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An author’s experience with Outskirts Press

Yesterday I referred to a letter I received in the mail regarding Amazon.  Today I’m going to refer to another letter I received in the mail recently, one I received permission to share in its entirety.  This letter refers to our book publishing and book marketing firm Outskirts Press and, more specifically, to one of our Publishing Consultants and one of our Author Representatives:

Dear Mr. Sampson,

When I saw one of your promos praising Outskirts Press I thought yada, yada, yada. Then when I began to struggle through the labyrinth of the self-publishing world, I encountered two angels. They are both extremely modest which is why I am going to the top. Tinamarie and Jodee are every manuscript author’s answer to the critical junction of publisher or dumpster.  At 70 years of age, the cyber-world has left me behind, but each of these wonderful gals was amazingly patient until we got every “i” dotted and “t” crossed.

As a retired high school teacher, I know first-hand that complaints outnumber compliments 10:1. Therefore, it is both my honor and privilege to offer these two women my sincerest praise and thanks for helping Biodesign Out For a Walk come to life. If the rest of your staff measures up to their standards, you must have a fine company indeed.

Sincerely,

Lowell H. Young

Thank you, Lowell, for the wonderful letter.  You’re right, Tina and Jodee are great! Thank you for giving me an opportunity to join you in singing their praises.

Amazon

An author’s experience with Amazon advantage

Amazon has been the subject of my blog for the past several postings, so why change now?  I recently received a letter in the mail from an author (not one of ours at Outskirts Press), who contacted me after reading my book Sell Your Book on Amazon.  A lot of authors contact me as a result of that book (evidence in itself that publishing a book can open up opportunities for new business).

This was the interesting paragraph from his two page letter: “I decided, based on your book, to try marketing a new book I just completed through the Advantage program. It has turned out to be the worst Internet experience I have ever had. To begin with, as you probably know, there is no way to communicate with anyone at the Advantage Division. Amazon’s corporate Customer Service reps [I have spoken to 5 of them] simply say Advantage has no phones. Even these customer services reps can’t contact Advantage by phone. That would be bad enough but they either do not receive faxes or do not respond to them. I tried to upload a picture of my book, following their instructions. That didn’t work at all and I should have been suspicious about what was to come.”

He goes on to elaborate on his frustrations in dealing with Amazon, including sentences like “The whole Advantage system is hopelessly, and needlessly, complex…” and “This Advantage program is a blot on Amazon’s otherwise good reputation.”

I couldn’t agree more. In fact, the only part of his entire letter that I disagreed with was the part where he entered the Advantage program as a result of reading my book.  Perhaps my book was too subtle – so that’s my fault.  Sell Your Book on Amazon encourages authors — as diplomatically as possible —  to AVOID the Advantage program.  This author’s letter covers just a couple of reasons why.

So let me be more clear now.  Amazon’s Advantage program is only advantageous to Amazon. There are much better ways to get your book on Amazon, Outskirts Press being one — How’s that for a blatant plug?

Amazon

Fulfillment by Amazon notifies its users of a price increase

Speaking of Amazon, Amazon customers engaged in Amazon’s FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) services recently received notification of a price increase.  It may have been easy to miss the intent of the notice, since the increase was cleverly disguised as a “discount” but it was ultimately difficult to miss the fact that, on average, Amazon would start charging its FBA customers approximately $1.10 for each book Amazon held unsold in its inventory for longer than one year.

If there is yet another advantage to publishing through Outskirts Press, this is it.  Outskirts Press authors are not assessed this new fee by Amazon.

Amazon

Does Amazon represent the future or the end of books?

One has to marvel at Amazon.  In spite of the warnings provided by the music industry and iTunes, authors and publishers keep right on giving (yes, giving!) away their content to Amazon for the “privilege” of being listed on Amazon’s store and having a “Kindle” version of a book.  Do authors or publishers get a percentage of the Kindle device sales? No.   Should they? Well, for an answer to that question, you might want to ask a few unemployed music executives who thought a 70% margin on $0.99 iTunes downloads was sufficient, never realizing that Apple’s real cash cow was the device itself (the iPod), sales for which the music industry received nothing, even though without music the iPod was useless.    Does that sound similar to the Kindle?

Or you may want to ask musicians ranging from Garth Brooks to AC/DC, who believe iTunes is “killing” music, according to Prefix Magazine.  The analogy is right on point with what is happening in the publishing world today.

While I would never think to suggest that authors who choose to publish directly through Amazon are literally digging their own graves, it is worth considering.   I was reading the Nov/Dec 2010 issue of Boston Review article “Books After Amazon: Publishing’s Race to the Bottom” by Onnesha Roychoudhuri, and I wanted to share this excerpt:

Cheap books are easy on our wallets, but behind the scenes publishers large and small have been deeply undercut by the rise of large retailers and predatory pricing schemes. Unless publishers push back, Amazon will take the logic of the chains to its conclusion. Then publishers and readers will finally know what happens when you sell a book like it’s a can of soup.

To read the article in its entirety, click here.

Uncategorized

Amazon threatens all publishers – It’s not just POD

When I was reading the Nov/Dec 2010 issue of Boston Review article “Books After Amazon: Publishing’s Race to the Bottom” by Onnesha Roychoudhuri, I was reminded of the period of time way back in 2008 when Amazon threatened to remove all the “buy buttons” from books published by print-on-demand publishers who didn’t print their books through Amazon’s own company.  That attempt at an anti-trust monopoly ultimately failed, which was good news for authors and publishers alike, but this article referred to similar tactics Amazon has been employing with traditional publishers for even longer, which I found interesting.  Here’s an excerpt, and I encourage you to read the article in its entirety by clicking here: 

Buy-button disappearances are just one of the tensions that have emerged between publishers and Amazon. Publishers accustomed to the more bibliophilic operators of independent stores and even Barnes & Noble find it jarring to deal with Amazon’s lawyers. Wood’s frustration at Amazon’s lack of “gentlemanliness” is echoed by many other publishers who wonder why Amazon keeps putting the screws to them. (The majority of publishers contacted for this article chose not to speak on the record, citing their fear of retribution for divulging Amazon’s tactics, which one publisher described as a “You do this, or we’ll fuck you over” approach.)

Amazon

Is Amazon the Wal-Mart of Books?

Here’s another excerpt from the interesting article I read recently in the Nov/Dec 2010 issue of Boston Review titled “Books After Amazon: Publishing’s Race to the Bottom” by Onnesha Roychoudhuri — which is available to read in its entirety by clicking here. 

Many in the publishing community mock Amazon as the “Wal-Mart of books,” but it’s important to remember that Wal-Mart is also the Wal-Mart of books. Last year, Target, Amazon, and Wal-Mart fought a price war over a handful of new hardcover bestsellers. Books with $25 and $35 retail prices were being offered for nine dollars or less.

In response to the price war, the ABA wrote a letter to the Department of Justice (DOJ), requesting that it investigate possible “illegal predatory pricing.” David Gernert, a literary agent who represents the novelist John Grisham and was quoted in the ABA letter, told The New York Times: “If readers come to believe that the value of a new book is $10, publishing as we know it is over. If you can buy Stephen King’s new novel or John Grisham’s Ford County, for $10, why would you buy a brilliant first novel for $25?” People who tend to read Grisham and King aren’t necessarily reaching for a brilliant first novel, but Gernert’s point still has some force: devaluing the books produced by an industry already squeezed to the brink is not likely to benefit the reader in the end.

Amazon

Does Amazon sell books like cans of soup?

I read a fascinating article in the Nov/Dec issue of Boston Review recently. The article is titled “Books After Amazon: Publishing’s Race to the Bottom” by Onnesha Roychoudhuri.  It was a well-written and astute view of the world’s largest book retailer.  I strongly encourage you to read the article in its entirety by clicking here, but just to whet your appetite for what’s in store for you if you do, here’s a small excerpt:

Jeffrey Lependorf, Executive Director of the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses and of Small Press Distribution, suggests that the difference between Amazon and brick-and-mortar bookstores is most evident in how they market books: “I think even people at Amazon would say that it’s essentially a widget seller that happens to have begun by focusing on books. Many people, like me, will say you can’t sell a book the same way you sell a can of soup.”

At the heart of the soup-can analogy are the algorithms that Amazon uses to “recommend” books to customers. Most customers aren’t aware that the personalized book recommendations they receive are a result of paid promotions, not just purchase-derived data. This is frustrating for publishers who want their books to be judged on their merits. “I think their twisted algorithms that point you toward bestsellers instead of books that you might actually like [are] a shame,” Gavin Grant, cofounder of Small Beer Press, laments.

branding, ceo

Apple customer service

So finally we got the Apple Developer Certification done. You’d think it would be easy street from here, but no. You see, I had already created an “Outskirts Press” relationship with Apple for the purposes of distributing ebooks through the iBookstore for the iPad and iPhone (more on those developments soon).  But, therefore, my iTunes Connect account wasn’t “capable” of managing applications, nor was it set-up to do so. It could only manage e-books.  There didn’t appear to be a way I could “combine” the two objectives into one account.

So I called the Apple Customer Service number and spoke with a nice person named Holly. She ultimately ended the call with “I need to consult with one of my colleagues about this. May I call you back in 15 minutes?”  Sure… and I hung up.

The next day I received a call from Nicholas at Apple Customer Service (or I guess they call it Apple Provisioning Portal Service, or something equally odd), and he first apologized for not calling back the day before. That was a nice touch.   He then began speaking softly and quickly, presumably on the topic I needed assistance with. But I interjected with a polite, “I can’t quite hear you or understand you, can you speak louder and slower?” 

He apologized and said, “I have an out-of-date boom mic.”

I playfully replied, “An out-of-date mic? At Apple?!”

Our cordial conversation continued with a long monologue on his part about the current issue we were facing with my account. About 3 minutes into it, I’m afraid I interjected again and said, “Nicholas, those words all sound like English, but I’m afraid I didn’t understand most of it.”

Long story, short — we set up two accounts. One under Outskirts Press, Inc. for our ebooks. And one under plain ol’ “Outskirts Press” for our applications (which, ironically, if you’ll remember the start of this whole fiasco, was the name of our App account I wanted anyway).

So why all the fuss just to get Apple Developer Certification? Next time I’ll show a sneak peek of our free Outskirts Press app which (hopefully) will be available soon, pending some successful testing. You have to complete all these steps I’ve just outlined in order to test your own applications, even if you only want to perform ad-hoc testing on a local iPhone or iPad device.  I may or may not get into the nitty-gritty of doing THAT in the near future; it’s a  pain in the rear-end, too, and I’ve been blogging about Apple for quite a while. It may be time to move onto other OP CEO stuff…

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Approving your certificate through Apple’s Provisioning Portal

Once you have created and uploaded your CSR (which I covered in previous posts), your Provisioning Portal page will show a “Pending Issuance” status.  Wait five minutes or so and when you hit “refresh” on your browser your screen should update with an expiration date of a year from the day, a status of “Issued” and two actions you can take:

  • Download
  • Revoke

This file is a “cer” file type.  Choose download to save the distribution “cer” file to your computer.  Ta-da, you have a distribution certificate. 

Here’s perhaps the most important part of this entire series, especially if you are running into problem completing ANY of these steps:

If you’ve run into any problems during the course of completing these steps, one of the potentially easiest solutions is to use the Safari browser instead of Internet Explorer (not that Jobs would purposefully prevent his site from working on Gates’ browser or anything… naaa).