From the New York Times:
Last Tuesday, Buzz Bissinger hopped the Amtrak train to Philadelphia from New York, where he had done a bit of publicity for “After Friday Night Lights,” a 12,000-word e-book that had been performing nicely since its release. But when he opened his laptop to check his ranking on Amazon, he found the book was no longer for sale there.
“I was stunned,” he said in a phone interview on Friday. “I thought it was some kind of technical difficulty.” (I had noticed a lot of people on Twitter shared his confusion.)
. . . .
Mr. Bissinger wrote the e-book for Byliner.com, one of a number of fledgling companies trying to make a go of it by publishing long-form works — not as long as a traditional book, but longer than most magazine articles — for digital readers. Mr. Bissinger thought the e-book, priced at $2.99, would be a great way to pay tribute to the relationship while also helping Mr. Miles, by giving him a third of the proceeds.
But the plan hit a pothole after Apple, which had been looking to get into shorter works in a digital format, decided to include e-books in a promotion that it does withStarbucks. It selected Mr. Bissinger’s digital sequel as a Pick of the Week, giving customers a code they could redeem online for the book. (Mr. Bissinger said he still received a royalty of $1.50 for each copy sold.)
Amazon interpreted the promotion as a price drop and lowered its price for “After Friday Night Lights” to exactly zero. Byliner withdrew the book from Amazon’s shelves, saying it did so to “protect our authors’ interest.”
. . . .
“It’s a shame that the e-book was not on sale at Amazon,” he said. “Amazon is a crucial outlet for any author, and when you lose them, it’s terrifying. It’s a killer for ‘After Friday Night Lights’ because it was just gaining momentum and books have a very small window of opportunity.”
. . . .
[Byliner founder] Mr. Bryant, who formerly edited a sports magazine for The New York Times, said that Amazon’s “price bot” had picked up the fact that the book was being given away as part of a weeklong promotion and responded by dropping its price to zero. (In an e-mail later, Mr. Bryant said that when the company told Amazon about the promotion, before it began, Byliner was warned the price might drop to zero. But, he said, “we hoped that wouldn’t happen.” It did.)
. . . .
With the business performance of Amazon, it’s hard to suggest that the company does not know what it is doing, even when it “sells” a book at a price of zero.
Link to the rest at the New York Times and thanks to Pat for the tip.
As you would expect, the Times works hard to make Amazon the bad guy here.
However, Amazon warned the publisher what would happen when Apple ran its free promo of the book and the publisher (evidently without consulting the author) went ahead with the promo, “hoping” that Amazon wouldn’t exercise its price-matching clause – Paragraph 1.E. of the Pricing Page.
Of course, as regular visitors here know, a lot of indie authors run free promotions on Amazon and elsewhere – it’s one of the main attractions of the KDP Select program – as a means of raising the visibility of their books on Amazon. One response of the publisher could have been to leave the book on Amazon and reap higher sales everywhere after the expiration of the free pricing period.
However, the publisher believes (wrongly, in PG’s universally humble opinion) “books have a very small window of opportunity.”
Another response of the publisher could have been to unpublish the book on iBooks or otherwise decline the free Apple promotion so the Amazon price wouldn’t drop.
Just as Apple knew what it was doing when it dropped the price of the book to zero, Amazon knew what it was doing when it dropped the price to zero.
Apparently the only party that didn’t know what it was doing was the publisher.
And, of course, the the publisher left the author entirely in the dark.
I am really surprised by the reaction to the article, in that nobody at all seems to have noticed anywhere in the blogosphere the irony of the promotion.
With the pre-Agency debacle, Amazon was selling ebooks at a discount but giving royalties as if it had been MSRP price. This was apparently going to “destroy” publishing so Apple+5 did the collusion thing to “STOP AMAZON”, who was “obviously” the bad guy.
Here, Apple teams with Starbucks to do a “discount promotion”, yet still give Byliner same royalties. For those keeping track, that is same as what Amazon was doing, without the Starbucks logo involved. Yet, somehow, again, AMAZON IS THE BAD GUY?????
They do the model, they’re the bad guy. Someone else does it, Amazon is still the bad guy.
Because, you know, price-matching is obviously evil. Just as it was with Sears, Macy’s, The Bay, Walmart, K-mart, just about every large grocery store, fastfood stores, FutureShop, BestBuy. But really, Amazon is to blame.
After all, it’s not like they TOLD the publisher they would price-match. Oh wait, they did.
PolyWogg
And at the bottom of the feeding chain is the person who created the very work at the center of the controversy.
A few questions for those who know more:
1. Do other e-book vendors — Apple, Nook, and so forth — match Amazon’s price cuts?
2. If Amazon cuts an indie writer’s price to promote her book, does the author still get Amazon royalties on the full price? How about other vendors and their promotional pricing?
3. If Amazon accounts for more than half of an indie author’s royalties, isn’t it bad news if a smaller vendor like Apple cuts its price to zero for a week? There goes a week’s Amazon royalties.
5. It’s claimed that a free week on Amazon will cause a major upward spike in paid sales when prices return to normal. Lately I’ve seen suggestions that this bump-up effect isn’t as dramatic as it used to be. What’s everyone’s experience?
6. How common are these price cuts, and how long do they last? I’m trying to figure out whether it’s worthwhile for an indie author to distribute through the minor vendors and accept the risk that little guys’ promotional pricing will kill some revenue from Amazon.
Hi Allan – I’ll answer your questions to the best of my ability…
1. I don’t think any other retailer has the “price-matching” insistence feature. In fact, Apple demands your price ends with .99, and as long as you conform there, they don’t care that you’re selling your title for cheaper elsewhere.
2. If Amazon chooses to discount a self-published work (I’ve seen this happen) then they still pay the author full royalties. HOWEVER, if an *author* chooses to discount elsewhere and Amazon price-matches, the author receives royalties only on the new sale price. (I also know of a few loopholes here, but they were quickly closed by Amazon). But I have recently heard (not seen it in action) that if the author chooses to discount a title elsewhere and it’s price-matched AND if they choose the 35% royalty, then they will still receive full payment on the original price but at the 35% rate. As I said, I don’t know if this is true.
3. Indie authors have full control over their pricing on all platforms. It’s highly unlikely that Apple would suddenly decide to discount their book to zero without input on the author/publisher’s end…
4. You have no question 4. 😉
5. Free is becoming less effective, but *many* people are still reaping large benefits from it. I agree with David that the publisher was very stupid to pull the book from Amazon. Now they have no sales *and* no visibility (the book will have to fight to get back onto the charts, etc) instead of having no sales but excellent visibility.
6. As I said before, it’s rare that the smaller distributors will randomly decide to change your price. In fact, I have not ever seen that happen, although there are likely one or two stories around from the thousands of self-published authors. YOU are in control, you are the publisher, you set the prices. However, if I were suddenly included in an awesome sale with good visibility at another retailer, I’d be thrilled, and I’d gladly take the dip at Amazon (which would likely result in better visibility there, too).
Hope that helps! 🙂
Thanks very much, Anthea.
You make a very good point about question 4. It turns out I knew the answer anyway. Here it is:
4. What is the meaning of life?
And the answer, according to The Hitch-hikers’ Guide to the Galaxy, is 42.
Do you know what the stupidest thing about all this is? If Byliner hadn’t pulled the book, it would have had a few days at the top of the free charts, resulting in maybe 5000 to 10000 free downloads, which would have catapulted the book into a great position in the paid charts, and probably massively increased sales.
Instead, Byliner pulled the book, which will kill all momentum, leaving them struggling for visibility on Amazon.
Which is so dumb I can barely believe it.
Agreed, David.
David, there exists a mentality that’s hard to describe even after one is deeply familiar with it. It consists of careful attention to details of income and outgo, to the exclusion of other considerations. The sobriquet “bean counter” is appropriate, but was coined in the days when most people were passingly familiar with farming or at least gardening — if you take some beans out and plant them there is a good chance you’ll need a larger jar later, but the bean-counter resists because all he can see is fewer beans on hand.
Bean counters are extremely valuable people to any enterprise larger or more complex than one man with a shovel, and in today’s tax and regulatory environment the ditch-digger is more likely to succeed if he has an accountant (and a lawyer!) on tap. But because they’re so valuable they tend to rise in the organization, eventually reaching positions where they have direct input to planning and organization or even final say.
It’s fairly well known that putting an engineer in charge of the Company can lead to problems, because the engineer tends to focus on production processes rather than the overall business. What’s becoming more and more obvious as time goes by is that putting a bean counter in charge is always disastrous. The engineer is after all accustomed to noting and caring for complex considerations that may not be immediately apparent, and the more imaginative ones can include business considerations in that. The bean counter’s success depends on focus, excluding outside influence while concentrating on bean flow, and he will always make decisions on that basis.
Byliner’s decision reveals that they have bean counters in charge. From that POV, it was very simple: Product was going out, but no beans were added. Nip that immediately in the bud. As you say, from a larger perspective it was foolish at best. It doesn’t give much hope for the future success of that particular enterprise.
That was my thought as well. What was that publisher thinking??? I wonder if Buzz can fire him?
The update in this article mentions this:
http://www.fastcompany.com/1835391/something-is-rotten-in-the-state-of-ebook-publishing
The above article says “it still doesn’t seem fair to gamble with a writer’s income in this way”. They may have a point, but given that the publisher knew in advance that this might happen, and chose to gamble anyway, hoping it wouldn’t happen, surely it’s the publisher that should be censured for gambling with the writer’s income?
This plus the IPG debacle–writers need to think. Really, who’s going to adapt faster to changing environment of publishing, you or a publisher? Who’s going to look out for your interests better, you or a publisher? Who gets hurt worse if your book is pulled from Amazon, you or a publisher with dozens if not hundreds of other titles?
Apparently free with Apple is different from free with Amazon. What was the rationale for pulling from Amazon again? Protecting the author? Riiiiiiiiight.
Also, Passive Guy, agreed on the window for ebooks. What, is Amazon going to delete the book after several months to free up those 200 kb on their hard drives?
Some books have a short window, but only if they address a timely subject.
Hi. I’m slowly learning the murky waters of publishing, so bear with me, but why do e-publishing and e-pricing and e-promoting have to be so complicated?
“Another reason to keep control of your books. What was the publisher thinking?” How does an author retain control? If the answer is “self-publishing” can you give me an example of a successful author who self e-published? Because I have yet to come across one.
I like the flexibility of e-books, but I also depend on the NYT best sellers when selecting a book and frankly, hopefully to sell my book one day. I wonder why the NYT doesn’t just do an e-book best sellers list too?
Hi, there’s a number of published authors who are doing well self-publishing. JA Konrath, Crouch, Eisler for example. Dean Wesley Smith and his wife are doing well I believe. There’s a lot more previously unpublished people like Amanda Hocking, Locke, Darcie Chan who have done well.
As for best seller lists, you can look at Amazon’s top 100 of the genre you prefer to get some decent recommendations. I think the NYT didn’t do an eBook list because it was a smaller market at first. But in some fiction genre’s there’s publishers who have said they have hit roughly 50% of sales now in eBooks. There’s studies that about 50% of the population in the US doesn’t like eBook readers in general so sales growth is likely to slow to somewhere just above(people with eReaders read more) that for fiction.
Thanks Wayne, I’m going to check out the authors you mentioned. Personally, I have no interest in self-publishing and I do have an offer from an e-publisher for my new novel but I’m really not convinced e-publishing is the way to go either (for me at least). Call me crazy but I’m kinda fond of the traditional route and I’m hitting the pavement looking for an agent.
Hi Irish Girl,
Check out the following: Bella Andre, Marie Force, Catherine Bybee, Barbara Freethy, Darcie Chan, Courtney Milan, John Locke… I could go on and on. Many of the above-named authors have hit the NYT and/or USA Today list with their self-published work.
Go to Amazon and take a look at the genre of your choice (Google “Top 100 Amazon GENRE” – ie. mystery, fantasy, historical fiction, etc.) The thing that will clue you in to indie/self-pubbed is the PRICE, usually. Much lower. Click on the book. If it says Published By: Amazon Digital Services, it’s for sure a self-pub. Or you may see the author’s name, or, often, some little teensy press which is basically the author.
There are so many success stories in self-publishing these days! Keep an eye on this blog, Joe Konrath’s blog, Dean Wesley Smith, Kris Rusch (especially her “Business Rusch” posts on Thursdays) and check out the links on the side of The Passive Voice, as well.
I am not one of the big success stories… but in the 11 months that I’ve been self-publishing, I’ve sold over 9k copies of my historical romance short stories, and made more on those than I did on my traditional NY publishing house advances. I know many, many authors who are doing better than I am. And many who are not – but the potential to actually *make a living* at writing has never been better. 🙂
Please be sure that you read all of PG’s agent/contract posts, IrishGirl. They’re… pretty important, especially if you’re going to go trad-pub.
(My story: I was working on both self-publishing some niche stuff, and looking for an agent, but after reading some of the contract stuff that’s been going on… I decided that even if I got an agent, a good agent, an agent I really liked who gave me some great advice that made my duology much better, she’d be a hostage to the publishers; being able to walk away from a bad contract is a necessity, but when the agent’s livelihood is on the line, the urge to sign an iffy contract so she hasn’t wasted her time… Well, it was more than I was willing to go for. So I went for self-publishing. (And got the most awesome covers for my novels. Best part of self-publishing is getting covers, I think.) )
The Times does publish a list of ebook bestsellers.
http://www.nytimes.com/best-sellers-books/e-book-fiction/list.html
E.L. James, dominating with her erotic-tinged, originally self-published Twilight fan-fic, now the 50 Shades trilogy.
#12 – small epub (Entangled) with a huge bestseller
#24 – the aforementioned Darcie Chan’s self-published novel
#29 – Jami MacGuire’s YA self-published novel
#34 – Self-published vampire comedy by Mimi Pamfiloff
Irish Girl, what is your definition of successful? I know at least a dozen successful self-published authors. I’m nowhere near that elite group that Wayne mentioned as I’m more of a mid-lister. Nobody has heard of me, so I’m posting my sales so that you can see that it’s not just the big names who can earn a decent amount with self-publishing. Over the last 10 months, I’ve averaged $4000 a month in sales. Most of that was with just two books out. In March, I added a third.
Congratulations on your sales, M.P.
It seems that new publishers are just as clueless as old publishers.
I’ve bought a couple of Byliner ebooks (really, Kindle Singles), including the one in question before it was pulled. I like what they’re doing, but I question their competence if their model was to hope that Amazon’s automated price-bot wouldn’t notice Apple’s promotion. Does no one at Byliner understand how computers work?
I want orgs like Byliner and ProPublica to succeed: places that support long-form journalism, often articles too long for print publication in a newspaper or magazine but too short for a paper book. The first Byliner ebook I bought was Jon Krakauer’s righteous takedown of Greg Mortenson, and it was very thorough, more thorough than a magazine article could have been. But they’ve got to be smarter than this if they’re going to succeed.
Incidentally, the Krakauer article was initally free on byliner.com for a period before it was available as an ebook, so it’s not like Byliner is allergic to the idea of free as a promotion.
“Does no one at Byliner understand how computers work?”
There are little demons inside the computers that make them run, right? A demon would have to look through all of the ebooks on Amazon and on Apple to notice the promotion. What are the odds?
Actually, considering that I’ve had one of my short stories for free for months at Apple, Smashwords, and a few other places, and Amazon has not yet price-matched it, I can see why someone might hope that Amazon wouldn’t notice.
It probably got reported by a customer, so Amazon took action then.
(Now, if Amazon would only allow people X% free books without going Select, that particular hack wouldn’t be so tempting. *GRUMBLE* I may just pull that thing off Amazon soon. It’s starting to bug me.)
Another reason to keep control of your books. What was the publisher thinking?
Was the publisher thinking?
The publisher was thinking that they’re still selling paper books that disappear off the shelves after a few months.
Silly billies.
So NY Times is finding fault with Amazon for adhering to the terms of the agreement publishers and authors must accept if they want to publish in the Kindle store?
Patricia – Don’t you know that traditional publishers always give the author a break in any contract disputes? Only Amazon actually enforces its contracts.
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight….
I wish they’d drop one of mine to free… *mutter*
“As you would expect, the Times works hard to make Amazon the bad guy here.”
P.G.
Why would the NYT wish Amazon ill?
Genuinely, I don’t know.
brendan
A few reasons:
1. Traditional publishing keeps The New York Times Book Review afloat with advertising. Ditto NYT book section, book reviewers, etc.
2. Writers who work for the Times all worry about being laid off and have a fantasy that they can find a financially friendly landing spot with an advance from a traditional publisher.
3. Lots of nice lunches purchased for reporters/reviewers by book publicists, etc.
4. Manhattan vs. not-Manhattan
5. Amazon robs the State coffers of sales tax revenue used to pay for progressive programs that the NY Times unabashedly loves.
I forgot that one, Josh.
6. The megacorporation that owns the new york times is the same megacorporation that owns one of the largest US publishers…
Amazon does collect New York State Sales Tax.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=468512&tag=vglnk-c519-20
“Items sold by Amazon.com LLC, or its subsidiaries, and shipped to destinations in the states of Kansas, Kentucky, New York, North Dakota, or Washington are subject to tax.
I thought Amazon is still fighting NY in court over the constitutionality of the NY sales tax issue? Did they quietly settle this with NY?
There’s a reason some people call it the New York Slimes.
Do you expect the Detroit newspapers to wish Toyota well?
Zingo, Mary.