I’ve written before about why books that are for sale should not be a returnable item. Smashwords‘ sales are all final as they should be. Amazon nor Smashwords are not lending libraries where you can check a book out by buying it i.e. placing a monetary hold on it and then read it and return it for your cash back.
In most situations if not all, this is not possible with any other art form. You don’t my a song, listen to it for a week and then demand your money back. You don’t buy a DVD and watch it for a week and then ask for your money back. You don’t buy a painting, hand it up on your wall and look at it for a week and then take it back for a refund. So why the hell is it allowed, and why am I the only one who seems to have a problem with readers buying books and then being able to get refunds for them.
This is what preview is for. If you can’t take the time or you don’t want to take the time to read through a dozen or more pages of a book before you buy it to figure out if you like the story, characters or writing then you deserve to be parted with your money and not be allowed to get it back.
This is one of the problems with giant behemoths like Amazon and Walmart. They get to big for their britches and figure they can dictate market practices. And I suppose they can because chumps like you and me allow them to.
Well no more. I’ve unpublished my books on Amazon and anyone who wants to buy it has to buy them from Smashwords. It is available in any format for an ereader from Smashwords. You can get for your Kindle, iPad, Kobo etc, etc.
The final straw on this camel’s back was a spate of refunds I got for my literary novel Dust on His Soul. I get that it’s a difficult book to read. So read the first couple of chapters which are available for free to see if you like it. If you don’t, then don’t buy it. Simples pimples. I tell you it’s about apartheid South Africa and it’s a difficult read. You’ve been warned so if you buy it caveat emptor but don’t go asking for your money back.
I also understand that Amazon moves a lot of books through their distribution channel. I know a lot of folks are selling a ton of books through Amazon. I’m not, so I can take a stand. Perhaps I have that luxury. Regardless, I wonder if folks wouldn’t be better off selling through Smashwords anyway. If you’re a best seller then surely you have a website with a strong following and you can tell your fans and readers you’re changing. Change is hard, I understand that too.
Eventually I can see myself cutting out the middleman altogether and just sell my books directly. I already have hosing and pay for the bandwidth. That’s the only thing Amazon has that they’re charging you for… bandwidth. And unless you have a name yourself, they’ve got that market reach.
But I’m just not so sure that if you’re a well known writer with a good fan base that it is that important to utilize Amazon’s reach and let them take 30% to 65% for really what amounts to sweet Fanny Adams.
I’m lucky in that I don’t depend on one source of income, I have several streams. This allows you to be courageous and take risks. I still have my paper books with Amazon but I could foresee a time where I’d just have a hundred or a thousand of hard copies printed and ship them out myself as collector items. Sold for a premium with personal inscription.
In the meantime I’ll let Create Space sell them through Amazon because I believe in the laziness of the average man or woman. I don’t think folks will be that inclined to refund a hard copy book when they have to schlep to the post office, pack it up and mail it off. It’s so much easier when something is downloadable.
I encourage my readers and fellow writers to think about this. If you’re a reader, really, don’t ask for a refund because you didn’t do your due diligence beforehand. You didn’t buy a washing machine that broke down in the first week you bought it. It’s a book, it’s art and it’s got spirit and soul. That’s valuable. Don’t cheapen our culture with refunds on cultural items.
If any of you, the writers, have given this a go and are having great success just selling through Smashwords or on your own, I’d love to hear it. We’ve gots to get serious about treating our gifts seriously. We soil the idea and esteem of art when we give our talents away for free like snake oil pedlars.
Situations vary from author to author, but this post is worth consideration. I don’t think Amazon et al are trying to dictate the market so much as the fact there’s many authors, so the person with the money (the reader) has more control.
Thanks for sharing.