Alva the Indie’s all upset. She has discovered that Roy’s great novel of passion and survival, Jolt: a rural noir, is now available on Amazon.com in second hand copies at a quarter the publisher’s list price. She knows it’s true because she ordered herself a copy just to prove it was not a pirated one. It arrived today. Alva immediately recognized it as a recycled courtesy copy previously distributed at no cost to an interested party. And Alva understood this. As she put it, “Just normal hooman behavior.”
But what really has Alva’s goat is how Amazon.com is able to list the paperback and hard cover editions of Jolt at lower than the publisher’s list price. Such listing has the potential to force ALVA Press, Inc., Jolt‘s publisher, to sell its beautifully designed and print versions of Jolt: a rural noir at a pricing ratio that if it were to become pervasive, would wipe out this small, striving company for which Alva the Indie works, namely, ALVA Press, Inc.
Then what next did Alva do? Exactly as she always does when hungry for more information. She googled topics related to Amazon.com’s pricing, came up with some links, read through them quickly, and at about 11:30, stomped out of the office without a word.
So much for that . . . well, not quite. Because when I checked my email later in the day I found one Alva had sent at 11:22 that morning with nothing more than the following links in it:
http://dhamel.typepad.com/twitterlitnews/2011/06/re-twitrlit-and-the-amazon-affiliate-program.html
Oh, I agree it’s a mess out there–except Alva always takes things so personally.
Nonetheless Alva’s findings have put me to thinking. As CEO here at Alva Press, Inc., I am beginning to believe that it might be better to not distribute the Alva Press, Inc., eBooks on Amazon.com if in the final analysis Amazon is set to undersell Alva Press and/or force ALVA to distribute our eBooks at a rate so low as to drive us out of business. Which raises the question as to whether small presses can exist without Amazon.com.
That said, I’d love to hear what other Indie eBook publishers have to say about the issue of Amazon.com pricing practices.
Roberta in Po-Town, Muddled.
robertamroy 