Writers Tricks of the Trade VOLUME 7, ISSUE 3 | Page 24

D ON ’ T I MMEDIATELY T RUST M AINSTREAM S ITES ON P UBLISHING S TORIES (C ONT ’ D )
Publications with business models that predominantly rely (or did rely) on print
also have the “nostalgia” problem—where they’re particularly prone to latch on to
any story that indicates a possible resurgence of print or decline of digital. (I’ve ad-
dressed this problem before.)
Here are the latest stories that are causing confusion—and sometimes moral
panic—where it’s not deserved.
AMAZON’S BUY-BOX POLICY CHANGE FOR NEW BOOKS
A lawn-mower vendor or a light bulb manufacturer could have told you this was
probably coming. In every part of Amazon’s far-flung retail operation, third-party
vendors “compete with Amazon”—that’s Amazon’s own language—to be the de-
fault sellers of items in a product’s buy box—the box that contains the purchase
button and indicates the seller and purchase price.
This wasn’t the case for non-used books, however, until earlier this spring,
when Amazon introduced this same capacity for third-party vendors to be made
the seller in the buy box of new books. This change has kicked up a firestorm of
complaint in the publishing community.
Let’s start with Amazon’s statement to the press on this: “We have listed and
sold books, both new and used, from third-party sellers for many years. The recent
changes allow sellers of new books to be the ‘featured offer’ on a book’s detail
page, which means that our bookstore now works like the rest of Amazon, where
third-party sellers compete with Amazon for the sale of new items. Only offers for
new books are eligible to be featured.”
A T THE HEART OF THE MATTER FOR PUBLISHING PEOPLE IS THE QUESTION OF “ NEW .” If that
book is in fact new, then it will have been bought from the publisher (or an official
wholesaler/distributor) by the third-party vendor. Thus, the vendor’s payment will
have paid the publisher and thus the author.
S O , THE QUESTION IS : A RE THESE NEW BOOKS REALLY NEW ? A RE THEY BEING SOURCED LEGIT-
IMATELY ? Amazon says it’s working hard to be sure that books offered as new are
actually new. In this seller forum thread, you can see a third-party seller (called
“tomepusher”) working through a long exchange with other vendors. His listings
have been removed by Amazon, he says, “because of complaints about used items
sold as new.” In the course of this exchange, you see the vendor being told by col-
leagues that he should have an invoice “directly from the publisher” as protection,
to prove the books were legitimately bought new, if Amazon inquires.
And the retailer isn’t the only one inquiring. Michael Cader at Publishers
Lunch has reported that Penguin Random House is asking Amazon re-sellers “spe-
cifically how and from whom you are acquiring our books.”
W RITERS ’ T RICKS OF THE T RADE
P AGE 17
WHY YOU SHOULD
ATTEND WRITERS
CONFERENCES
W RITING CONFERENCES
ARE EXTRAORDINARILY
VALUABLE .
A S WRITERS , WE WORK IN
A CREATIVE FIELD AND WE
CAN SIT AT A KEYBOARD
AND WRITE A BOOK --
THAT ’ S A GIVEN .
B UT , WITHOUT TRAINING
AND GUIDANCE , OUR
PATH TO SUCCESSFUL PUB-
LISHING CAN BE FAR
LONGER ( IF AT ALL ) THAN
IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN WITH
OUTSIDE EXPERT HELP .
W E OPEN OURSELVES TO
LEARNING BY TRIAL AND
ERROR , WHICH CAN COST
TIME , MONEY AND BE A
REAL EGO BEATING .
B Y ATTENDING CONFER -
ENCES YOU NOT ONLY
LEARN ABOUT THE CRAFT
AND BUSINESS OF WRIT -
ING , BUT MAKE INVALU -
ABLE CONTACTS . .
S UMMER 2017