THE Group for Authors! discussion

Wondering how Goodreads decision on amazon (starting on 1/30, Goodreads will break book links with amazon) will affect authors enrolled in the select program? I, for one, have no other sell site--at least not until March 30. Would appreciate any comments. If I'm missing something, feel free to let me know.

Thanks for asking this since I must have missed the original announcement. Does your publisher have a site? You can use that a the link for your book.

They are currently scanning for other sites where the book is available, so most will probably not be affected.

Lorna, in Kindle Select, the rights are exclusive to listing on Amazon, so authors must pull their e-books from other sites for 90 days. This will hurt them for the duration of their stay in the program as e-books do not require ISBNs - which Goodreads will use to obtain information. Amazon assigns their own in-house number to each Kindle book.

I didn't opt into Select, so my e-books are available on Nook and won't be effected. Also, I own all the print ISBNs for my books, thus not limited to Amazon - via Createspace - as the only source of information.

Stephen wrote: "Wondering how Goodreads decision on amazon (starting on 1/30, Goodreads will break book links with amazon) will affect authors enrolled in the select program? I, for one, have no other sell site--a..."
My publisher is createspace, and I didn't use createspace to format my ebook. I went strictly through the kdp program. I'm sure there's other authors affected by goodreads decision. If goodreads doesn't find a way to make accommodations for kdp select authors who are members here, there will be no choice--at least for me.

Stephen, do you use an ISBN assigned by Createspace? Createspace is owned by Amazon, meaning your print books maybe limited to Amazon if you don't have the expanded distribution, which can place your book on Barnes & Noble and other sites.

Having my own ISBNs, I'm the publisher of record (Allon Books), so I'm not tied to Createspace/Amazon.

My husband formats my e-books so we can upload them anywhere.

The kdp select program restricts its users to exclusivity solely with amazon.com for a period of 90 days. To do otherwise is a violation of that contract. Therefore, I had to take my book down from the other sites where it was on sale, including my own website. I'm sure other kdp select authors are in the same boat and could add their comments.

GR have said that they are keeping the KDP link with Amazon msg 102 - its the "other publishers" that come via amazon that are going.

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/7....

In addition, there is nothing stopping the manual addition of new books to the database - it happens all the time.

With all due respect, after going through that thread I can see that other intelligent readers and authors are equally upset and confused, and reading through the posts does nothing to make me less confused. Is goodreads making this decision because they think it's the best decision to make or because it's technically necessary? If the latter, than I can understand the reasons and hope that simple tutorials and extensive help are offered, or many, many members of this site are going to go elsewhere.

All books will remain on the site. Goodreads will not be losing books, even if they're only for sale from Amazon. The only difference is that the data for all the books will no longer automatically import from Amazon. They will use alternative sources such as Barnes and Noble, WorldCat, etc. to get cover art, ISBNs, descriptions, publication date, etc. There is no reason why anyone would leave the site when the change is a background change. You can't tell from looking at a book listing whether or not it came from Amazon or Barnes and Noble. The only thing is, if Goodreads gets its information from Amazon, Amazon has strings attached to that data. For any books currently sourced from Amazon, there cannot be a buy link to another site (B&N, BAM, Half.com, etc.)

GR is a book cataloging site - your book(s) can still have an entry on this site for readers cataloging usage regardless of Amazon publishing / selling policy. The way GR works for end users is exactly the same so I am not sure why you think simple tutorials are required.

While I appreciate as Authors you want to sell books that is not GR's primary focus and as such moving away from Amazon's data and the restrictions that they put on use of "their" data is good for GR.

Users currently have the ability to configure their own buy links to different bookselling sites and not using Amazon's data any more should now mean that there is no longer a need for the mandatory link to Amazon that takes up space on these links for people who do not use amazon to buy books

I can understand and appreciate your points, and I actually think it's good if goodreads and other sites, including ebook selling sites, are figuring out how to maintain their integrity and sovereignty with respect to amazon's monopolistic power plays. I've gotten good feedback from those who've posted here. Not that it's a big deal in the scheme of things....but the way the message was conveyed was in the form of a warning (from GR) and it was confusing. I did follow the steps to rescue the book, so it should be fine.

Like many, I was unaware of the original message (which can be found here: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/7... ). I have none of my books in the Kindle programme although they are available on Kindle but the print versions are made by Createspace. However, the ISBNs belong to me and the publishing is done by my company Secret Paths Editions. I have "rescued" my books ... the process was quite efficient and easily done.
I just wonder what conditions Amazon put on the use of their database...

Yes. I would offer my book for free here--I'm not so concerned at this point with making money--but the "contract" doesn't allow that.

For all those of you who have opted not to bow to Amazon's exclusivity demands:

What say we organize a coordinated response? I suggest we all make our books available on Smashwords, if they're not already, then create a coupon to make them free for a month. We can then spend the month promoting the hell out of Smashwords to let readers know they have an alternative source for good books in any format they need them in.

This not only serves as a promotional effort for our individual books, but it boosts Smashwords visibility as well. Readers without Kindles may become regular customers. And the books we give away count as promotional items are good for write-offs on our taxes (in the U.S., at least).

We could call the campaign "SelectTHIS"!

I was completely shocked by this when I first heard people talking about their books needing rescuing and that Goodreads was no longer using Amazon to obtain information about books.

I nearly freaked when I never received a message that said my books needed rescuing. I checked and they seem to be fine. I'm guessing that as long as you are not in the Select program and have your book available at Barnes & Noble you have nothing to worry about.

Bridget wrote: "I was completely shocked by this when I first heard people talking about their books needing rescuing and that Goodreads was no longer using Amazon to obtain information about books.

I nearly frea..."

Whether your book is part of Amazon Select or not has no bearing on whether or not you'll need to rescue it. In fact, if you are published through KDP, you don't need to worry at all. We will get a feed of your book's data from Amazon (since they are acting as a kind of publisher for those books).

Those of you also publishing in print might be interested in the war that Amazon has precipitated with Barnes & Noble:

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/...

Good for Barnes & Noble. Someone needs to stand up to Amazon.

Shawn wrote: "Good for Barnes & Noble. Someone needs to stand up to Amazon."

I agree in principle, though the net result of all of this is that the self-publishing industry is going to resemble the movie industry of the 40s. Each author is going to be under contract to one distribution channel. But this is worse, some authors will only able to "appear" to the audiences approved by the distributor. Kindle owners see ONLY KDP authors. Non-Kindle-ereader owners are prohibited from seeing them. Now the same is beginning to happen for print authors.

With print books every author - traditional or indie - is already obligated to a 'distribution' channel, since only a few exist. That isn't going to change. Presently we have to upload our e-books to various formats, so how is that a problem? There are apps for computers to read Kindle or Nook books, that won't be effected.

The one good thing about the 40s studio model, is there was a standard. Right now, it's like the wild west in publishing. Not everyone who can publish a book should be published. So good may come out of it.

I'm referring to where a reader can make a purchase. Maybe I should say "outlet," rather than distributor. I publish print books through CreateSpace, an Amazon subsidiary. These books are currently available from CreateSpace, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and through other "expanded" distribution channels. Any bookstore can stock or order them.

I own a non-Kindle e-reader and cannot access Amazon's proprietary-format e-books. (On the other hand, my reader CAN read the non-DRM e-books from B&N because they're in the universal epub format.)

Yes, I have the Kindle app for my PC, but I don't read entire books that way. Who wants to take a PC to bed, into the bath, or onto a train or bus to read? Reading should be a relaxing affair; that requires a print book or an e-reader.

Amazon's forcing the reader to limit access to content by choosing one reader over another. This is like a movie studio making their content available for only one brand of DVD player. If you want to see our movies, buy our player. But then you can't see anyone else's movies. The model sucks.

An iPad can substitute for an e-reader with a Kindle App, and do much more in accessing the internet. Readers are already limited in access with their individual readers. Which is why places like Smashwords make so many different version.

The DVD player model doesn't work. In the 40s studios owned various movie houses - to that's a better example to the studio system. Beta and VHS have been long been eliminated. Sorry, we worked in Hollywood, so I know that end of the business. :)

I do understand your frustration, and not meaning to minimize it. Just good old fashion debate.:)

I too use Createspace and expanded distribution. If that went, well Lulu is more expensive, but I wouldn't be without any options with Baker & Taylor or Ingram. This is also one reason I encourage authors to move beyond depending solely online to physical sales at events. By going directly to one's audience an author can by passes distribution and all this mess.

OK. I disagree about the hypothetical comparison to movies paired with players (virtually all movies were available in both Beta and VHS formats). But lets imagine a different industry: what Amazon is doing is like Apple telling independent developers that they can only write s/w for Apple devices and can't make a PC version available. If Apple wants to create Apple-only s/w, fine. But telling, say, Adobe, it can't sell Photoshop for PCs if it wants to sell it for Macs is a different story.

Whichever analogy we use (and they're always imperfect), the limiting of content to specific hardware platforms is the problem. It screws content creators and content consumers alike.

If Amazon wants to sell its reader, then make it better than the competition's reader. If it wants to publish content, then let the quality of that content sell itself. If they've got good products they don't need to paint consumers into a corner with exclusivity. It's monopolistic.

Oh, agreed, Amazon is acting monopolistic, and Apple didn't learn from the situation with Microsoft and the lawsuits that lead to break up back in 2000-2004.

Amazon could be heading the same direction if the UK investigation into Amazon's predatory pricing leads to another "Microsoft" type lawsuit. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/artic...
Which could be beneficial if Amazon is broken up into smaller companies.

But whatever analogy one wishes to use, we won't know how it all shakes out until this over. For us, it means we keep our noses clean and careful eye on our books.

Shawn: that article is interesting. It appears that Amazon has expanded agency pricing, which was started with ebooks, to all products it is offering. Wow. Let the investigations begin!

The interesting thing about Amazon's ebook agency pricing is that it wasn't Amazon who started it. It was Apple and the five of the NY Big Six publishers. From the first moment on I argued that agency pricing is illegal, that the investigations in the UK were just the start, and was not surprised when the lawsuits and attorney general investigations were launched in the US. (My blog post on this: http://mademers.com/globalindieauthor...).

I've also been interested in how the war between Apple and Amazon has resulted in more wars over format: http://mademers.com/globalindieauthor....

Where this will go, nobody knows.

Marty: you can read DRMed ePubs from any outlet that sells them as Adobe DRM. You sign up for a free Adobe Digital Editions account and when you buy a book you "open" it first through ADE, which links the book to your account, not to your device. You can have up to six devices registered to one account. It means, too, that if a device becomes obsolete, you don't lose your library. You just deregister that device and register the new one.

Thanks for the article link, MA. It also should make authors think about offering their e-books for free.
It could have a similar impact as Napster. Just food for thought before jumping on the Select bandwagon and getting caught in the cross-fire of illegal pricing.

M.A. wrote: "Marty: you can read DRMed ePubs from any outlet that sells them as Adobe DRM. You sign up for a free Adobe Digital Editions account..."

Thanks for the advice. But as far as I know, nothing from Amazon is available for that treatment; they're all proprietary .azw files. Right?

I'm having no problem with .epub and .mobi files from Smashwords and direct from authors. I just can't buy anything from Amazon for my ereader.

Correct. If your reader is an ePub reader, then Amazon's DRMed azw files are no good; you can't convert them using, for example, Calibre.

You can say your book is in the Kindle Select freebie program on here. You just can't sell it through this site. Amazon said I can even put up their link, which than shows a photo of the cover. I just had to remove all the selling through Goodreads stuff.

Hey, all—

I just got an email from fReado, where my book excerpts are available, that contradicts what I've been reading here about Amazon prohibiting such excerpts for KDP Select participants. It reads:

Why the Amazon KDP Select DOES NOT Affect BookBuzzr Authors
You probably know that the KDP Select program from Amazon has taken the publishing world by storm. A few BookBuzzr authors have written to ask whether it is ok to use BookBuzzr technologies (particularly excerpts) to market their books enrolled in the KDP Select program. We spent considerable time researching the issue and have arrived at the conclusion that it is perfectly fine to use BookBuzzr technologies. Further, an author has been advised by Amazon support that offering excerpts is allowed. This blog post (http://bit.ly/wAa6IN) provides a detailed analysis of the issue.