by lepus on 12/30/23, 8:07 PM with 119 comments
by joabaldwin on 12/30/23, 9:42 PM
In her case, she ordered author copies (that gives you no royalties, of course) and got the same copies sold again to herself as author copies.
In my case, I also ordered author copies, but they were resold to a normal customer after I returned them.
From an order of 50 author copies, I returned 14. Packaging was fine, so it wasn’t a problem with how they bumped up during shipping. They were misprinted, or had folded covers (they tear easily after a fold, really bad), some were printed beyond the bleed area (that’s what bleed is for, you can’t be printing beyond it), and a few were printed slightly off angle. One particularly bad copy was even cut an inch smaller than it should’ve been, trimming every single page and cover, text and all.
So yeah, that’s why I returned them. But I do give you that some of those defects would go completely unseen by someone at a warehouse. You flip through the book, all pages seem to be there, but how is a person there supposed to know what the margins of the book look like? But most errors would not pass a regular printing press QC, particularly the damaged covers.
Also, Amazon both prints and distributes these books, so QC is in their hands from the start.
by manicennui on 12/30/23, 10:02 PM
by sparky_z on 12/30/23, 8:47 PM
> Of note: if a customer orders a copy from Amazon, and a damaged, returned book is shipped to them instead, no new KDP printing orders kick in. This means I don’t get paid at all, because they only pay me when a book is printed.
Why wouldn't this be true? Why would a return that is then resold result in a double royalty payment? Is that something that happens for traditionally-published books that are returned and resold?
It might have to do with the fact that these particular books were "author's copies" but I don't have enough information about how those work in a print-on-demand context to know whether this actually results in a loss of royalties in this case. Did they pay for them to be printed as a self publisher or were they provided for free as part of a contract with an external publisher? Does Amazon's internal system distinguish between "author" copies" and other orders, or do you just order some copies of your own book via the standard interface? Would the author's replacement copies go through that same system or would they be printed like normal and incur royalties? No idea.
by gurchik on 12/31/23, 12:28 AM
by lepus on 12/30/23, 8:16 PM
by pcurve on 12/30/23, 9:02 PM
Their screening policy for returned items may have changed.
by optshun on 12/30/23, 9:36 PM
Unsure about you all but there’s only one reason I might use a square of toilet paper as a bookmark.
by OJFord on 12/30/23, 8:42 PM
I assume what's being left implicit is that they're actually not paid for the 'KDP printing order' if it ends up returned? So then when someone else orders and receives that one and doesn't return it, there's a printed copy that was never paid out for?
by Keverw on 12/31/23, 7:10 AM
by karaterobot on 12/30/23, 11:19 PM
by OnAironaut on 12/30/23, 8:40 PM
by Judson on 12/30/23, 11:53 PM
This is good enough since someone buying the used copy can also return it if they disagree.
by jarjar2_ on 12/30/23, 9:13 PM
by pbnjeh on 12/30/23, 8:57 PM
Not always, but often enough that if I order a book from them, I try to remind myself to to wait to order until nothing else I've ordered has yet to ship. Then wait after I've ordered the book, until the book has shipped, before I order anything else.
I don't order that much from Amazon, but my orders often "cluster". For a recent example, the Christmas holidays. I got a beat up book cover because they upped the delivery date of the book by about a week (newish best seller), while in the meantime I'd ordered a heavy object that always ships the next day and that I didn't want to wait a week plus for. So, jacketed hardcover arrives loose in the oversized space next to big, heavy, sharp edged object, with no padding whatsoever inside the box.
I guess if I'd returned that book, it simply would have gone -- damaged -- to someone else.
by jazzyjackson on 12/30/23, 10:15 PM
by mantra2 on 12/31/23, 4:20 AM
by RecycledEle on 12/31/23, 3:24 AM
> From: Joaquín Baldwin, @joabaldwin > Of note: if a customer orders a copy from Amazon, and a damaged, returned book > is shipped to them instead, no new KDP printing orders kick in. This means I > don’t get paid at all, because they only pay me when a book is printed. They > stole my money while scamming a customer.
So the author wants to be paid royalties on books he says are "damaged" that are brand new but that he says can not be sold to customers?
We recently discussed abuses of copyright law. This qualifies as an abuse of copyright law IMHO.
by nikolay on 12/30/23, 9:27 PM
by doctorpangloss on 12/30/23, 8:39 PM