Why I’m Not Using Google Play

For those of you who wanted me to publish on Google Play I apologize. It won’t be happening. I tried, everything went up, the interface to publish was decent, not great, but workable. My book was listed for one day and then I took it down.

Google Play is the Android version of iTunes. If you have an Android device, or buy via Chrome, you can use the Google Play store. So what’s the problem? Pricing.

My main market is Amazon and they price match. If they see a retailer with a lower price the algorithms automatically snip the price. Google Play has a pricing model where I set a price and they automatically make an arbitrary discount. It’s normally around 28% or so. Which means that if I don’t want Amazon to price match my novels on Google Play I’m forced to mark them up, and mark them up significantly. Otherwise Amazon slashes the price, then Google slashes it with the 28%, and then Amazon etc…

So who pays the price? You, the reader. My $2.99 novel on Amazon becomes a $4.49 novel on Google Play.

Not cool Google.

Google put me into a place where either I will get screwed, or I’ll be forced to screw the customer. The more I dug into Google Play the more I found that they are deceptive, have horrible service, and go out of there way to screw the consumer and the provider.

You can still get my stories on Amazon, iTunes and Barnes and Noble. They all have apps you can read with, even on an Android device. I’d strongly recommend you do so and avoid the Google Play store. They’re sticking it to both the readers, and the writers. So much for not being evil.