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By David Rothman

From Amazon news release:

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“Even great books can be overlooked. Amazon customers raved over Legacy, a self-published novel by 16-year-old Cayla Kluver, with customer review titles such as ‘loved it, loved it,’ ‘rich lyrical tapestry and story’ and ‘breathtaking in scope and execution!’ Despite winning several prizes from literary groups and accolades like this from readers, Kluver’s debut novel achieved only modest sales.

“AmazonEncore is a new program whereby Amazon uses information such as customer reviews on Amazon websites to identify exceptional, overlooked books and authors that show potential for greater sales. Amazon then partners with the authors to re-introduce their books to readers through marketing support and distribution into multiple channels and formats, such as the Amazon Books Store, Amazon Kindle Store, Audible.com, and national and independent bookstores via third-party wholesalers.

image“This summer Legacy will be revised by the author and re-issued as an AmazonEncore edition in print on Amazon websites around the world, in physical bookstores, as a digital download from the Kindle Store in less than 60 seconds, and via spoken-word audio download on Audible.com.”

image The TeleRead take: Congrats to Amazon and Ms. Kluver, but meanwhile I myself would be happy if Jeff Bezos and friends could just list the paperback edition of The Solomon Scandals properly, so that people could reliably find my debut novel without having the type the “The.” In fact, with the default setting of “All Departments,” the paperback is invisible even with the “The” included in searches.

Hardly any money is involved now. But if Scandals defies the odds and takes off, this could cost my publisher and me thousands in lost sales, because Jeff is so big a part of the book industry. One more reason to be wary of Amazon despite the PRish campaigns! I mention my example, but other writers, too, have similar problems, and one even tells me I’d do better not to include “The” in the title! I highly doubt that Amazon would treat Tom Clancy or John Gresham in a similarly shoddy manner. In fairness to Amazon, it’s always possible it’s not the one responsible for the mess, but if so, then Amazon needs to make things easier for those dealing with it.

An additional thought—on Amazon as a publisher: With the AmazonEncore program, Amazon is moving more and more toward becoming a genuine publisher—competing, of course, against others, including little Twilight Times Books, the publisher of Scandals. Hello, FTC? You decide if there’s an anti-trust case here, but Amazon would seem to be begging for a close examination, based on a number of factors such as its POD policies that harm rivals.

 
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