Why I Broke Up with Amazon

[image error]I broke up with Amazon.

It felt like most break-ups: Good, because I know it was the right choice for me, but terrible because I have to start over. I have to relearn things, and I’m just a little unsure of how to make my publishing life work without Amazon. It started the same way as any break-up, little things didn’t make sense, uncomfortable sensations, warning signs that led to red flags, that led to sleepless nights, that led to this post.

I broke up with Amazon. Here’s why:

It started out reading the fine print. I was getting ready to upload my physical books for sale on Amazon, when I stumbled across this little gem:

4. License.

You grant us a royalty-free, non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable right and license to use, reproduce, perform, display, distribute, adapt, modify, re-format, create derivative works of, and otherwise commercially or non-commercially exploit in any manner, any and all of Your Materials, and to sublicense the foregoing rights to our Affiliates and operators of Amazon Associated Properties; provided, however, that we will not alter any of Your Trademarks from the form provided by you (except to re-size trademarks to the extent necessary for presentation, so long as the relative proportions of such trademarks remain the same) and will comply with your removal requests as to specific uses of Your Trademarks (provided you are unable to do so using standard functionality made available to you via the applicable Amazon Site or Service); provided further, however, that nothing in this Agreement will prevent or impair our right to use Your Materials without your consent to the extent that such use is allowable without a license from you or your Affiliates under applicable law (e.g., fair use under United States copyright law, referential use under trademark law, or valid license from a third party).

Wait, wait, wait…. what does THAT mean??!! If I’m giving perpetual, irrevocable rights to be commercially or non-commercially exploited in any manner, I sure as heck want to know what I’m signing over. Apparently, I’m not alone. This lawyer, who offered a chance to participate in a Kindle Giveaway, wrote about the same clause.

I’ve been researching it and honestly, I’m not really sure. It may be more harmless than it looks. It may have something to do with re-sizing the images of your goods and trademark, which makes way more sense than “We’re taking control of your content and your soul” (insert mechanical laughter). But really, that did make me look a little closer at Amazon in general.

I mean, Amazon is great for writers – it gives us a worldwide platform to an audience who is already going to check there first for their latest read. It gives larger royalties than some other publishers, even up to 70% for ebooks.

But here’s what you may not know if you haven’t published with Amazon (including releasing your books on kindle).

I “unpublished” my book. To “unpublish” a book, you have to go deep into the heart of your account settings, past the “…” button, (no, literally, it’s the ellipsis after a list of all the lovely things you CAN do to edit your ebook like they can’t imagine why you’d ever want to delete it) And bam! Unpublish. Readers won’t be able to find it. However, you can’t delete the book. Once you put a book on Amazon’s virtual bookshelf, it is glued there, never to be taken away. Apparently, Amazon Author pages are the same way. Once you create one, it can never be erased even if it’s pulling books that are outdated in place of the newer editions.

I spent an hour researching, then asked the “Help” department. This is their response:

Hello,

Thanks for reaching out to KDP Support; I’d be more than glad to clarify your questions.

I checked your account and see that you have unpublished your below Kindle titles successfully from your end.

1. B005KV4HP8 – Across the Distance

2. B00VGPHA2E – Swing

3. B005FOBEJM – The Calling

These books are no longer available to purchase and will not be searchable on our website. You may confirm this by searching for your book by Title or ASIN on the Kindle Store.

Rest assured that, the unpublished editions will not come up in the search results when customers search for your book using title name or the author name.

*******************************************

i) To delete from bookshelf: At this time, I’m not able to completely remove a book from the Bookshelf if it was previously published and available for sale in the Kindle Store.

However, I can change your book’s status to “BLOCKED” so it’s unavailable for further editing. If you’d like me to do this, please write back and let me know.

The reason we offered the option to change the book’s status to “Blocked”, is because it will become in-editable and inaccessible. Also, it will avoid any confusion in future as it will be grayed out in your bookshelf.

ii) To delete from website: Please be informed that, the detail page for all the unpublished editions can be accessed via the direct link – for eg http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005KV4HP8. However, the pricing information and the buy box will not appear.

Until customers are aware of this link, they will not be able to access this page. We have an option to remove the detail page for all these books. If you could please write back to us and confirm we can have them removed.

Thanks for your understanding and support. Thanks for using Amazon KDP.

Thanks, Amazon. So if I make the book “in-editable” is that for you or me? It’s not that I don’t want access to my books. It’s that I don’t want you to have access to my books.

Maybe I’m being silly. Maybe I’m misunderstanding how things work or what they mean. It’s possible. But does unpublishing get me out of contract with these people? What would get me out of contract, and what would keep them from changing the contract and me from finding myself stuck into something I didn’t want to be?

And is it even worth the fretting?

Most self-published authors publish or distribute with Amazon. Most of my income currently comes from Amazon. If I break from it, how badly is it going to slam my publishing progress backward? And some of the workers agree with the article but say it’s not as bad as it looks. Researching this feels like watching a brutal tennis match.

I wrestled with this question for three days before I realized, for me, it doesn’t really matter on these legalities (though I don’t like them not giving me my books completely back). Because if I am serious about building my company to work in a way that is free from exploitation or partners that exploit – Amazon’s not an option. Removing me and my layman’s confusion over contracts and publishing and changes, sleuthing into Amazon brought up a whole second level of considerations.

Amazon, in its quest to treat you and me as its customers like kings, treats its employees like crap. The more I read about alleged working conditions including warehouses over 100 degrees inside and  workers being exploited, the harder it became to justify a business relationship.  If I realized this growing monopoly was crushing all competing bookstores,  and engaging in other unethical practices, would I discount it because “they all do that”? If I walked into a store with a box full of books to be packed and shipped out and witnessed things like this first-hand, would I smile at the owner of the company? Would I tell him I’m interested in partnering with him so that he can let people know my books are in existence and ship them out and split the money with me?

No.

I wouldn’t.

Just like I wouldn’t stay with a boyfriend who speaks in ambiguous terms and changes his stance on things. I wouldn’t stay with a boyfriend who shares 70% of himself with me, then turns around and treats another human being as an expendable commodity. Not even if running from that boyfriend knocked out a good portion of my income, made me have to do more of my own legwork, and find other ways to reach my goals. And maybe my boyfriend’s not much worse that the other guys out there – maybe they’re all exploiting their workers this way. Maybe somehow because the workers can quit and find another place somehow justifies the abuse. Maybe the allegations are worse than the reality. But that doesn’t mean I have to complacently go along with something raising so many red flags. Just because they play a financially successful tune doesn’t mean I have to dance to it, and even if all corporate businesses run this way, it  doesn’t make it okay.

It’s not right. And I’m going to pick my box of books back up and walk out the door. Maybe some day those employees can work for me. Maybe I’ll be left hawking books from a bicycle basket. Maybe Amazon will forge new paths and become a dream workplace, extending mutual benefits for all. And maybe I’ll find out I’m all wrong, the red flags and dirty laundry was really a pristine clothesline doing an honest job, and the loss of revenue was for nothing. But maybe not. I’m preparing a business for the day one of my books takes off and I want it to be build on a solid foundation. The Amazon is a big river, but it’s not the only river and it’s certainly not the whole world.