Each time I log into my email account and find a book order, I feel gratified. With all the other books out on the market, I am grateful that someone will go to the effort to pay me for my story. That’s after all, why I wrote my book — so that others will read it. I am grateful whenever I find out that is happening.
Amazon sales have been increasing for Liberating Lomie. I don’t like to be dependent on Amazon for all my books sales, which is why I sell my books from my website. Even though I offer my books through Amazon, I have never gone all in. Most authors (or their publishers) will invest in Amazon ads to boost their sales. These ads will cause their books to come up first in searches. I’ve been too resentful that Amazon manipulates book sales like that to make such an investment. I also resent that they “own” that much of the book market. I may as well state here that I rarely buy anything from Amazon.
So when I opened an email from Amazon two nights ago with this subject line “KDP [Kindle Direct Publishing] printing costs will change June 20, 2023” I was not surprised. I like how the word “change” suggests it can go one way or the other, but of course that word should have been “increase.” Naturally, I wanted to know by how much my book price will be increased. Finding that information wasn’t so simple, but I finally did. It turns out a book of my size, with black and white ink and 344 pages long, the price will increase by $5.13. That is more than a 25% increase without me as the author receiving any of that increase.
Now I have a choice as an author. I can go to the Kindle publishing store and state that I want to receive the same royalties after the increase, which passes the extra cost on to readers, or else I can absorb the cost and have my print royalty rate go from $7.66 down to $2.53 per book. (Were I to choose that option, Amazon would get $25.12 for one of my books, and they would pay me $2.53 for that same book.) A third option is to set the rate myself. But no matter what, Amazon will get their increase, and either you as the reader, and/or I as the author, will absorb that increase.
Perhaps Amazon has monopolized enough of the book market that its executives think they can do anything they want. I can’t help resenting that Amazon execs have the power to institute such a sharp increase in the price of print books, and that they won’t share any of that increase with its authors. It makes me more resolute than ever not to buy from Amazon, and I’m more resentful than ever that Amazon is the first place most of us look up book titles. If I could without them, I would.
If you prefer reading print books over ebooks, and you’re buying them from Amazon, know that it’s best to be buying your titles before June 20.
The price on my website sales will remain the same as they are now. I share the shipping costs with my readers. It costs around $5 for packaging and shipping, and I charge $2 over the retail price of the book to help defray that cost. I am here to sign and send books whenever they are ordered. And to all my readers, I say “thank you!”
Each time I think I will no longer be publishing a post on this website, I find another reason to. The subject of this post is more appropriate here than on About Amish and Beyond, though I hope you’ll hop on over and see what’s new there if you haven’t already. Yesterday I published Amish Once Removed: New Educational Horizons. Before that I published Nostalgia in Amish Country.
Hi Saloma.. Hope you are doing great! I just booked the new book from your website. I am so happy that you published your 3rd book. I already read your first two books and those also I ordered from your website few years ago. I loved your personal signing and note. I loved those books . The way you portrayed the whole stories in “Why I left Amish” and in “Bonnet springs” ,I felt like I am in an Amish community and seeing all those happening around me.
I am really really very happy that you wrote this new book. I usually checked your website periodically to find info whether you are publishing any new book or not . Finally you did :)