I was robbed!

 

The current return policy on Kindle ebooks is that a customer can receive a full refund within 14 days of purchase. I have used this myself once when I stupidly ordered a book I had already bought from them. The policy applies regardless of how much of the book has been read. I never thought about it at the time. I was just pleased they refunded without question.

But last week I was puzzled because I had a sale on Book Report that never appeared on KDP Sales Report. I dug a little deeper. There had been a sale, and then the book was returned. Now I understand that people are reading entire books and returning them for a refund. Bummer.

It has become so annoying that Author Reah Foxx started a petition on Change.org  and over 20,000 authors have signed.

A download fee for customer purchases isn’t reimbursed to authors when readers return the book. This can lead to authors making overall losses when too many people return their purchases.

In other words, the AUTHOR paid for someone to read their book! 

Yet books take time, thought and energy to write.  Costs are involved if the author buys a cover or pays for formatting  and proofreading services. For someone to deliberately buy with the intention of reading and then demanding a refund – well, in my view that is stealing from that author and it could lead to the death of the ebook.