog suggests otherwise. I suppose as long as we just take pleasure in the creative process and are happy enough just to have an outlet regardless of sales, some will continue to write. I would like to earn a little better than beer money, so maybe next year I'll churn out another book. Once a writer, always a writer. How about more comments on the desperate need for that alternative.
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serbanvcenache
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Post by serbanvcenache on Oct 16, 2015 3:23:55 GMT -8
How about more comments on the desperate need for that alternative. Alternatives for free reading exist, alternatives for paid reading do not exist at present (except for the impotent ones we mentioned above).
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Post by garyweston on Oct 16, 2015 6:48:00 GMT -8
The alternative I was referring to was the combined non - Amazon affiliates working together to provide an alternative to K U. Interesting to see yet another affiliate in the smashwords stable, Gardners. Is this going to be another smash site my books aren't selling on? I really hope to be proved wrong.
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Post by Ted on Oct 16, 2015 9:25:29 GMT -8
I'm not sure if non-Amazon affiliates working together to provide an alternative to K U would be legal under US law; "The Sherman Act outlaws "every contract, combination, or conspiracy in restraint of trade," and any "monopolization, attempted monopolization, or conspiracy or combination to monopolize." Long ago, the Supreme Court decided that the Sherman Act does not prohibit every restraint of trade, only those that are unreasonable. For instance, in some sense, an agreement between two individuals to form a partnership restrains trade, but may not do so unreasonably, and thus may be lawful under the antitrust laws. On the other hand, certain acts are considered so harmful to competition that they are almost always illegal. These include plain arrangements among competing individuals or businesses to fix prices, divide markets, or rig bids. These acts are "per se" violations of the Sherman Act; in other words, no defense or justification is allowed.";
OR "The Federal Trade Commission Act bans "unfair methods of competition" and "unfair or deceptive acts or practices." The Supreme Court has said that all violations of the Sherman Act also violate the FTC Act. Thus, although the FTC does not technically enforce the Sherman Act, it can bring cases under the FTC Act against the same kinds of activities that violate the Sherman Act. The FTC Act also reaches other practices that harm competition, but that may not fit neatly into categories of conduct formally prohibited by the Sherman Act. Only the FTC brings cases under the FTC Act.";
OR "In addition to these federal statutes, most states have antitrust laws that are enforced by state attorneys general or private plaintiffs. Many of these statutes are based on the federal antitrust laws."
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Post by garyweston on Oct 16, 2015 9:51:54 GMT -8
But surely a smash / affiliates arrangement wouldn't be a monopoly? They would still be indies as companies and actually preventing Amazon becoming one. I'm not suggesting a total merger, but some way of offering writers and readers a viable alternative to the K U model. I'm sure big outfits like B and N and Apple have their own legal departments who would be able to steer this through. I applaud Mark and co for the Gardner deal, but we have been down this road before with other affiliates and I wish them well as being in all our interests. I still think the fragmented none Amazon retailers will be up against it and the Amazon juggernaut will roll on. To me the one chink in Amazon's K U plan is the reluctance of the Trad publishers not to put their writers in K U. This should create a backlash from readers finding that they will have to shell out for the A list books as well as the K U membership. I have written enough to spread things around a bit, so there is no reason for me not to be in both the Mark Coker stable, Amazon none K U stable and the K U stable. Less prolific writers will not be so spoiled for choice. At the end of the day we Indies are pawns in the game
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Post by Julie Harris on Oct 16, 2015 13:18:58 GMT -8
I tried the first KU, gave away a lot, sold a few, but like you Gary, twas the few that were already selling at the time. I say 'at the time' loosely. I went wide again, republishing all through D2D and unpublishing completely from Smashwords as I just couldn't deal with the meatgrinder's many foibles, the lack of customer service and the time it took for any minor change - like cover or pricing - to go through. Don't make me start on the Premium Catalog. So after putting all back out via D2D, lo and behold, Zon brings in the KU2... per page read payment. I missed the boat again. Before KU2 I was getting the equivalent of your beer money, Gary. After KU? I am now one of the many who have sunk into the mires of the undiscovered abyss. Advertising/constant promoting seems to be the way to maintain visibility but how many of us can afford to do that every two weeks? Do we knock out a story every 28 days just to keep appearing on the new release list? Do we do this by writing in the current on-trend genre as well? Last I heard it was step brother romances, but that was a couple of weeks ago so who knows what it is now... Most of my stuff is non classifiable bordering on literary fiction anyway, although I am tinkering with a paranormal series. I read somewhere on KBoards that series and KU aren't a good mix. KU2 is for standalones, the bigger the better. There's no answer, Gary. We can all rant and rave about the unfairness of it all, and authors can scream 'buy my book' from the rooftops but those voices get lost amid the millions of others out there screaming the same thing. These days I fill in time by editing and formatting etc. and guiding others into the abyss. What I hoped would be a retirement 'career' has morphed into what it was at the beginning, way back in the late 70s: a hobby. Back in those days I still had dreams. I have to see it as a hobby now, there is no other choice that leads me to a happy place. While I still get a kick out of creating something new, can walk away from the desk with that satisfied feeling all writers comprehend, I will keep on doing it, but in my own time, at my own pace. I've had to harness my dreams of 'making it'. I came close once or twice while trad published, and once while indie, but there are only so many times a mere mortal can have the fire door slammed on the same foot before the message sinks in. Amazon won't stop until it has driven all of its competitors out of business and I'm 99% sure the competitors know this. It might take some time, and during that time, who knows what will happen. But I know one thing for certain: when you're hot on Amazon, Amazon helps fuel the flame. Zon rewards the already rewarded and doesn't give a rats about those in the abyss. That's business for ya. There's probably nothing else MC can do except complain/whinge/grieve. But authors will go to the marketplace that holds promise, and Amazon spends millions of dollars to be that marketplace.
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serbanvcenache
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Post by serbanvcenache on Oct 16, 2015 14:31:34 GMT -8
A great sum up, Julie. I feel the same. I too had dreams, big dreams at first - then I lowered those dreams to one day making my country's minimum wage from ebook sales. Now even that hope seems so doomed to failure. Like you said, a hobby... The current feedback loop rewards those already rewarded. Sink enough money in, even if your content is garbage, and the machine will get all eyeballs on you. And you're bound to make a hefty profit, before & even after people discover that you're selling poor content, simply because you're on top and not in the abyss of the undiscovered/undiscoverable.
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stun
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Post by stun on Oct 16, 2015 19:01:18 GMT -8
I am an expert after five years with Smash and friends. That is, I am an expert on how to fail as a writer. The dreams were strong for the first couple of years and then, then cometh the fall from fantasy to reality, from fantasy to flop. Yes, my covers suck (can't afford Adobe or an artist), my content sucks because editors aren't free and self editing is kind of like self mutilation. I have little time left in my life to go all gung ho into publishing. I've done my best on a poor man's income. I had some sales with Sony, but of course they are gone and now I'm averaging one giveaway book a week. Author maybe, published? I don't think so.
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