| First, I would like to say I am a free thinker. I have no vested interest in any of these companies. Though I do own stock, I own stock in many companies and therefore leave the brain$childs to do my bidding. I don't run a publishing house, or a press, or have a chit load of friends and/colleagues pushing me into spouting off their opinions as my own, without thought to all who may hear my words. I am only a lowly writer and I often refer to myself as an author in progress. I have read everything available to me in the search engines about this matter. I know who is posting what. As a free person I can make my own assumptions as to why, all the while confident that I have educated myself intelligently about the matter. Therefore, until there is an update, I'm going to stop commenting on this because its pointless trying to get through to people, once everything has been presented to them in clear form. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and it is certainly not my mission to change their minds, but I feel responsible to explain why I have arrived at my own. Though it may be an unpopular opinion, it is not less worthy of attention. Please read the whole thing only if you are remotely interested in another perspective. I certainly do not want to waste anyone's time who is just looking for a debate. Think people; where are you getting your information from. Everything has a source and some sources have their own interests, as they should, at heart. Many questions are addressed on this forum I have provided the link below. Please read the whole five pages of the thread before posting more questions here, as I suspect this subject might be getting tiresome to some being that there is no new material having transpired. That being said... I found this, which is the most intelligent perspective on the whole thing here. Not that you aren't all bright and shiny intelligent people, this is just the most "big picture" kind of perspective I have seen and share her sentiments. I do not know her personally, and have not spoken with her, though I do hope to remedy this posthaste. I do know she publishes RPG related items, on a very small scale, and is a horror writer herself, as well as a free thinker. I am using her post because quite simply, I couldn't have said it better myself, literally. LOL | |||
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| Re: Amazon PoD Take-Over? I'm going to try to address a few points that I have been drilling into people at some other forums. 1. Amazon is not obligated to list POD titles as "in stock." Because they aren't in stock. POD titles are printed as they are ordered. In the past, they have listed them as in stock, with the understanding that the POD service would immediately print and ship. However, smaller services (and even LSI on occasion) have not followed through on this. When a package arrives late, Amazon is the one that gets the heat from the customer, not the POD printer. 2. Amazon is NOT deleting POD title listings. They aren't even saying they aren't available. Non-Booksurge books are still being listed on Amazon. However, the ADD TO SHOPPING CART button is being replaced with SEE ALL BUYING OPTIONS. Amazon has a huge pool of third party booksellers that sell through there system. The books can still be bought on the Amazon site. The only difference to a customer is that the books no longer qualify for free shipping. 3. LSI and most POD services only offer Amazon and other retailers a short discount of 20% or less. When you are offering free shipping to customers, that means you can end up losing money on those sales. 4. If you are working directly with LSI, you have an option to set higher discounts, and make your books returnable. If you do this, your books appear in the LSI system as "traditional" availability. Not as POD titles. If you are a small press that has your books listed like this, Amazon doesn't even KNOW your books are POD, and therefore this whole argument is a mute point. 5. This issue is primarily aimed at the 3rd party POD services like Lulu, Booklocker, etc. Not the individual small press publishers. When you as an author set up a retail title through these services, you have to double the price of your product to set the retail price. However LSI only lists the titles with a "short discount" of 20% or less. You as the author don't get the difference, it is eaten somewhere between your 3rd party service, LSI, and Ingrams. Example: Sample Book. 6 x 9, black and white, 96 pages I want to set my retail price for this book at $10.59 Lulu/LSI Fixed price: Manufacturing/printing cost: $3.46 Lulu commission: .37 Calculated royalty: $1.46 (what my profit is on a book sold for $10.59) TOTAL FIXED PRICE: $5.29 This number is then doubled to set the retail price. Retail mark-up: $5.30 So Amazon gets a 20% discount or less, off the retail. So Amazon pays $8.48. That leaves $3.19 unaccounted for? Where does that go? LSI/Ingram's pocket. 6. You can use the FREE Createspace service to set up your books with Amazon. You do not have to pay a $50 fee unless you want the pro account, which just gives you better pricing. Booksurge prints these titles, but you do NOT need to buy a Booksurge package. You can continue to use whatever service you want elsewhere. 7. The CS package lets Amazon take a 40% cut (not 48% as is being bantered around...go to the website and read the details). And you actually pay LESS per book. Example: Same book as noted above Createspace/Amazon (standard) Fixed price for printing: $3.66 (book less than 108 pages) Amazon discount: $4.24 Profit: $2.69 Now if you actually decide to use the pro plan, your profit looks like this: Createspace/Amazon (pro plan) Fixed price: $2.25 (book less than 108 pages) Amazon 40% of retail=$4.24 Profit: $4.10 to the author The bottom line is, this is a GOOD THING for niche publishers and self-publishers, because you can deal directly with Amazon without having to pay to use 3rd party services! I've actually been using CS for some time already to handle my Amazon sales, because I make more per sale than if it is handled through LSI. 8. 3rd party POD services ALREADY use multiple different printers. Lulu has two different printers that handle European orders, and a half dozen printers to handle various book orders in the U.S. And Canada. Sending the electronic files to Amazon to handle is no more work for them than sending to LSI or anyone else. The only difference for Lulu or a 3rd party service is that they are paying a bigger discount to Amazon, but at the same time they aren't paying anything to LSI/Ingrams. So if you are a 3rd party service that isn't hiding a lot of fees in that mark-up, its 6 of one, half a dozen of the other as far as you are concerned. If, on the other hand, you are hiding fees or using some "new math" to calculate retail pricing, this eats into the 3rd party service's money. 9. Most of the news sources that are reporting on the story are getting their information from two sources: PublishAmerica and Angela Hoy. If you read the articles, they are almost all circular articles that reference each other. We all know PA doesn't have a good reputation for honesty, so we can throw them out the window. Angela I have a great deal of respect for, but at the same time she owns a 3rd party POD service that charges up front fees to use, and the notion that authors can set up directly with Amazon means some of her customers may not need her any more. So she has a vested interest in the status quo. __________________ Bards and Sages Publisher of Speculative Fiction and RPGs |
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Frakkin Amazon Chit Again!!!
Saturday, April 5, 2008
A Word Before You Get On The IPetition Bandwagon.
| Epetitions have about as much chance of getting anything done as I have of waking up on the moon tomorrow. They are a form of slacktivism and are a waste of time. They may however succeed in getting your name and email and other information to spam spiders. Think about it, if they did work we wouldn't be at war, puppies would all have homes, children wouldn't ever go to bed hungry, and gas would be 50 cents a gallon... Just saying. Amazon has many great and overpaid lawyers working for them who expected a lot of outcry about this, and who wouldn't have purchased BookSurge in the first place if they weren't perfectly within their rights to develop and use it as their sole source of POD on their site. You might succeed in getting them more publicity than they could have ever hoped for... It's certainly helping my stock... So before you forward the plight that is the POD market try to think of where its coming from. Are you just pining for little vanity presses that may or may not be out for the author and worried about their own finances? (shrugs) ¸..· ´¨¨)) -:¦:- ¸.·´ .·´¨¨)) ((¸¸.·´ ..·´ -:¦:- Nicoel Suzanne -:¦:- ((¸¸.·´* |
Friday, April 4, 2008
Total Economic Collapse by September 2008? Are You Frakkin Kidding Me?
I read something today that normally wouldn't bother me. It said that the collapse of the US economy was imminent and that they had it predicted down to the very month it would come to fruition. I admit freely I love a good conspiracy. No, I don't wear an aluminum foil helmet or anything. I am just a lowly writer who mixes Sci-Fi Fantasy with a lot of sex, and a lot of big guns. But a couple of things really bothered me about this.
For the first time in my life I actually know people who are collecting unemployment. Not for a few weeks until they are into another job, but until it runs out. A lot of people, friends, neighbors, Internet pals, name it. I know many homes in my neighborhood on the Great Lake Erie waterfront are for sale for the last few years, yet do not sell. I know people who are selling them that cannot afford them, and are losing them now. Many neighbors. A scary amount of people in my small life, just south of the big city of Detroit that was hit incredibly hard by the plant layoffs. But this does not effect the auto industry alone. No they gave these people "buy outs" who in turn took their money and moved away, out of this state.
People cannot afford health care on 700 bucks every two weeks. Tell me if your kid wasn't sick that you wouldn't do just about anything to help them? Including burning a hospital down in protest? How far would you go?
What if you weren't alone and there were hundreds if not thousands of you who were sleeping on mattresses I have seen pop up as of late under the freeways overpasses. Regular families who are out of a job and out of a home and too scared to stay in shelters with crack-heads, sleeping under overpasses.
What if you all banded together to publicly display your dissent of the American Government. Some people might call this a riot, but one thing is for sure. During civil unrest gas trucks stop showing up to gas stations. A thinly stretched military finds it impossible to control civil unrest in our larger cities. The cities drain of resources and food, and eventually clean water and the peoples begin spreading out to find the things they need to live, and taking them when found.
Patrols round up people who practically volunteer to be shuttled off to the REX 84 imprison camps that were set up just in case this ever came to be. There they get as many meals a day as they can eat and all the fresh water and bunks they can use. This is used to lure in roving people who refuse to calm themselves and bow to the dangling food and water offered up by the government who led them into false mortgages and the jobless hell that was about to befall them in the first place.
Since the average person goes hungry within a couple of days and can die of thirst the same, how far away are we from this worst case scenario?
Can we really speak as to what we would and would never do in the name of feeding our children from a government who is run by a president who left us high and dry, and the idiots who voted for him knowing full well in his history he had bankrupt 4 companies before the ripe old age of 50?
Do we deserve any different?
It makes you wonder if a blowjob isn't such a bad thing...
For the first time in my life I actually know people who are collecting unemployment. Not for a few weeks until they are into another job, but until it runs out. A lot of people, friends, neighbors, Internet pals, name it. I know many homes in my neighborhood on the Great Lake Erie waterfront are for sale for the last few years, yet do not sell. I know people who are selling them that cannot afford them, and are losing them now. Many neighbors. A scary amount of people in my small life, just south of the big city of Detroit that was hit incredibly hard by the plant layoffs. But this does not effect the auto industry alone. No they gave these people "buy outs" who in turn took their money and moved away, out of this state.
People cannot afford health care on 700 bucks every two weeks. Tell me if your kid wasn't sick that you wouldn't do just about anything to help them? Including burning a hospital down in protest? How far would you go?
What if you weren't alone and there were hundreds if not thousands of you who were sleeping on mattresses I have seen pop up as of late under the freeways overpasses. Regular families who are out of a job and out of a home and too scared to stay in shelters with crack-heads, sleeping under overpasses.
What if you all banded together to publicly display your dissent of the American Government. Some people might call this a riot, but one thing is for sure. During civil unrest gas trucks stop showing up to gas stations. A thinly stretched military finds it impossible to control civil unrest in our larger cities. The cities drain of resources and food, and eventually clean water and the peoples begin spreading out to find the things they need to live, and taking them when found.
Patrols round up people who practically volunteer to be shuttled off to the REX 84 imprison camps that were set up just in case this ever came to be. There they get as many meals a day as they can eat and all the fresh water and bunks they can use. This is used to lure in roving people who refuse to calm themselves and bow to the dangling food and water offered up by the government who led them into false mortgages and the jobless hell that was about to befall them in the first place.
Since the average person goes hungry within a couple of days and can die of thirst the same, how far away are we from this worst case scenario?
Can we really speak as to what we would and would never do in the name of feeding our children from a government who is run by a president who left us high and dry, and the idiots who voted for him knowing full well in his history he had bankrupt 4 companies before the ripe old age of 50?
Do we deserve any different?
It makes you wonder if a blowjob isn't such a bad thing...
Monday, March 31, 2008
Amazon Taking Over The World, and What I Learned As A BookSeller
Amazon has the publishing world up in arms with BookSurge. If you don't know what I am talking about please take a second to Google it because I don't have a lot of interest in rehashing everything I have learned and applying proper credit.
That being said...
A lot of people are thinking Amazon is wicked evil for taking over the POD (print on demand) feature off some publishers books and making them only available through BookSurge, an Amazon subsidiary. A lot of people forgot that Barnes & Noble tried to do this years ago and were turned down due to the whole monopoly issue-antitrust-whatever. I think this has changed for one reason. You are going to soon be able to buy a Print On Demand printing machine for the low low cost of 50k give or take, which will sure as we are only paying 50 bucks for a microwave now, going to get cheaper.
Technology, you just can't stop it. You can't really boycott Amazon unless you want to disappear. You can however use their traffic to get people to your site, which is all most of those publishers who sell POD books are actually doing. I did this as a bookseller. For example, if you buy a book from a seller names WhiskeyJunction_Com-you can pretty much put together that its a publisher whose link you might want to check out, no? So you get 50% of your gross taken when someone buys from Amazon, but you can track and now as a publisher, that many people found you through Amazon, and you didn't have to pay a thing for the traffic. (Thanks Amazon?) Which anyone running a business knows is priceless. You would be stupid not to take advantage of Amazon for anything they offer.
I learned this as a small book seller trying to pay the bills while I wrote my own books.
Another horrid thing about Amazon is one-cent-books (OCB's). Home-sellers, that is anyone who can secure books from anywhere and sell them out of their home, can turn a profit on Amazon while avoiding their fees by selling books for one cent. Since media mail (USPS) shipping (and often first class) are 2.13, Amazon charges 3.99 to ship and credits it to your account. With the sale price of one cent--they can't get a percentage from one cent as its less than a cent. So you see a ton of home-sellers with really bad shipping, damaged product, and customer service records making a killing and cutting out Independent Books Stores, because no one else can afford to sell books for one cent, new or used, and still sleep at night with the amount of books it takes to move to turn a profit. If you sell 800 books a day for one cent, and make 35 cents a piece off the shipping, you are doing pretty damn good. So what if 100 of those books has a complaint, your still averaging a great turnover with the majority of your customers not complaining.
This must stop, and I am sure Amazon is sick of losing their percentages due to this little snafu.
Also if you are only paying one cent for a book, why not hop on over to one of the FREE paperback trading sites? How is it legal we cannot "trade" music, but we can trade books? Many writers and reading groups trade books, without giving a thought to the fact that the industry they love is suffering because of it. I am not talking Grisham here of course, who was at one time selling books out of his trunk to survive mind you, but up and comers who might never make it because the profits are not there. All of these things should have monthly fees installed to get some money back to the people who own the rights. It only makes sense if you have a reading group, organize, get fees, and keep the good books coming by at least buying new books, or books from libraries only.
Amazon's Kindle makes it impossible (for now) to trade and share your ebooks, without giving someone your Kindle machine and password. While great publishers like Ellora's Cave, might not be able to afford their own technology, I believe they can share the Kindle technology for a fee. And why shouldn't Amazon get a fee?
Getting free books from your friends and strangers online sounds like a great idea, but in all actuality, your only screwing yourself out of great books that haven't even been written yet.
I believe even if we have to ride the coat tails of the evil wicked empire that might be Amazon in the future, it is a necessary step in the right direction.
Look for Amazon to start suing the living poop out of swapping sites to trade books they printed at BookSurge, and every other publisher hoppin on board with that.
Good!
Making literature worth something is never a bad thing, and you will see more authors self publishing and keeping up with the big dogs in profit as well as popularity.
Isn't that what America is all about?
That being said...
A lot of people are thinking Amazon is wicked evil for taking over the POD (print on demand) feature off some publishers books and making them only available through BookSurge, an Amazon subsidiary. A lot of people forgot that Barnes & Noble tried to do this years ago and were turned down due to the whole monopoly issue-antitrust-whatever. I think this has changed for one reason. You are going to soon be able to buy a Print On Demand printing machine for the low low cost of 50k give or take, which will sure as we are only paying 50 bucks for a microwave now, going to get cheaper.
Technology, you just can't stop it. You can't really boycott Amazon unless you want to disappear. You can however use their traffic to get people to your site, which is all most of those publishers who sell POD books are actually doing. I did this as a bookseller. For example, if you buy a book from a seller names WhiskeyJunction_Com-you can pretty much put together that its a publisher whose link you might want to check out, no? So you get 50% of your gross taken when someone buys from Amazon, but you can track and now as a publisher, that many people found you through Amazon, and you didn't have to pay a thing for the traffic. (Thanks Amazon?) Which anyone running a business knows is priceless. You would be stupid not to take advantage of Amazon for anything they offer.
I learned this as a small book seller trying to pay the bills while I wrote my own books.
Another horrid thing about Amazon is one-cent-books (OCB's). Home-sellers, that is anyone who can secure books from anywhere and sell them out of their home, can turn a profit on Amazon while avoiding their fees by selling books for one cent. Since media mail (USPS) shipping (and often first class) are 2.13, Amazon charges 3.99 to ship and credits it to your account. With the sale price of one cent--they can't get a percentage from one cent as its less than a cent. So you see a ton of home-sellers with really bad shipping, damaged product, and customer service records making a killing and cutting out Independent Books Stores, because no one else can afford to sell books for one cent, new or used, and still sleep at night with the amount of books it takes to move to turn a profit. If you sell 800 books a day for one cent, and make 35 cents a piece off the shipping, you are doing pretty damn good. So what if 100 of those books has a complaint, your still averaging a great turnover with the majority of your customers not complaining.
This must stop, and I am sure Amazon is sick of losing their percentages due to this little snafu.
Also if you are only paying one cent for a book, why not hop on over to one of the FREE paperback trading sites? How is it legal we cannot "trade" music, but we can trade books? Many writers and reading groups trade books, without giving a thought to the fact that the industry they love is suffering because of it. I am not talking Grisham here of course, who was at one time selling books out of his trunk to survive mind you, but up and comers who might never make it because the profits are not there. All of these things should have monthly fees installed to get some money back to the people who own the rights. It only makes sense if you have a reading group, organize, get fees, and keep the good books coming by at least buying new books, or books from libraries only.
Amazon's Kindle makes it impossible (for now) to trade and share your ebooks, without giving someone your Kindle machine and password. While great publishers like Ellora's Cave, might not be able to afford their own technology, I believe they can share the Kindle technology for a fee. And why shouldn't Amazon get a fee?
Getting free books from your friends and strangers online sounds like a great idea, but in all actuality, your only screwing yourself out of great books that haven't even been written yet.
I believe even if we have to ride the coat tails of the evil wicked empire that might be Amazon in the future, it is a necessary step in the right direction.
Look for Amazon to start suing the living poop out of swapping sites to trade books they printed at BookSurge, and every other publisher hoppin on board with that.
Good!
Making literature worth something is never a bad thing, and you will see more authors self publishing and keeping up with the big dogs in profit as well as popularity.
Isn't that what America is all about?
Sickness In Someone You Love & Moving Off Ur Couch
My husband is sick tonight. I baked some chicken and he ate that and tatoes, we napped and then he woke up yakking out both ends. It's tough seeing a man who is usually very strong end up in a mushy helpless pile of man-goo.
That being said, I moved off my usual writing perch to give him the big couch so he could lay down. Whell... quite simply it sucks on this other couch. It's short and one cushion is flat on one end. You are kind in the way going into the kitchen, not that he's going to be hungry anytime soon (LOL) and the light shines in my eyes. There is no foot stool so I am using a bar chair, and the level just isn't right. One of my really long legs keeps going numb. Also my tummy keeps making noises, but I know I would have been sick already if I got it.
I am thinking he picked something up when taking back beer cans and rubbed his nose or forgot to wash his hands.
We are such fragile creatures inside, are we not?
That being said, I moved off my usual writing perch to give him the big couch so he could lay down. Whell... quite simply it sucks on this other couch. It's short and one cushion is flat on one end. You are kind in the way going into the kitchen, not that he's going to be hungry anytime soon (LOL) and the light shines in my eyes. There is no foot stool so I am using a bar chair, and the level just isn't right. One of my really long legs keeps going numb. Also my tummy keeps making noises, but I know I would have been sick already if I got it.
I am thinking he picked something up when taking back beer cans and rubbed his nose or forgot to wash his hands.
We are such fragile creatures inside, are we not?
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Fitting-In With The Writing Crawd For Newbies
I decided to write this little article because I have experienced so much malice and just rip-roarin assholeism in the writing industry. So much so that the publishers and editors were nothing compared to the rudeness of some of these people.
Every publisher tells you to run your work by other writers, readers, anyone you can get to give you an opinion. I suspect mainly this is because most people simply suck from the beginning. That's ok, if you think man what a bitch, but depending on how long you have been writing, if you go back and look at some of your earlier works, read them, and don't laugh or at least flush a little red, I will be amazed. The fact is we all grow, learn, and get much, much better as we go. I don't care who you are. But also what they do not tell you, is exposing your work to others gets you used to criticism. They tell you for this reason, do not use your family. I don't use my family for censorship reasons, I would guffaw if I knew they were reading my stuff and the last thing i would want to do is discuss it with them. But, you really should use other people so you can see that there are assholes out there in the world who will bash your work, and its very good for you.
Some writing groups I join even bash my personality, and get very personal. I suspect this is because they are jerks and enjoy putting an outspoken woman in her place, regardless of whether she deserves it or not, but this only makes me smile. People that don't like me, will point out every flaw, whether actual or not, and you get good results.
Anyone who has had an actual living breathing life for more than 20 years, knows that it takes all kinds. And therefore you must get used to criticism, and learning writing 101 from an editor or publisher, is a waste of their time and yours.
So, do not let these people push you around. Remember, they serve a valuable purpose. If you have a lot of work to do, you are going to hear about it. In fact the more annoying you can be and the more buttons you can push...will get you many, many people just dying to line up and read your stuff and tell you what they think about it.
Priceless.
Every publisher tells you to run your work by other writers, readers, anyone you can get to give you an opinion. I suspect mainly this is because most people simply suck from the beginning. That's ok, if you think man what a bitch, but depending on how long you have been writing, if you go back and look at some of your earlier works, read them, and don't laugh or at least flush a little red, I will be amazed. The fact is we all grow, learn, and get much, much better as we go. I don't care who you are. But also what they do not tell you, is exposing your work to others gets you used to criticism. They tell you for this reason, do not use your family. I don't use my family for censorship reasons, I would guffaw if I knew they were reading my stuff and the last thing i would want to do is discuss it with them. But, you really should use other people so you can see that there are assholes out there in the world who will bash your work, and its very good for you.
Some writing groups I join even bash my personality, and get very personal. I suspect this is because they are jerks and enjoy putting an outspoken woman in her place, regardless of whether she deserves it or not, but this only makes me smile. People that don't like me, will point out every flaw, whether actual or not, and you get good results.
Anyone who has had an actual living breathing life for more than 20 years, knows that it takes all kinds. And therefore you must get used to criticism, and learning writing 101 from an editor or publisher, is a waste of their time and yours.
So, do not let these people push you around. Remember, they serve a valuable purpose. If you have a lot of work to do, you are going to hear about it. In fact the more annoying you can be and the more buttons you can push...will get you many, many people just dying to line up and read your stuff and tell you what they think about it.
Priceless.
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