great. lovely. perfect.

[alexconall]

So Amazon's being a bully. Again. This time it's the publisher Hachette that they're trying to strongarm. And frankly I am sick to death of Amazon's bull.

I think tomorrow I'm going down to the local indie bookstore with a list of the books I have on preorder at Amazon and going "hey do you do preorders". And assuming they can preorder them all for me, I am then cancelling my Amazon preorders saying "found cheaper somewhere else", comment to the tune of "I find that supporting bullying of publishers and the authors who depend on those publishers is a price I am unwilling to pay", on every single preorder. I have seven, counting only the hardcopy books, and I can maybe find the DVDs and the CD for preorder on BN.com. And then cancel my Amazon Prime membership into the bargain.

My problem is (as it has been since the Kindle Worlds nonsense started) that I'm a self-published author, and I like print books, and used books are a marvelous thing and they don't exist in electronic format. Neither do ebooks that can be read without an expensive piece of electronics, which provides a barrier to entry to reading for the sufficiently poor; used print books have a much lower price tag. Who the hell goes to lulu.com to browse for books? As far as I know, Lulu doesn't distribute to other booksellers, either. And as far as I know, my choices for self-publication in print are Lulu and Amazon CreateSpace. Also, if I don't have copies of my books available for sale on Amazon, I'm shooting myself in the foot sales-wise. (And I can't pull A Dinner of Herbs off Amazon without the consent of my co-conspirator, anyway.)

How do I resolve this? How do I as a self-pub author stop supporting Amazon without hurting myself a lot worse than I hurt them?

crossposted from conallpublications.com

Comments

Solutions

[dialecticdreamer]

I have no idea how you'll solve this as a self-published author (a title I aspire to this year, and MAYBE will reach before age fifty).

I /do/ know that you speaking up, now, and expressing your aggravation and frustration as both a reader and writer have moved your name to the short list of fiction I buy new, rather than used. So hang on, because I think there are a lot of frustrated readers wondering WHICH authors are worth the extra legwork of avoiding Amazon-- you're definitely on that list for me.

PLEASE update here when you find a solution- I'm certain there is at least one that will work.

[sylvaine]

Maybe you can find an alternative in this list comparing Print-on-Demand publishers?

[alexconall]

Awesome. Thanks!

ETA: Glancing over that list, less awesome. I don't know if it is possible, for any publisher on that list bar CreateSpace, for me to publish without forking over a few hundred dollars to the publisher. I don't really have that sort of money. And the only publisher they rate better than CreateSpace has this warning note:

While Virtual Bookworm is not officially a Christian publisher, this company is run by a guy who is pretty religious. The fact that they won't publish material that they deem to be morally objectionable, combined with the fact that they don't fully disclose their position in that regard anywhere in their site, can lead to some rejections that will leave authors scratching their heads.

I realize that mentioning this issue is not entirely fair, as it is based on my personal experience rather than the publisher's site (and that in turn means that this is one area in which I can't possibly hope to make a fair comparison), but at the same time it is something I feel ought to be mentioned. And for the record, this doesn't mean that your book has to be of a religious nature to be published, it just means that a book that openly espouces non-Christian values is unlikely to be accepted.

So uh not really what I'm looking for, you know?

But I'll look at the list more in-depth later.

Re: Solutions

[alexconall]

Aw, blush.

I really hope there's a solution. I just...so sick of Amazon's bull.

[lynnoconnacht]

This might be worth checking out? I've always heard of the self-published print books as "CreateSpace, Lulu, and LightningSource", which is what IngramSparks uses. It's not free, but I'm not entirely whether it ends up cheaper than the sources in the link sylvaine gave you.

And I second the request to update if you find a solution because I'd love to hear it too. ^_^

[sylvaine]

ugh, that's a shame. :( I'm finding it so hard to believe/utterly infuriating that Amazon has managed to make itself the only viable option!!

[alexconall]

At $49 to set up and $12/title/year to distribute, it's a hell of a lot less unreasonable than anything on sylvaine's link bar CreateSpace and Lulu. However, the link quotes prices on CreateSpace and Lulu that include things like cover design that I'd rather get independently from someone who crowdfunds, and it quotes those prices in order to make comparison with the other sources reasonable, which suggests—yeah, I just looked at the top suggestion on that link, and included in the $360 setup fee is formatting, cover design, and possibly other things I'd really rather do myself or pay my own expert for.

$49 plus $12/title/year might be worthwhile to get out from under Amazon as a self-pubber, though. Thanks!

[lynnoconnacht]

I'm glad it looks helpful! I really hope it turns out to be a viable solution for people. It does look like it would be a better solution for people who are more established than us who are just starting out, but even then.

[alexconall]

Nod.

Now all I need is a novel draft and a funded Kickstarter...

[lynnoconnacht]

The draft is in the works, if I recall? My brain is mush this late at night, but I think I remember you talking about novels you were working on.

Isn't Kickstarter also Amazon-based when you're in the US, though?

[alexconall]

There are many drafts in progress. The progress is mostly 'this would be a really cool thing to write, let's try to plot it out a little'.

Fuck. Yes. That is true. IndieGoGo, then.

[lynnoconnacht]

Sounds good! Anything you're particularly excited about?

As potential bonuses, IndieGoGo does let you opt for flexible funding instead of the all-or-nothing approach and it lets people donate without making an account, so that might also help make it more attractive as a crowdfunding source.

[alexconall]

The Shining Ones trilogy: Abraham's Daughter, Mary Mary, and the third is probably called Fatimah the Blessed. Go listen to Arcade Fire's "Abraham's Daughter" and SJ Tucker's "Mary Mary". Doesn't "Abraham's Daughter" have interesting implications for the evolution of Judaism, and therefore Christianity and Islam? The problem is of course that first I have to do all the research on the history of the three major Abrahamic religions. Blow That Trumpet Gabriel (quartet: Leah Far-Sighted, Rachel and the Gods, Rebecca at the Well, Sarah Laughed—Leah is the draft that's furthest along of all my novels in progress) I can do a lot more making it up as I go, but the problem with that is the worldbuilding has to hold together.

This is true!

[lynnoconnacht]

Talk about chilling songs... (What is it with this weekend and giving me chilling songs?) But yes very interesting, indeed. It's all the more chilling for the fact that it doesn't match up to my (admittedly spotty) recollections of those tales because that disconnect is part of the point of it all.

Yay, world-building! I hope it's cooperating with you! It's Leah Far-Sighted I remember you talking about. ^_^

Huzzah for alternatives!