Amazon is on its own side, of course. In a bizarre counter-intuitive sequence of events:
- author self-publishes through KDP at $3.99
- book gets picked up by commercial publisher and offered at $7.99
- Amazon sends mass e-mail to customers who have bought KDP version, offering refund of $3.99 plus ($7.99 – $3.99) (refund for what and why, you ask?)
and here’s the really evil part
- Amazon doesn’t pay the refund – oh no. That’s up to the author to pay, out of her KDP earnings.
Here’s one account, and here’s the author in her own words:
It appears that Amazon has sent a mass email to everyone who’s ever purchased the self-published version of Beautiful Disaster. They are encouraging readers to request a refund. When asked why they are offering this refund, Amazon customer service has given several different reasons, the most common is problems with content. THERE IS NO PROBLEM WITH THE CONTENT OF BEAUTIFUL DISASTER, and it makes no sense for them to encourage a refund for a book that has already been read and enjoyed 6+ months later, but that is the only information I have for now.
This really didn’t seem real to me when I first saw it, but it appears it is. At least Amazon is not wiping the previously purchased versions off customers’ Kindles (remember, they can do this, all of you who love your ebooks and imagine that there will be a Kindle standard for ever).
That makes absolutely no sense. Problem with content? If there were problems with the content why did a publisher pick it up and why didn’t Amazon do something about the content at day 1 of self-publication?
I wonder if there was more to this story because it seems like there should be. If not, then what exactly is Amazon doing? Are they really punishing the author for getting published?
Yes, I feel there must be more there. It seems utterly ridiculous otherwise, but I have been unable to find out more.
What about the allegations of copyright infringement? The author supposedly used most or all of the lyrics to the song “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones without gaining permission or giving attribution (supposedly; not the sort of book I would read so I have no idea). This could have a bit of an impact on any speculations on the propriety of the actions, I would think.
Rich – agreed, that it adds a little bit of method to the madness, but it seems like a very strange way to go about things, and if Amazon have indeed retracted this, then it appears that (once more) Amazon really has no policies or procedures in place but continues to operate in an ad hoc fashion.
This is hilarious. I hear more shoes dropping.