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Why you shouldn't release your book on Amazon...
2 years ago
Game developer by weekday, furry by weekend and night!
Let me tell you all a story:
Last week on Wednesday morning, UBP messaged me to say my book is now available on Amazon's UK website. Needless to say, I was excited!
After work finished, I posted the tweet, I posted an ad on every UK furry Telegram group I could find, everywhere. Although there was the text "Temporarily Out of Stock" printed in large red text over the "Buy it Now" and "Add to Basket" buttons, some people told me they were able to order a copy with no issue whatsoever.
Then sometime around 9PM, the order buttons were gone.
UBP contacted our distributor's customer service, who said it was Amazon's fault. I'm still waiting for Amazon's excuse, but UBP told me they had this issue with their previous book, telling them it was KDP's fault, who said it was the distributor's.
Incredibly frustrating.
I only learned yesterday that this issue has been around for a while.
Apparently, books from third-party print-on-demand distributors become unavailable, and Amazon's only solution is to use their POD service instead: https://writersweekly.com/ask-the-e.....able-on-amazon.
The only other website the book was available to buy was Barnes & Noble, an American-only bookseller. Our next likely UK candidate is Waterstones, but the book still needs to be published there.
A few other furry writers can empathise with me over spending years on a book only for its launch to be screwed up like this.
This is precisely where I'd say Amazon should be broken up so the market can be more competitive, but that's "political", so I won't say more.
Fortunately, UBP has worked on a few additional solutions in the background. The first one, of course, is selling the book directly on their website. The other is working with independent booksellers, so if any of you sell books at conventions, I can let you know who to email. As for Amazon? I think UBP can still prod them to fix their "mistake" but right now, selling directly is the best and most reliable option.
You can buy the Kindle version but a DRM-free eBook version will be coming soon anyways, so I recommend waiting for that. In conclusion: Fuck you Amazon and fuck you Jeff Bezos, you wouldn't be a business without authors and publishers, and you're just screwing us over.
Thanks for reading all the way through. Remember, if you want to buy my first book, Furtannia: The History of the Furry Fandom of the United Kingdom, buy it here: https://unclebearpublishing.com/furtannia.html.
Last week on Wednesday morning, UBP messaged me to say my book is now available on Amazon's UK website. Needless to say, I was excited!
After work finished, I posted the tweet, I posted an ad on every UK furry Telegram group I could find, everywhere. Although there was the text "Temporarily Out of Stock" printed in large red text over the "Buy it Now" and "Add to Basket" buttons, some people told me they were able to order a copy with no issue whatsoever.
Then sometime around 9PM, the order buttons were gone.
UBP contacted our distributor's customer service, who said it was Amazon's fault. I'm still waiting for Amazon's excuse, but UBP told me they had this issue with their previous book, telling them it was KDP's fault, who said it was the distributor's.
Incredibly frustrating.
I only learned yesterday that this issue has been around for a while.
Apparently, books from third-party print-on-demand distributors become unavailable, and Amazon's only solution is to use their POD service instead: https://writersweekly.com/ask-the-e.....able-on-amazon.
The only other website the book was available to buy was Barnes & Noble, an American-only bookseller. Our next likely UK candidate is Waterstones, but the book still needs to be published there.
A few other furry writers can empathise with me over spending years on a book only for its launch to be screwed up like this.
This is precisely where I'd say Amazon should be broken up so the market can be more competitive, but that's "political", so I won't say more.
Fortunately, UBP has worked on a few additional solutions in the background. The first one, of course, is selling the book directly on their website. The other is working with independent booksellers, so if any of you sell books at conventions, I can let you know who to email. As for Amazon? I think UBP can still prod them to fix their "mistake" but right now, selling directly is the best and most reliable option.
You can buy the Kindle version but a DRM-free eBook version will be coming soon anyways, so I recommend waiting for that. In conclusion: Fuck you Amazon and fuck you Jeff Bezos, you wouldn't be a business without authors and publishers, and you're just screwing us over.
Thanks for reading all the way through. Remember, if you want to buy my first book, Furtannia: The History of the Furry Fandom of the United Kingdom, buy it here: https://unclebearpublishing.com/furtannia.html.
