Deborah Woehr

Despite the backlash from irate authors, Amazon is standing firm on its decision, although they clarified their reasons in a letter which they posted on their site. I’ve included the link below.

Open Letter to Interested Parties

The major reason why people got upset was Amazon’s reported stance of exclusivity. They have denied this.

No, there is no request for exclusivity. Any publisher can use Amazon’s POD service just for those units that ship from Amazon and continue to use a different POD service provider for distribution through other channels.

After reading the entire letter, I’ve come to a better understanding as to the reasoning behind Amazon’s controversial decision. Simply put, they want to ship our books to their customers faster, instead of relying on a middleman (such as Publish America and Lulu) to supply them with our books. I totally understand this, given my frustration at Christmas when I was forced to wait two weeks for Lulu to ship my final proof for Prosperity. Lulu normally takes a week to ship books to their customers (my experience) during the off-season. During the Christmas season, it can take up to three weeks. I’ve ordered books and other items from Amazon as last-minute as a week before Christmas and got them just in time to wrap them and stick them under the tree.

Figuring that Lulu was going to be next on the chopping block, I signed up for Amazon’s Advantage Program on Saturday, thinking that I could circumvent the inevitable disabling of the “Buy Now” button by supplying Amazon with a handful of copies for their warehouse. As it turns out, my intuition was correct. If you want to self-publish with the POD house of your choosing, then you’ll have to fork over $29.95 per year to Amazon if you want to make your book available on their website.

That’s nothing, compared to what people pay annually to host their websites and blogs. If you can market yourself and your books well, then the annual fee will more than pay for itself.

Related Articles

Publisher’s Weekly
Washington Post

I decided to do a little research on BookSurge to see what authors can expect, should Amazon prevail. What I read did not sit well with me at all. I’ve been a loyal customer of Amazon since 1996 because they’ve provided an excellent service. You would think they would have revamped BookSurge to match the reputation of their online bookstore. Nope.

The Good

A Review of BookSurge, by Website Publisher Blog

The Bad

Self Publishing with Booksurge: This forum has a great comparison between BookSurge, Lulu, LSI, and Kyodo

The Downright Ugly

Quoted from the Self Publishing with Booksurge thread, post dated 12/9/07:

BOTTOM LINE: Whatever you do, do NOT publish at BOOKSURGE. It is a pain and (in the short-run as well as the long-run) outrageously expensive! They will make more mistakes that you can count (including pricing, royalty, affiliate etc.) and that will hurt you not only financially but also your reputation when your customers see that the prices are changing everyday for your books. I don’t know why things are so bad with them, but based on my experience and everyone I personally know who has published through BookSurge, we all were left feeling pissed off by their lack of customer service, lack of responsiveness, and lack of interest in helping their authors succeed. They are only committed to one thing: short-term profits for themselves rather than building long-term mutually rewarding relationships with their authors (and customers!). After all the negative comments, feedback and remarks, you would think they would improve, but what is weird is that they have only gotten worse. Very unfortunate, because their basic business model was good (close relationship with amazon.com), but their execution has been terrible. From what I hear this has to do with the leadership (founders/owners/ceo) of the company, but I do not know this for a fact. All I know that the ceo could not give a damn when I complained about getting ripped off by his salesperson. Neither he nor his salesperson had the courtesy to apologize or to clear up the misunderstanding (if there was one). They could not care less, and as a result they lost me and about 4 other people who I personally know who were looking at BookSurge vs others. Where did we all go after BookSurge? We ended up going to different POD publishers (some of which have been listed here) as a result of this horrifying experience. While none of them are perfect, at least we get treated with respect and are not finding ourselves with poor quality books (incorrect types/fonts, poor binding, terrible paper etc.) as we did with some of our BookSurge experiences.

Big warning about POD sales (Booksurge, etc.) and Amazon etc., by Writers Net
Another Lawsuit Against Amazon: Author April McDonald Sues Amazon for $10.5 M

A Mixed Bag

Absolute Write Water Cooler - BookSurge You’ll find some good testimonials as well as bad ones on this forum.

Based on everything I’ve read, I have no desire to publish my future books via BookSurge or CreateSpace (which is free). What alternatives does this leave me, if Amazon decides to disable the “buy” button for my books’ listing? I’m looking into that right now.

Unsurprisingly, there is still no word from Lulu’s management about their position regarding Amazon. I also wasn’t surprised when I couldn’t find anything about this publishing coup on Amazon or BookSurge. This hasn’t stopped stopped people from reacting, both inside and outside of the blogosphere. The list below is from Beyond Niche Marketing, who has compiled a list of 62 people who have commented on this development.

• A New Amazon Mandate? Say it ain’t so, Jeff by Morris Rosenthal
• Amazon Forcing POD Publishers to Make a Hard Decision, Virtualbookworm
• Amazon Tightens Grip on Printing by Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, Wall Street Journal
• Amazon Tightens Noose on Print-On-Demand Publishers; Insists They Use Company’s Own Service by Rafat Ali, The Washington Post
• Amazon to Force POD Publishers to Use BookSurge by Jim Milliot, Publishers Weekly
• Amazon changes rules for print-on-demand publishers by Linda Rosencrance, Computerworld
• Amazon pulls a Microsoft by Robert L. Mitchell, Computerworld Blogs
• Amazon Puts the Squeeze on Publishers by Betsy Schiffman, Wired Blog Network
• Amazon Gets Demanding with Print-on-Demand Publishers, O’Reilly Radar
• Amazon.com puts the screws to small publishers, Valleywag
• Amazon’s POD monopoly, booktwo.org
• Is Amazon Getting Greedy? , open…
• Oh, REAL nice, Amazon.com, Beatlegirl’s Blog
• Market Report — In Play,MSN Money
• Amazon Muscles Print-On-Demand Services by Duncan Riley, TechCrunch
• Amazon & BookSurge, words count
• Urgent News for Authors, The Holistic Writer
• Monopoly - It’s Not A Game by Jean-Marie Hershey, Print CEO Blog
• Of oil lamps, Print on Demand, and e-book machines: Amazon’s Bezos as a would-be Rockefeller by David Rothman
• Deal Breaker? Amazon - BookSurge - POD - No Choice?, Workboxers
• Amazon.com’s POD land grab, BookFinder.com Journal
• Amazon Changes POD Tactics, Removes Velvet Gloves by Kassia Krozser, Booksquare
• Amazon The Monopoly, PersonaNonData
• Amazon Muscles Print-On-Demand Services, web2bite.com
• Use BookSurge or Die? by Victoria Strauss, Writer Beware
• Amazon/Golliath takes on the little guys by Helen Gallagher, Release Your Writing
• Amazon Bullies POD to Use Booksurge — or Else., Shadowhelm’s Journal
• Amazon Says It Will Only Sell Print-On-Demand Books That It Gets To Print, Techdirt
• Amazon deletes competition, LibraryThing
• What’s Amazon Up To Now? by Tawny Taylor
• Amazon Shaking the POD World Big Time, Juno Books
• A hearty “F$%k you!” to Amazon by Elf M. Sternberg
• A Call to Bloggers: Stop Supporting Amazon, Inhabitatio Dei
• Amazon to Force POD Publishers to Use BookSurge, Media Mensch
• Self Publishers and Amazon, Writerly Stuff
• Amazon Tightens Grip On Printing, booktrade.info
• Amazon to Block Other POD Services from Using Amazon Marketplace, Dear Author
• Amazon trying to screw small presses?, lupabitch
• Dear Amazon, What are You Thinking? by Monica Valentinelli, Words on the Water
• Will Amazon Hurt Small Pagan Publishers?, The Wild Hund
• Amazon and us by Gill Polack
• Will Amazon Become the Google of the POD Industry? by Deborah Woehr
• Down with The Zon! by Celia Kyle
• Beyond the POD grab: The IDPF should fight Amazon’s new eBabel, look for anti-trust violations, and reach out to Google by David Rothman, TeleRead
• Amazon blocking books of competitive publishers?, electronista
• We are not amused–veinglory, PODPeople
• Bully on the block?, The Pearlsong Letter
• The monopolists: You need to worry about Amazon too by Eion Purcell
• Amazon owns the marketplace: return of the distributor, Thudfactor
• Is Amazon trying to monopolize the empowering Publish-On-Demand market?, Chris Boese’s Weblog
• 500 pound gorilla, Idle musings of a bookseller
• Bye-Bye “Buy Buttons” for POD Authors?, The Backroom at Dehanna.com
• Amazon Making a Big Mistake by Cheryl Pickett
• Amazon to force POD publishers to use Booksurge, Murder by 4
• Amazon.com’s dirty little deed, pds_lit
• Amazon’s Stupid Anti-Competitive Move, Principled Profit
• Amazon Bullying POD Writers and Publishers Unfairly, A-ha
• A Call to Bloggers: Stop Supporting Amazon, Resurrection Life
• Amazon.com Is On Drugs, Thought Patterns
• Amazon launches their weapon of mass destruction, steps on the long tail of independent authors by Mark Riffey
• Amazon puts the Squeeze on POD Publishers by Easy Author Web Sites
• An Important Lesson from Amazon on How NOT to Treat Your Customers by Virtual Impax

Amazon plus BookSurge WTF?, by AuthorNation.com
Just Remember Amazon.com that karma is a beautiful thing, by Jupiter Gardens

You’ll find more reactions on the Lulu forum: Does Lulu Have Any Comments on the Latest Amazon Development? Lulu author, Anita Stewart has set up a petition for anyone who is interested. You can access it here.

I was ecstatic when I finished the final editing Sunday night. Last night involved implementing some final design tweaks and uploading everything onto the Lulu site. Everything was going well until I uploaded my cover. The original cover that has graced the sidebar for several months has really grown on me. I was counting on seeing what it would look like when it came back from the printer.

That’s not going to happen because I used a 72dpi graphic for that banner. Lulu requires that you use 330dpi images. Needless to say, the cover looked terrible. I spent several hours creating a new one from scratch because I couldn’t find the image that matched the original dimensions. This was a good graphics lesson and a disappointing one. I’m not sure if I like the new cover. I’ll save that judgment when I see it around my printed pages.

I had come across Blurb late last year, I think. At the time, it was brand new and there were only a handful of books listed on the site. One of them was a blook by that airline stewardess. I quickly forgot about it.

Then I saw a mention on Grumpy Old Bookman, who stated that it has the potential to rival Lulu. After downloading the BookSmart software and giving it a test run with a photo book (see the photo reference below), I see his point. It is extremely easy to lay out your book.

BookSmart offers a good dozen layouts each for text, text with photos, and photos. The first qualm I had was the inability to import text into a book file. Blurb is working on adding this feature. For now, you’ll have to copy and paste.

Adding headers and footers is a snap. Simply click on the second page of your chapter, enter your header information, and click apply to all pages. Your change will appear on every page but the chapter pages. I’ve included a sample below. Click the images to get a better view.

Now, I will list the cons, which are significant to novel writers.

1. Blurb doesn’t offer the 6×9 trade paperback size. They offer 8×10, 7×7, and 13×11. This affects the price, which can be very expensive. According to Washington Post, it can cost up to $80 to publish a 400-page novel. That’s definitely a severe price jump, compared to Lulu.
2. Blurb doesn’t offer an ISBN service. You will have to obtain the ISBN number, EAN, and list the book with online retailers. They plan on offering an ISBN service in the future.
3. You don’t have the multiple publishing options that you do with Lulu: paperback, hardcover, ebook and audio book.

That said, I’m going to watch this company and see how it evolves. Right now, it is still in its infant stage but I think they might become a serious rival to Lulu. Check out the Washington Post article, which talks about Lulu, Blurb and the self-publishing industry. Very interesting reading. Also, visit the Blurberati Blog to keep informed.

It’s been a while since I talked about Prosperity, but I’m happy to say that I’m finally approaching the end. Over the past two weeks, the ideas have been blooming. Then a humdinger for an ending hit me last night and stayed long enough to cement itself inside my mind.

I’ve got about 15,000 words left before I reach my word count goal. Whether the the story will fall short or a bit over, I can’t say. But I’m excited by the fact that I’m almost finished. I was hoping to get it done and published by the end of this year. That’s not going to happen because I need to do a final edit. So my goal is to have it available by the spring of 2007.

Lately, I’m bouncing back and forth between submitting the manuscript to traditional publishers versus self-publishing it. The big drawback to traditional publishing is (if I can get the manuscript accepted) the waiting time between acceptance and actual publication. A collegue of mine submitted his manuscript to Leisure, who decided to accept it, only to have it sit for two years before he pulled it and submitted it to another publisher. As of this date, the manuscript hasn’t seen the light of day.

This drawback has made self-publishing look more promising, despite its stigmas. I was very happy with the Lulu process until it I saw how clunky their ordering system was. For instance, I tried to ship a copy of the anthology to a friend in Canada, but Lulu wouldn’t allow me to ship anywhere inside that country accept for some military province. Then John told me that he couldn’t order the anthology directly from the site because his PayPal account name didn’t match with his Lulu account name.

On the flipside, I was very pleased at the speed in which the anthology got listed on Amazon and Barnes&Noble. Not only that, but it got listed on Tesco, which is UK’s equivalent of Walmart, I think. It’s a very popular retail chain, according to John.

I’ll make my decision once the final edit is done. In the meantime, I’ll check out Lightning Source, which costs a pretty penny ($500) to see if I have to establish my own publishing company first before I use their service.

Then I have to write a compelling synopsis, which I’ve yet to do. Would any of you be interested in critiquing it, if I post it here?

I logged onto my Lulu account this morning and found out that someone has bought a copy of the anthology yesterday. I’m not going to get too excited yet, but I am hopeful. I’ll consider this project a success if I’m able to sell at least 50 copies.

Why such a small number? Because this is my first attempt at publishing and marketing a book. I read somewhere that the average first-time author is lucky to sell 500 copies of their book, and that’s when they publish through the traditional route.

When I first signed up for a Lulu account last year, the price for an individual ISBN was around $35.00. At the time (if I remember correctly), you had to submit your book to the online retailers. They’ve since done away with that and charge you $100 for their Global Distribution service, where Lulu assigns an ISBN for your book and distributes the books to every major online retailer.

The screen below shows what stage your project is in. Check out the ISBN column. The “mock book” is now ready for the Global Distribution service. Click on that and follow their directions. Lulu requires that you buy another proof to make sure everything was formatted correctly before you approve your book for the ISBN number. If you don’t, and you find mistakes, they will charge you a hefty fee to make the corrections.

Once your second proof arrives, check it out again. You’ll need to add the ISBN number to the copyright page, which means that you’ll have to reassign the ISBN number. See How do I make changes before approving my book? Then they’ll prompt you to order a third proof.

I tried to get around this but they wouldn’t let me. If the only change you needed to make was entering your ISBN number on the copyright page, then go ahead and approve the ISBN number after you order the proof. After you do that, you’ll be taken to Global Distribution: Approve Book page, where you’ll be given these links:

* Distribution FAQ
* How do I update my book’s listing with online retailers?
* How do I upload my book cover to online retailers?
* How do I make changes after approving my book?

Open a new window and click on your Projects tab. Your ISBN number should be displayed next to your book’s listing. Another option Lulu has is the Google Book Search. Enable that, if you want. Then you’re done. It takes approximately 6 weeks for the distribution service to kick in and around 8 weeks for your book to get listed on Google.

That about wraps it up for this tutorial. Best wishes for your book’s success!

Once you click the publish button, you’ll be taken to a new window that gives you the option to market your book (using Lulu’s free and paid resources), view and/or customize your book’s preview, and buy a copy of your book. I suggest you buy a copy of your book before you make it available to the public.

Once it arrives, check the quality of the cover as well as the pages. Now is a great time to check for any typos that you may have missed. If everything looks good, you’re ready to assign an ISBN to your book.

The pricing screen automatically calculates how much your book will cost and how much of a cut Lulu will receive, based on the royalty amount you enter. With the “mock” novel, I experimented with the royalty, entering $5.00. That shot the book’s price up to $21.95. Here is a more realistic figure:

Print cost: $12.43
Download (ebook): $1.25
Your Royalty: $1.00

Pricing your book is the most trickiest aspect of self-publishing. You have to know what your audience is willing to pay. I’ve bought POD books in the past and wouldn’t pay more than $16.00 for a 6×9 paperback novel. I checked out the price on a book that was published by Del Rey. Their pricing was $13.95 for this book size.

Before you click “Complete Publish,” make sure your pricing is set at a reasonable rate and you have your license set (see the bottom of the pricing screen).