Why My Work Is Not On Amazon

Last Updated on Monday, 29 November 1999 18:00

WHY MY WORK IS NOT AVAILABLE ELSEWHERE:

Amazon’s self-publishing platform, Kindle Direct Publishing, has a rule: If you use it to publish a book, and then sell that same book on another site at a lower price, KDP retains the right to drop the price of your book in the Kindle Store too. Whether that’s fair or not, it’s in the KDP Terms and Conditions that users agree to.

Amazon’s bots troll the internet, searching for the same items that are for sale on Amazon, only at cheaper prices. If the bots find a cheaper price, then they lower the Amazon price to the same amount.

Amazon does have a clause in its Kindle Direct Publishing Contract that allows it to set the retail price of any book. (Section 5.3.2, to be specific).

5.3.2 Customer Prices. To the extent permissible under applicable local laws, we have sole and complete discretion to set the retail price at which your Digital Books are sold through the Program.

Sorry, I'll not be party to that kind of reprehensible bullshit. I set the price at what I wanted. You have no moral right to lower that price because you think someone else is offering the same item cheaper. At most, you have a right to suspend sales of that item and notify the author/publisher they are in violation. Anything else is flat-out criminal theft.

My work will NOT be sold on that chickenshit operation's website. I don't care what the lawyers say, if you can defend this practice, you're the kind of dipshit responsible for all the unspecified angst in this world.

Nor am I advising others to not sell on Amazon. Without Amazon, you will have no sales. I'm just a lone asshole who refuses to participate or interact with such a jerkwad operation.

This will be the only place you can get the e-book versions of my work. There are no fancy whispernet deliveries to your Kindle. The formats are zipped together. You will have to physically load them onto your device. I like e-books. I believe they are a vast improvement in the world of reading. But I will NOT sign a criminal contract. Amazon, and for all I know, all the major distributors contracts, allow them to match any price, seen anywhere, without confirming the validity of the offer or notifying the author. So you get things like THIS HAR! That means anyone could post on their site they were giving my book away, true or not, and amazon's robots would immediately start giving my book away. That is criminal. At most, they should disable sales of the product. This is Gehghis Khan, draconian, criminal thug bullshit and I'll have no part of it. Sure, I won't sell any books, but I'd rather not sell books than place my trust in a company who engages in this kind of criminal enterprise. This practice is morally and ehically repulsive. Taking that willingness to cheat an author into account, one can only assume they will not hesitate to short you on the sales count. I also announced I was approved as a vendor and my work would be on Audible, but, alas, they are owned by Amazon.