Yuletide Greetings
Friends,
I've written about Amazon and their pricing pressure before. Basically, selling on Amazon opens up the door to millions of consumers, but...Amazon wants you to sell your books at dime store margins. For a small indie like RBM, there's no separate contract where we set the price. RBM is not part of some larger conglomerate.
Thus, when we saw that NOTV was on sale for only $12 at Amazon last week, we did not agree to this savage discount and had a decision to make. It's common for discounts to appear at Christmas time: folks get Amazon gift cards and purchases surge. Larger publishers can hope that volume will compensate for margins.
But not RBM. As stated before with my nonfiction books, it's better to sell one book and get $4 back for RBM (then a cut to me), then sell three books and $1 back for RBM (then a cut to me). $4 is more than $3. This may not be true for Amazon - they want happy customers to show up for doorbusters and then many other things - but it's true for authors and small publishers.
Thus, Merry Christmas! The paperback version of NOTV is not on sale on Amazon! Ho ho ho! I am the Grinch to the Bezos. Not everything is on sale on that site.
Luckily, at the wonderful indies that supported the NOTV Texas Tour, one can still get copies easily thru Ingram Spark. Also, BookPeople, who ships internationally, still has signed copies. You can snag them here.
So, other small publishers - don't let Amazon push you around. If they cut your prices sans consent, just delist. In my experience, after about 6 months, you can relist with your original price and they'll respect it.
I've written about Amazon and their pricing pressure before. Basically, selling on Amazon opens up the door to millions of consumers, but...Amazon wants you to sell your books at dime store margins. For a small indie like RBM, there's no separate contract where we set the price. RBM is not part of some larger conglomerate.
Thus, when we saw that NOTV was on sale for only $12 at Amazon last week, we did not agree to this savage discount and had a decision to make. It's common for discounts to appear at Christmas time: folks get Amazon gift cards and purchases surge. Larger publishers can hope that volume will compensate for margins.
But not RBM. As stated before with my nonfiction books, it's better to sell one book and get $4 back for RBM (then a cut to me), then sell three books and $1 back for RBM (then a cut to me). $4 is more than $3. This may not be true for Amazon - they want happy customers to show up for doorbusters and then many other things - but it's true for authors and small publishers.
Thus, Merry Christmas! The paperback version of NOTV is not on sale on Amazon! Ho ho ho! I am the Grinch to the Bezos. Not everything is on sale on that site.
Luckily, at the wonderful indies that supported the NOTV Texas Tour, one can still get copies easily thru Ingram Spark. Also, BookPeople, who ships internationally, still has signed copies. You can snag them here.
So, other small publishers - don't let Amazon push you around. If they cut your prices sans consent, just delist. In my experience, after about 6 months, you can relist with your original price and they'll respect it.
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