By Kindle Nation's Intern Staff
Always good to know that we aren't alone in asking the above-linked question a few days ago with regard to the several publishers' latest adventure in the retail pricing of ebooks. Kindle Nation UK citizens have our back, and we have yours.
Many UK readers are doing more than just asking. They are protesting the imposition of agency model price-fixing schemes on the UK Kindle Store.
How? They are giving bad reviews to books whose prices are doubling or, in some cases, tripling.
From the U.K. Guardian’s newsdesk: “Authors found themselves in the firing line this week as fans furious at sudden rises in Amazon’s Kindle prices protested by giving their books one-star reviews on the retailer’s website.”
Iain Banks, Stephen King, Maeve Binchy, Elizabeth Buchan and Michael McIntyre are among the "victims."
“The Kindle price for this book is absurd. I suggest people do not buy any version of this book until the publisher stops this farce,” wrote one reviewer of a Stephen King title.
Kindle customers are loyal, but they are also angry, and they are entitled to be frustrated with Amazon discounts that are disappearing from the Kindle storefront.
“Many digital editions now cost the same as printed books, with some costing more. Readers responded angrily. Among more than 600 comments on the Kindle forum at Amazon.co.uk were many accusing the publishers of greed,” the Guardian reports.
Greed? Publishers? Just so.
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| Jennifer Becton |
As author-reader Jennifer Becton (right) wrote in a comment on our previous post:
- Wow, the genius of this desicion is simply staggering. They have devised a way to dig their graves even faster! Impressive. But what is really impressive is that they have now given the consumer greater power to speak with their book-buying dollar or pound. Hmmm...Do I want to spend $20 on an ebook from Penguin or buy 2-6 equally enjoyable ebooks from other publishers? Tough decision.
Couldn't have said it better ourselves, Jennifer.
And those poor author "victims" who are reaping the reward of 1-star reviews and lower royalties as a result of their publishers' greed? They might do well to study the wisdom of authors like Jennifer Becton, J.A. Konrath and even the Ian Fleming estate who have taken steps to build positive relationships with readers -- while earning higher royalties and far more positive review ratings -- by dropping the intermediation of traditional publishers altogether. Becton's novel Charlotte Collins: A Continuation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice
has a 5-star rating and a nice price in the Kindle Store, and she makes more for each copy sold than many bestselling traditionally published novelists.
has a 5-star rating and a nice price in the Kindle Store, and she makes more for each copy sold than many bestselling traditionally published novelists.
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The next step is for the authors to band together to put pressure on the publishers.
ReplyDeleteWe should have done this in the U.S., but because we had been committed to kindle books for two years already, we weren't as outraged as we should have been.
Thanks to our UK friends for carrying the banner.