Comments on: OR Books says “No” to Amazon

By: Paul H. Linckens

Paul H. Linckens — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 23:50:02 +0000

I would appreciate to buy for example “Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet” from amazon.de. Why? Because for books there is no shipping to pay. If I buy from OR I have to pay Royal Airmail !!!

By: Ellen O'Connell

Ellen O'Connell — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 05:22:05 +0000

You can berate me, tell me I’m nuts, etc., but I suspect I’m representative of a lot of Kindle owners – if I hear about a book, even free, on some obscure website, it’s rare that I even bother to look. I shop Amazon because it’s convenient, it’s easy, I don’t have to be registering this and that and giving credit card info out here and there. Unlike others, I LIKE Amazon. The only reason I was willing to invest in an ereader again at all is because the Kindle is from Amazon and I’m willing to gamble Amazon will continue to support it.

In February I became an indie author, and to me it’s an extraordinary thing that Amazon is willing to give people like me access to such a fantastic distribution channel for free. Yes, they get a cut of sales, but the cost of setting up so that those sales are possible is absolutely nothing.

So Amazon has a considerable well of customer loyalty from me to start with, and I really don’t want to be bothered going to a whole bunch of websites so that some publisher can get a greater share of ebook revenue to finish with. In the case of companies like OR Books, I just don’t care. With the big publishers, Macmillan has inspired real animus.

By: Rob Preece, Publisher

Rob Preece, Publisher — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 15:22:45 +0000

I had to make this same calculation several years ago. I’d started selling direct only–and this was at a time when web pundits were still talking about disintermediation. Ultimately, I decided that Amazon, Fictionwise/BN and the others provide a valuable service for their cut…they allow customers to find books by different authors, provide review forums, and reach a huge audience of readers who (for better or worse) don’t troll small publisher websites looking for books by less-known authors. So, I went with distribution and received a non-trivial bump-up in total sales.

OR, of course, has a different market and may not need the services Amazon and the other distributors provide.

Rob Preece
Publisher

By: AnemicOak

AnemicOak — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 15:21:05 +0000

Also, while it may not say what he thinks of the Apple store the Palin book is available as an app.

By: AnemicOak

AnemicOak — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 15:19:32 +0000

$10 on their site DRM Free in multiple formats looks good (I’d think one of those formats would be Mobi/prc which would work for Kindle owners). Or you can get Print and Ebook together for a discount.

The Palin book is also available with DRM from other sellers with a $22.99 list price.