Asking Amazon to listen

Hi everyone, today I'm going to post something from my friend Sarah Billington, who can say this much better than myself:

As you know, independent authors put a lot of time and energy into our writing and we are so thankful for the opportunity Amazon provides for us to earn a living doing what we love. Except a lot of that living is stripped from us through bank charges for processing international cheques.

I was excited to receive my first two cheques recently, smallfry compared to some authors, one was for $17, the other for $56. Except my bank charges $25 to bank a single cheque.

For my $17 cheque, I will be paying THEM to bank it for me. If I choose not to cash in my royalties on that $17 cheque, it makes it nothing but a pretty piece of paper. A piece of paper that represents about 51 readers.

Of my $73 in royalties, $50 would go toward bank fees, leaving me with $23US (not that I can actually deposit the $17 cheque at all). BEFORE currency conversion to Australian dollars.

I am just one example. Other banks charge $40 to process international cheques. I have heard of another author whose country of residence will not process US cheques so they have to GO TO ANOTHER COUNTRY to deposit royalties.

Smashwords pays authors via PayPal so it can't be too hard for Amazon to do so, or update Amazon Payments so that international users can be paid that way as well.

It would also save Amazon money on international postage of cheques. Win-win, right?
I know and believe that Amazon cares about its authors and this step would help us all across the globe.

If you are interested in Sarah's message and would like to support the cause, please visit her petition here. And feel free to spread the word!


What are your thoughts in this? Do you think Amazon can be convinced to change? Do you think it's necessary? Are you a self-published author having a similar problem?

The e-book pricing conundrum. How much are they worth?

One of the biggest debates happening in the book world these days is: how much is an e-book worth? And what is that worth based on? How do we balance the reader’s loss in utility from not being able to touch or see or smell their book (all important if you’re a book lover) against authors’ income and publishers’ revenues? People still need to make money. If they’re not making money they’re not going to keep making books.

I come at this issue from two different perspectives: the reader, and the writer who also works in publishing. So far, I’m finding it very hard to merge these two perspectives. (Dual personalities of a writer’s brain come forth.)

The reader:

When you buy a traditionally published e-book you’re often paying close to the same price as you would for the p-book version. As a reader of both e- and p-books, I have an issue with this. I prefer p-books. I like to feel them. The smell of them. To look at them on my bookshelf even after I’ve finished reading them. If I have a choice, and the price is similar, I’m going for the p-book every time.

E-books, for me, are about convenience and cost saving. Add in the fact that, according to publishing consultant David Amerland, when you spend money on an e-book you’re not actually purchasing the book, only access to the book, why should I spend the same amount as I would to purchase, and own, a p-book?

The writer and publishing industry employee:

A lot of readers think the way I do about the costs of e-books. What they don’t realise is that, for a traditional publisher, there is very little difference between the cost of creating an e-book or p-book. Sure, e-books don’t have printing costs, but they do still have editing, design, marketing, author fees and a whole host of other costs associated with them. You might be surprised to know that the printing cost associated with a single book is usually only around a couple of dollars.

So the question is: how do the big publishers compete when consumers aren’t willing to pay what the publisher needs to survive? Throw in the likes of Amazon, who willingly forces the price point of e-books down so they can sell more Kindles and put competitors out of business (predatory pricing), and you’ve got the publishers in a sticky situation.

The only people meeting the market’s price expectations are self-publishers, who are able to sell their books at very low prices because they have almost no overheads. The market is happy (yay)! The publishers are not. Although whether the market is truly happy could be questionable. There are a lot of self-pubd works out there that wouldn’t know a second draft if it bit them in the bum, but that’s a post for another day.

Here’s a quote from author Stuart Neville that I think sums up the writers' perspective:

"I'm amazed that people are that cheap. Do they think a year of my life is worth less than $9.99? Do they really believe that 10 to 12 hours of entertainment isn't worth the equivalent cost of two or three coffees, or less than two beers?"

What are your thoughts on the e-book pricing conundrum? Do you have no problem paying close to the same price for an e-book as you would for a p-book, despite the perceived loss of worth? Or will you only buy self-pubd e-books and continue to buy p-books from the traditional publishers? I’m interested to hear where everyone else stands on this issue!

My favourite things I learnt last week from the writing bloggerverse... aka weekly mashup

I have a list saved to My Favourites in my browser called the Daily Clicks. As the name suggests, every day I go through the daily clicks and see what's new. Most people would use a feed reader to do this, but I prefer to actually go to the blog or web page and see all the pretty shiny things that the creator has put there.

So I thought I'd do a post on my favourite things learnt this week in my exploration of the writing webs.


1.  Janet Reid and Writer Beware both posted on the dangers of competition clauses, and one competition in particular. Long story short, if you are considering entering any sort of writing comp, read the fine print in full. And if you see anything like this:

By submitting an entry, all entrants grant Sponsor the absolute and unconditional right and authority to copy, edit, publish, promote, broadcast, or otherwise use, in whole or in part, their entries, in perpetuity, in any manner without further permission, notice or compensation.

Run. Run away fast and far. And don't part with your hard earned dollars to enter a competition that basically means you've granted the competition holder the right to use your work in any way without notifying or compensating you. Not. Good.


2.   Shallee McArthur came up with the idea to do a What's Your Writing Process Blogfest. In her words:

...blog about ANY part of your writing process-- how you create characters, how you plot your novel, how you organize your rewrites, your whole writing process from start to finish, anything.

The blogfest is scheduled for Tuesday the 18th, which for me is now, but for most of the participants is tomorrow, so I thought I'd compromise by posting tonight.

So what are you waiting for? Go sign up. Share your process so we can learn from you.

Aplogies to the guys,
couldn't help myself.



3.   The discovery of Kristen Lamb's blog. She's a writer and social media guru, and blogs about both. I only came across her blog a couple of days ago (via Twitter) and I've already discovered so much good information. My favourite so far is how to take on the Procrastination Pixie. Excellent advice. I've been practicing using the word 'No' every time my mouse wanders toward the facebook/twitter/gratuitous pictures of Ben Barnes button when writing, and so far with good results.

If you're a blogger she also has this awesome series of posts on getting started and staying in the game. More great advice and worth checking out. And yes I'm trying to take that advice. I will blog more regularly. Promise.


4.   Ok, this one's on a more serious note. I've been meaning to blog about this all week, so now's as good a time as any. Author Saundra Mitchell tackles the topic of illegal ebook downloads in her post '"Free" Books Aren't Free'. A quick quote:

I’ve told you before that I made a $15,000 advance on SHADOWED SUMMER. In two years, I’ve managed to earn back $12,000 of that.

It’s going out of print in hardcover because demand for it has dwindled to 10 or so copies a month. This means I will never get a royalty check for this book. By all appearances, nobody wants it anymore.

But those appearances are deceiving. According to one download site’s stats, people are downloading SHADOWED SUMMER at a rate of 800 copies a week. When the book first came out, it topped out at 3000+ downloads a week.

If even HALF of those people who downloaded my book that week had bought it, I would have hit the New York Times Bestseller list.

If the 800+ downloads a week of my book were only HALF converted into sales, I would earn out in one more month. But I’m never going to earn out.

I would recommend reading the whole thing. It really.. sucks (for want of a better word) reading stuff like this. I know no one reading this post would download an ebook, because we're all writers, but we can all help to educate. There are plenty of people out there who don't realise the damage they're doing by downloading an ebook, and they could be our friends or family. So let them know. I'm sure they'll be want to spend a few dollars on books in future.


5.   Not really blogging, but favourite Twitter hashtags this week: #YALitChat, #AskAgent and #AmWriting. Great places for advice, encouragement, and finding like-minded people. Twitter is an invaluable resource for writers, so if you're not there, go to it.


And that's that. My list of favourite (and not so favourite in some cases) things learned and heard this week.

What have you learnt this week? What gems have made a difference to your writing day? Or just your day in general?