Amazon Rant

I thought I'd rant a little bit about Amazon.com. I don't know why I'm picking on Amazon, because I have the same problem with BN.com, but Amazon in my mind is the main villain, because the other major on-line booksellers have had to imitate their practices for competitive reasons.

First off, I should say, there's a lot I like about Amazon. While I try to buy the vast majority of my books at local independents, I have bought books at Amazon before and their service has always been reliable, their shipping fast, and there's no beating the convenience. For writers, it's nice to have backlist books stocked at Amazon when they are hard to find elsewhere.

But I have two major gripes with Amazon (and BN), which I'm sure many of you share:

1) Selling used books alongside new books.

2) Displaying reviews alongside books.

First, regarding the selling of used books...I should be clear that I have absolutely nothing against Amazon, or any other store, selling used books on-line. Abebooks.com is one of my favorite sites on the Web and I'm not sure how I ever found out-of-print books without it...My problem with Amazon (and BN) is that the used books are sold right alongside new books. Every writer and publisher despises this. When someone goes to Amazon with the intention of paying full price for a book they should pay full price--end of story. The way it works now is akin to standing on line to purchase a book at your local brick and mortar bookstore and having the salesperson say to you at checkout, "Are you sure you wouldn't rather pay 1 dollar for that 24 dollar book?"... Of course at Amazon, when someone changes their mind and decides to purchase a book used, neither the author nor the publisher profits from the transaction. Naturally, Amazon makes a commission, which is the source of the problem--Amazon doesn't care whether they make their money off the sale of used books or new books--it's all the same to them...In fact (I don't know if anyone has heard this) but Amazon takes into account the sale of used books into their rankings! So you can see your Amazon ranking increasing because of the sale of used books, making the ranking an even more unreliable indicator of a book's overall sales.

As Amazon takes a larger and large share of the book buying market, I think this is becoming more and more of an issue. A simple solution would be for Amazon to continue to sell used books on-line, but NOT on the pages where they sell new books. They should have a separate used bookstore.

OK, now issue 2--the reviews.

I think Amazon should do the right thing and stop displaying any reviews--magazine and newspaper reviews AND readers' reviews--alongside the pages where books are sold. Publishers should have some ability to control how a book is presented to the public and authors shouldn't have to have their books stained for eternity by a bad, or inaccurate review, or--perhaps even worse--a review that gives away the major plot points of their books. Authors have enough obstacles to building a career--they don't need to overcome a final hurdle at the checkout counter...Again, I think it should be the way it works at a physical bookstore. A customer should be able to browse the book and make their own decision about whether they want to buy it. When you're ready to buy a book at your local store, the salesperson doesn't say, "You sure you want to buy that book? It got a bad review in the Library Journal."....Publishers and authors should be allowed to supply the reviews they want readers to see plastered on their books' pages. Amazon should still supply reviews--and allow customers to review--but the reviews should be available on a link to another page--they shouldn't be right there to dissuade a customer who was otherwise interested in making the purchase.

Naturally, Amazon doesn't have to change anything they do. Perhaps they don't care about pissing off writers and publishers, and they probably have hard numbers to back up the effectiveness of their current practices...But if publishers really want to change things I believe they can. In Germany, a major German publisher--a publisher with consistent top-ten bestsellers--recently took the bold step of removing all of their lists' books from the Amazon.de web-site. They were unhappy with Amazon's practices and saw no other way to deal with it. Talks have been taking place between the publisher and Amazon and it is yet to be determined whether the ploy will work. Still, it's an example of how if the major U.S. conglomerates really wanted to do something about the way books are packaged and sold on-line, they could. Major authors, such as Grisham and Patterson, could also make some waves if they wanted to...But it's doubtful this will ever happen...I think too many people are making too much money with the status quo to risk making waves....

Comments

[Jim Winter]

Here's what I don't like at all. The other day, I pulled up Michael Koryta's book (I know. Enough with Koryta already. Everyone knows I'm a fanboy now.) for information to use in a review. ISBN, page count, etc. (This was before I noticed SMP helpfully stuck all that on the back cover.) The book is available for pre-order or...

YOU CAN ALREADY BUY USED FREAKIN' COPIES!?!?!?!

In short, reviewers are selling off their ARCs. Now I don't care if they do that, but could they at least have the courtesy of WAITING UNTIL THE BOOK IS OUT before selling off the enormous pile of ARCs and galleys? I realize a coil or tape bound copy of the Next Big Author may become a collector's item and could fetch big bucks, that a bad review sells a couple of books while a good review sells a few dozen. But don't you think there's something just inherently wrong with selling off unreleased copies, esp. when they're marked NOT FOR RESALE?

/rant

[Jennifer Jordan]

Ah, yes, I see I could get your Twisted City for a mere $7.51! Tack on the inflated shipping cost and I've saved nothing at all, but I still have the satisfaction of having gotten it cheaper...

What Amazone is doind is akin to Napster's file sharing. A potentially great resource for hearing new music you may not have heard otherwise, but the temptation of getting the kick fix and denying the creator just payback for the privilege.

Amazon's lists and recommendations have steered me to music and novels I wouldn't have found out about otherwise. But seeing a book for under a dollar compared to full price will be kind of a no brainer for most shoppers. When I buy, I know the money I'm putting towards full price keeps the author writing and the musicain playing. It's a matter of equilibrium.

But most peeple will opt for the cheap book/cd.

As for the reviews - I don't read them. Synopsis of an unfamiliar book, yes. But reviews mislead and, as you pointed out, reveal far too much about the plot. I want to have everything unfold for me when I read and I would want the same for my own readers. It is possible to write a review without telling the whole tale. I could go off on a tangent, but I'll restrain myself. This is an issue that irks me no end.

[Jason Starr]

Jim,
I once ARCs of my novel HARD FEELINGS on sale on eBay before I'd received any myself!!!
JS

[Jennifer Jordan]

Damn! That is just plain rude!

I don't sell ARC's - I pass them on to other's that will review them or people that haven't read the author and the ARC will kick start a binge.

Except once.

For spite.

And that author has so many ARC's floating around, I'd be amazed if there was anyone left to buy the actual book.

[Mary]

I'm definitely with you on the used book thing. In fact that's how Amazon did it when they first started selling used books. Of course, they realized that they could sell even more of them if they put the link right on the regular page. And that's just not right.

With regard to the reviews, I've got mixed opinions. I really hate it when someone posts a spoiler. That just shouldn't be done. But I kind of like reading other people's reactions to books. And I do like their new policy of not posting anonymous reviews in the future. If you are going to state an opinion you should be willing to put your name to it. I doubt that will stop some people from posting unfair reviews though.

[Donna]

What Jen said :o) I really like Amazon (I prefer to shop at independent bookshops, but for US books Amazon is great. But I've never bought a used book there and never would, and I don't take any notice of the reviews. Especially the anonymous ones - they tend to be badly written slams of a good book, or badly written
gushes about a bad one. As for selling ARCs, well, personally I wouldn't. Since I'm not a real reviewer, the ARCs I have are mostly ones which have been sent to me personally by the author, and I'm a sentimental old thing so I like to keep them.
Donna

[Kevin Wignall]

Okay, I can do better than that - I learned what the US paperback jacket for People Die looked like when a used copy appeared for sale on Amazon UK several months before the book was due out.
I adore Amazon. Simply adore it - I think it represents free-flowing capitalism at its absolute finest, putting information and choice into the hands of the consumer, wherever they are, even irrespective of national boundaries (amazon alone is destroying the restrictive practice that is the DVD region system - great!). I honestly don't think the used-book market has a huge impact, because the vast majority of people are just like those posting above, they don't buy them. For real book-lovers, unless it's an antiquarian or rare edition, surely part of the thrill is the newness of the volume in your hands. I'd be interested to see the figures - I doubt they make much difference.
Agreed on the reviews. A good description would be appreciated (and it's shocking that so many products don't have a description at all) but the reviews are worthless at best. However, I get around that by writing all my own reader reviews. I even wrote the Harriet Klausner ones - I didn't feel her own efforts were generous enough!

[Rebecca]

I have to disagree about the reviews. It's become a piety to be grieved about the decline of the independent bookstore in the face of B&N and Borders but one of the things that I actually like about independents is that their staff have real actual opinions about books. Sure, they only post the good things as "staff recommendations" but if you really know the staff you can get serious staff NON-recommendations as well. (As in, "I like X but his/her latest book really sucked.") And if that's something you like about bookstores, why slam Amazon for it?

Besides, it's disingenuous to say that you should be able to "browse" at Amazon the way you can at an actual bookstore, because the point is, you can't. You can't pick up a book because its cover is interesting, or because you're accidentally reaching for another on the shelf. You can't open the book at random and start reading it to see if you like the style (the "Search inside this book feature" is fine if you're looking for a specific quote, but it's not BROWSING). You're handicapped by the absence of the physical book, and reviews (editorial reviews are frequently material that would appear on a dust jacket anyway) are a way of evening the score.

Furthermore, I have to admit that I like reading the reader's comments. I find that their quality exactly mirrors the quality of published reviews in newspapers. Some are insightful and intelligent. Some are gushy but not very insightful. Some are inaccurate and idiotic (and don't think I haven't gotten some FLAMING inaccuracies about basic plot points from reviews in very reputable print journals). Some are hostile but respectful, and some praise but are condescending. I've gotten both my best and worst reviews on Amazon, and yes, I've reviewed a couple of books too.

One suggestion, re; reviews, stolen from the Casa del Libro, which is the Spanish equivalent of B&N (both an actual chain and a virtual bookstore): Why not have a bulletin board about the "most read" books (or any books) where people can post not only reviews but comments on the comments and really have discussions? This really does open the way for debate among ALL readers, and is frequently quite interesting. (I remember reading the thread about The Shadow of the Wind which discussed the varying merits of the book in Castilian and Catalan, compared it to other mysteries, gave personal reactions, etc.) Bookstores (real and virtual) exist for the benefit of the people, not the publishing industry, after all.

[John Rickards]

I'm inclined to agree with Kevin myself. There aren't so many ARCs floating around for them to be a big issue, I wouldn't have thought, and anyone selling a used book has at very least already bought it, so it's already a tick on the royalty statement.

And as a shopper, I like their price comparisons. There's a bunch of CDs and films (and, to a smaller extent, books - I shop for them less often) that I was unsure about, but which I bought because they were available on the cheap. Some of them I hated, never buy again etc. etc. - but then that would've been the result if I'd bought them new; I simply wouldn't be part of the buying audience. But others I've really liked and gone on to buy other stuff by the same band/author/director - and these have been bought new because I know I'll like it and I don't want a copy that someone else has potentially messed up.

As for the reviews, well, they're a mixed issue. But on the whole, I'd rather have them there. I do read them when I'm shopping for stuff, and while some are garbage - inaccurate, spoiler-laden or spiteful - most are handy for gauging what you're buying, as is the summary average rating.

As for the descriptions being worthless at best - you can write whatever you want about your own product. And it'll overwrite whatever's already there. So if you don't like the description, synopsis or whatever, you can enter it yourself. It's no great effort to do. :-)

[Jason Starr]

Re Rebecca's comments...I'm not slamming the idea of reviews; I just don't think they should on the same pages that books are sold. Reviews are important, but I don't think they should, in effect, label a book for eternity which some of the on-line booksellers' do...As for equalling the playing field, Amazon allows readers to read first chapters of books. I'm sure they could expand this feature to read other part of the books (and they shouldn't charge publishers for this feature either; it should be available for all books). If the on-line booksellers want readers to have more information about a book it should be information (reviews, blurbs, author interviews, etc) which they author or publisher submit...I don't think Amazon should do away with readers' comments--they should just be on another page. And your idea for chat about the reviews is excellent...

[Jason Starr]

Jen...Ah, but there's a used copy of my novel Hard Feelings for .94! (Maybe I shouldn't've mentioned that...)

[John Rickards]

Oh, and as an extra aside, if you do get a review that's crappy for any reason, Amazon has a little "report it" link next to each as well. So if there is anything objectionable about it, there's a decent chance it'll be pulled. :-)

[Teresa]

Excuse me if I'm butting in (uninvited and all) but speaking as a person who sells and buys used books at Amazon, I must point out that the vast majority of the books I sell there were purchased by me at the retail price.

If I am selling them it is because I have no use for it anymore, I was disappointed in it, or it's a book I don't know why I bought in the first place. And it is a godsend for my college age daughter to get back at least half of her investment on highly over-priced text books.

If it's the money thing anyone objects to, you can't make a penny there selling fiction (I know, I have never sold a fiction book) - it's all about the rare or out-of-print non-fiction book.

But it really is great to be able to find a book that you're looking for on the "used" page when it sells out in the regular section. :-)

[Kevin Wignall]

Hey, Teresa, consider yourself invited, and good points. The used textbook market is a great service, because they're so overpriced, and this could well lead to an increasing amount of "textbook" material being made available online, which I would see as a healthy development. Also seems to back up my point that as fiction writers, we're not losing much in the way of royalties.

[birnbaum]

It's an irony of sorts that ARCs are sold for chump change when in fact they are the real 1st editions— and should be priced accordingly. That is if you buy into the byzantine world of book collecting represented by various trolls with canvas bags that show up at readings with obscure editions and various esoterica.

[Dave Worsley]

The reviews Amazon posts don't concern me but spot on re: the concern around used books next to new. The dearth of proofs don't help-sales reps seem to give them out like candy. But more to the point,given the obvious placement of used books next to new, perhaps Amazon could kick in a percentage of their commission to the author via their publisher? Amazon is already 2 billion in the hole, whats another few dimes to the writer, who after all, is the needed cog here. I'm not holding my breath.

[Ayo Onatade]

I am not a fan of Amazon or B&N and I certainly do not agree with them selling used books (specifically fiction)beside the full priced copy. It is no wonder that some authors can't afford to give up the day job so that they can write full time. I recieve a lot of ARCs because of the amount of reviewng that I do and I refuse to sell them. I either give them to my friends (more often my family) or take them to a charity shop who need the money. I prefer to buy my books from independent bookshops. As for US titles I still prefer to order them even though I know I could possibly get them a lot cheaper on Amazon. Abebooks are good and I have used them to track books that are out of print (especially reference books on crime fiction) As for reviews, what is the point in spoiling the book for others by giving a way what happened. That is not the point of a review. Personally I think that the publishers should pull their finger out and do something. It is not fair on the authors that put in all that hard work for people like me.

Ayo

[Jason Starr]

I agree with Ayo...No more selling of used books alongside new ones....At the very least all reviews on a separate page. And add the ability to post messages about the reader's reviews...I'm sure Amazon will do exactly as I say...

[M. J. Rose]

Not much opinion in the follwoing post - but some research. For an article in the works, during the first 8 weeks of the sale of my most recent novel I tracked the number of used book sales at Amazon.

I checked Amazon about four times a day keeping a record of how many there were for sale and watched the numbers change. In 8 weeks over 180 used copies - or new cheap copies direct from distributors have been sold through the sidebar option. From really prelim number this seems to be about 1% or less of all copies sold during the same 8 week period across all stores online and off.

And I don't think that that the sales affected the sales rank - I'd been told used doesn't make a ranking change - does anyone know about that for sure?

The 180 books translate into 350 dollars or so towards paying down my advance isn't much - 1200 dollars or so to the publsher .

People who think the used function is grand use the explanation that someone who might not have ever bought the book at full price is after all reading it and will add to the word of mouth for the book if they like it. And that the people who sold it usually use the money to buy more books. Unless these are review copies selling in which case assistants are getting some pocket money.

(I know one reviewer who gives all the review copies to his assistant to do with as she will and all of them wind up for sale on Amazon. I know of a big review source who lets the assistants sell the review copies at the Strand, once a month.)

Not sure what I think about any of this yet now that I have some pretty close to accurate numbers for the first time, but at least I have some numbers.

[Jason Starr]

M.J.
I can't remember the exact site that talked about used books figuring into sales ranks, BUT this excerpt below from www dot fonerbooks dot com slash surfing (can't link the site here) implies that the ranks are affected...

"In my experience, marketplace & other non-direct sales don't count in sales ranks, and make up as much as 1 in 4 books purchased at Amazon. However, I've recently been told that some out-of-print books that can only be sold through Markeplace or zshops DO have sales ranks, so maybe that system is changing....."

[jon jordan - book collecting freak]

In regard to arcs showig up for sale on Ebay and Amazon.
The majority of people buying these are fanatics. They will also be buying the hard covers as well.

A lot of bookstores that are independant manage to make a few extra bucks selling them. If it helps keep them open and ward off the tide of the chains, I'm fine with it.

I personally have boxes and boxes and boxes of arcs. Almost none of them were bought. I haven't sold a on of them. I do sometimes give them away. I got a whole box of Stuart Woods latest in Arcs and nobody wanted them! I actually traded them at the local four floor used book store for some Batman comics.

I guess what I'm saying is that people who buy arcs will 90% of the time also buy the hardcover. ANd having your arc's on Ebay isn't a bad thing. It means people are so excited about your next book that they will pay for the privlage of reading it early. Consider it extra hype.

Unless of course no one bids on it.....

[Sharyn]

You say: "A customer should be able to browse the book and make their own decision about whether they want to buy it. When you're ready to buy a book at your local store, the salesperson doesn't say, "You sure you want to buy that book? It got a bad review in the Library Journal."...."

But I work in a bookstore. And customers ask me about books all the time. And I tell them. I tell them what I think about it, if I've read it, and if I haven't, I'll direct them to coworkers who have, or I will mention that the book got "a great review." And you know what else? Sometimes I'll even VOLUNTEER that information. Yup, even if the customer doesn't ask, I'll say, "Wow, that was a great book, you're really going to love it" or "You know, don't waste your money. That book was awful."

As someone has already pointed out, you CAN'T browse at Amazon in the same way you would a traditional bookstore. That's why the reviews are helpful - it's all about the word of mouth.

[Sharyn]

You say: "A customer should be able to browse the book and make their own decision about whether they want to buy it. When you're ready to buy a book at your local store, the salesperson doesn't say, "You sure you want to buy that book? It got a bad review in the Library Journal."...."

But I work in a bookstore. And customers ask me about books all the time. And I tell them. I tell them what I think about it, if I've read it, and if I haven't, I'll direct them to coworkers who have, or I will mention that the book got "a great review." And you know what else? Sometimes I'll even VOLUNTEER that information. Yup, even if the customer doesn't ask, I'll say, "Wow, that was a great book, you're really going to love it" or "You know, don't waste your money. That book was awful." Strangely, Anne Rice's books still are selling, despite my best efforts.

As someone has already pointed out, you CAN'T browse at Amazon in the same way you would a traditional bookstore. That's why the reviews are helpful - it's all about the word of mouth.

[Sharyn]

You say: "A customer should be able to browse the book and make their own decision about whether they want to buy it. When you're ready to buy a book at your local store, the salesperson doesn't say, "You sure you want to buy that book? It got a bad review in the Library Journal."...."

But I work in a bookstore. And customers ask me about books all the time. And I tell them. I tell them what I think about it, if I've read it, and if I haven't, I'll direct them to coworkers who have, or I will mention that the book got "a great review." And you know what else? Sometimes I'll even VOLUNTEER that information. Yup, even if the customer doesn't ask, I'll say, "Wow, that was a great book, you're really going to love it" or "You know, don't waste your money. That book was awful." Strangely, Anne Rice's books are still selling, despite my best efforts.

As someone has already pointed out, you CAN'T browse at Amazon in the same way you would a traditional bookstore. That's why the reviews are helpful - it's all about the word of mouth.

[Sharyn]

Sorry about that repeat post. I kept getting a message that it wouldn't post at all.