# WTF do publishers think they're doing ?



## fidjit (Oct 11, 2010)

So walking past the local Australian book shop today and noted that the new Andy McDermott book - Empire of Gold was out. 

Straight back to the PC to see if it's available from an Australian Publisher for ereaders......nope..nothing, only paper copies . Borders Australia the folio paperback version is $19.99AU and similar pricing at other Australian sites but NO electronic version. 

Hokay, what about Borders US. Listing for the 27 September , $9.99US ( about the same in Aus $$ ) and only paper version.

Amazon UK - available in paperback and hardcover ( approx $10.42 and $23.00 au ) AND FINALLY.......Kindle version $17.99AU. 

Amazon Australia - Mass Paper back due 27 Sept $ 9.99 US, Kindle version available....price $14.98 AUS. Hokay it's not cheaper than the US paperback but it's cheaper than the Aus paperback version......and it's electronic format. 

Then have alook at the US site .... nope not available till 27 september in paperback or Kindle but when the Kindle version's available it'll be $7.99  WTF !!!!

So for once us Aussies ( and Brits I suppose ) get a bonus from Amazon but pay a hefty price for the bonus. 

What the heck are publishers trying to do to us  Why not do worldwide releases at "standard" worldwide prices ?? 

Perhaps I'm at a disadvantage knowing about geographical restrictions etc and spending so much time looking at all the different countries, but any "ordinary Joe" Aussie Ebooker besides a Kindler wouldn't be able to find an electronic version for their reader ( epub ) either locally or internationally.

It shouldn't be that hard to find a book and expect to pay some sort of parity world wide.....

/END RANT 

Now to read the book !!!


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## Mel Comley (Oct 13, 2010)

Did you need to lie down after that? lol


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## MrPLD (Sep 23, 2010)

Ugh, don't get me started... (as another Aussie).

So glad I've gone the 'self publish' route - at least our fans get the books all at the same time.

There _are_ reasons and such behind these crazy staged releases and geographical hiccups but quite frankly it's all due to old business methods that still have too much inertia. Bring on the no-boundaries world! 

( Oh yes, the whole eBook pricing thing is bordering on crazy... on one hand they tell us that printing costs a lot ... and it DOES ... on the other hand they say that the printing costs very little, depends on which point they're debating :grumble: )

Paul


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## tim290280 (Jan 11, 2011)

This is quite common, I think it is called staged releases. It is another form of anti-competitive behavior. I'm not a fan of it as it is against free trade agreements, which I find hypocritical considering how some industries are allowed to ignore it and profit from it. See this bit on DVDs which is relevant to books as well.


> There are many purposes that region coding can achieve, but the primary one is price discrimination, i.e., allowing the manufacturer to demand a higher or lower price depending on what the market will allow. There is great disparity among the regions of the world in how much a person is willing to pay for a DVD. Price discrimination is especially applicable to DVDs, as the marginal cost of selling one DVD is relatively small, allowing the seller a great deal of flexibility in pricing.
> 
> Another purpose is controlling release dates. One of the traditions of movie marketing that the advent of home video threatened, is the practice of releasing a movie (to theaters) later in some countries than in others. Video tapes were essentially regional anyway, since video tape formats had to match those of the encoding system used by television stations in that particular region, such as NTSC and PAL, although from early 1990s PAL machines increasingly offered NTSC playback. DVDs are less restricted in this sense, and region coding allows movie studios to better control the global release dates DVDs. However, the fact that such classics as "Casablanca" are sold with region codes suggests that price discrimination plays a more important role than release dates do[says who?].
> 
> Thirdly, some titles are owned by different copyright holders in different territories. Region coding allows these copyright holders to protect their interests by preventing consumers from purchasing the same title from a region where the copyright is owned by a different company.


Publishers will shoot themselves in the foot trying to continue this charade with readers, especially now with e-books.


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## Ciareader (Feb 3, 2011)

MrPLD said:


> Ugh, don't get me started... (as another Aussie).
> 
> So glad I've gone the 'self publish' route - at least our fans get the books all at the same time.
> 
> ...


I know this has nothing to do wtih your response, but I wanted to say that I just love that pic of you and your cat! I'm a feline lover myself.


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## Mike D. aka jmiked (Oct 28, 2008)

tim290280 said:


> Publishers will shoot themselves in the foot trying to continue this charade with readers, especially now with e-books.


Yes, but it's unrealistic to expect them to completely revamp a system overnight. It's going to take years to settle down. Many of them may be still hoping that ebooks will just go away. Of course, it won't disappear completely. You can still buy vinyl records and tube-type amplifiers.

Mike


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## fidjit (Oct 11, 2010)

tim290280 said:


> This is quite common, I think it is called staged releases. It is another form of anti-competitive behavior. I'm not a fan of it as it is against free trade agreements, which I find hypocritical considering how some industries are allowed to ignore it and profit from it. See this bit on DVDs which is relevant to books as well.
> Publishers will shoot themselves in the foot trying to continue this charade with readers, especially now with e-books.





> There are many purposes that region coding can achieve, but the primary one is price discrimination, i.e., allowing the manufacturer to demand a higher or lower price depending on what the market will allow. There is great disparity among the regions of the world in how much a person is willing to pay for a DVD. Price discrimination is especially applicable to DVDs, as the marginal cost of selling one DVD is relatively small, allowing the seller a great deal of flexibility in pricing.
> 
> Another purpose is controlling release dates. One of the traditions of movie marketing that the advent of home video threatened, is the practice of releasing a movie (to theaters) later in some countries than in others. Video tapes were essentially regional anyway, since video tape formats had to match those of the encoding system used by television stations in that particular region, such as NTSC and PAL, although from early 1990s PAL machines increasingly offered NTSC playback. DVDs are less restricted in this sense, and region coding allows movie studios to better control the global release dates DVDs. However, the fact that such classics as "Casablanca" are sold with region codes suggests that price discrimination plays a more important role than release dates do[says who?].
> 
> Thirdly, some titles are owned by different copyright holders in different territories. Region coding allows these copyright holders to protect their interests by preventing consumers from purchasing the same title from a region where the copyright is owned by a different company.


I can see all that to some extent, but in these days of the internet and a global economy ......

So people will just go to a different market and "grey import" the product or even worse they'll find a "cracked" copy ( whether it be a DVD, Ebook, Software Package ) . At least in the grey import scenario the artist/writer gets something but in the second case.........

Times are changing and someone has to look closely at the "traditional" market strategies to maximise their market space/share.


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## mesmered (Feb 2, 2011)

Huzzah! As another Aussie and a bookreader with a list of favoured authors and as someone who haunts bricks and mortar shops as well as the internet (reading aout fave authors' anticipated releases etc) I can't see how, in this era of supersonic fast delivery, all titles' availability is not synchronised. It's easier for me to order on Amazon or get friends in the UK to send me the print version if a rarer book. 
The future shape of publishing looks interesting...


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## lyrical (Jan 25, 2010)

Theres always "The Book Depository " inthe uk and yes there is a web site and shipping is free world wide


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## Basilius (Feb 20, 2010)

jmiked said:


> Yes, but it's unrealistic to expect them to completely revamp a system overnight. It's going to take years to settle down. Many of them may be still hoping that ebooks will just go away. Of course, it won't disappear completely. You can still buy vinyl records and tube-type amplifiers.
> 
> Mike


The Agency model was instituted in less than two months. That is, in effect, overnight. The problem is the publishers will only act that quickly when they think it's in their benefit. Since they think territorial rights and restrictions help them, they have no interest in fixing what they don't see as broke.

They'll eventually have to cave on it, but they will fight for a long, long time.


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## Mike D. aka jmiked (Oct 28, 2008)

Basilius said:


> The Agency model was instituted in less than two months.


That's not quite what I would term a "system". YMMV. 

Mike


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## Jan Strnad (May 27, 2010)

It will all sort itself out eventually. It's too easy to pirate material for would-be buyers to put up with this kind of nonsense. Publishers will have to come around or find themselves on the outside looking in. There's just too much to read for publishers to maintain this level of control over the market.


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## Harry Shannon (Jul 30, 2010)

What Jan said.


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## mesmered (Feb 2, 2011)

With bells on, Jan and Harry!


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

One of the things about all this that irritates the hell out of me is that these same companies will DRM their product up the wazoo claiming that otherwise it will be pirated--then do stuff like this that insures piracy. And then overprice the electronic version just to make SURE it's pirated.

*head desk*


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## Chris Northern (Jan 20, 2011)

JRTomlin said:


> One of the things about all this that irritates the hell out of me is that these same companies will DRM their product up the wazoo claiming that otherwise it will be pirated--then do stuff like this that insures piracy. And then overprice the electronic version just to make SURE it's pirated.
> 
> *head desk*


International *head desk* day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd2B6SjMh_w


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## fidjit (Oct 11, 2010)

Hit another one this week. 

Clive Cussler/Jack Du Brul - The Jungle 

Already in paperback in Australia for a while. No ebook version availaible locally.

Released March 8th in US, paper and ebook. 

Ebook not available to Australians......

Sheesh.................


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## Patrick Skelton (Jan 7, 2011)

Wow...that's nuts!


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## jasonvanhee (Feb 16, 2011)

The books are being released by different companies in each country (or by different arms of each publisher, at the least), and each publisher sets their own prices.  Each one also produces the books differently and has them printed in different locations, as is notable from the various covers you'll see for each book.  So part of the cost variables are based on the decisions made by the publishers: what cover art to use, where the book is being physically made, all of that.  Because of that, there's no standard price for these things, the same way that gasoline costs more in some places than others, or food.

However, that being said, the ebook nonsense is just that, nonsense.  There's no real difference in printing costs, shipping costs, or anything else, and one can order from various sources, so the notion of putting out the ebook for radically different price points, or putting it out in some places but not others, is just stupid.


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## Jon Olson (Dec 10, 2010)

melcom said:


> Did you need to lie down after that? lol


Well, I did. Although I'm finding it hard to type.


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## easyreader (Feb 20, 2011)

Protecting their turf.  It's what every business does when things change faster than they can adapt.


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## MariaESchneider (Aug 1, 2009)

You Aussies seem to have it worse than anyone.  The prices you are charged for books is astounding.  And then they hardly every route the books elsewhere (at least not to the US very often.)  They don't want any of our books to go to Aussie without hoopla.  I never saw such expensive books in my life.

Re:  Time to change the system.  Sure that would be great--if they were actually trying to change the system.  I've not seen any evidence of publishers attempting to change anything yet.  They dig deeper into the entrenchment.


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## Guest (Mar 10, 2011)

A lot of it has nothing to do with publishers and has to do with the commerce rules of different countries.  Australia is known to be very restrictive when it comes to "protecting" its national publishing houses and making outside publishers jump through hoops to sell there.  But from what I understand most of the publishers don't WANT the protection because it makes THEM jump through hoops as well.  And then you have tariffs imposed on imports in various countries, even on digital products.


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## Bob Mayer (Feb 20, 2011)

This mirrors a threat I started with a link to Nathan Bransford's blog where he discusses why some ebooks cost more than their print version.
Ultimately it's a case of publishers trying to protect their business interests rather than the welfare of the reader. Frankly, publishers have always focused on consigning to their retailers rather than selling to readers.  It's a radical concept that they clearly haven't grasped yet. although MacMillan just announced partnering with a company where they can do direct sales.  We'll see more and more of that.


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## fidjit (Oct 11, 2010)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> A lot of it has nothing to do with publishers and has to do with the commerce rules of different countries. Australia is known to be very restrictive when it comes to "protecting" its national publishing houses and making outside publishers jump through hoops to sell there. But from what I understand most of the publishers don't WANT the protection because it makes THEM jump through hoops as well. And then you have tariffs imposed on imports in various countries, even on digital products.


And hence this sort of situation occurs: http://www.theage.com.au/business/borders-angus--robertson-go-bust-20110217-1axt9.html

And from my point of view, how am I going to get these books. The only option they leave me is to "trick" Amazon into believing I'm from the US or find a pirated copy


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## Joseph Robert Lewis (Oct 31, 2010)

My friend in New Zealand has been telling me how difficult it is to get books there and how incredibly expensive they are. Makes me feel grateful for the cheap options available to me, but it is hard to believe that books are such poorly distributed products! I mean, they're books. Should we know how to ship and sell them reasonably by now? We've had 500 years to figure that one out.


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## tim290280 (Jan 11, 2011)

Joseph Robert Lewis said:


> My friend in New Zealand has been telling me how difficult it is to get books there and how incredibly expensive they are. Makes me feel grateful for the cheap options available to me, but it is hard to believe that books are such poorly distributed products! I mean, they're books. Should we know how to ship and sell them reasonably by now? We've had 500 years to figure that one out.


We have issues in Australia and New Zealand (21 million and 4 million people population respectively) in our markets in a number of ways. Being smaller and distant we usually have convoluted supply routes (send raw materials to Asia, Asia makes product and sends to America or Europe, America or Europe takes order from us and sends via Albania to us). Plus our supply chains have a lot of middle men, even if they are owned by the same company, all taking large slices of the pie. We also have stores that offset sales by having a stocking price as part of the cost (paying for stock to sit on a shelf for X amount of time). Of course all of this is BS and isn't a reality and is now striking home in the modern global economy. It is cheaper for me to buy most things overseas and pay for individual postage than it is to buy in stores here. Clearly stores can pay wholesale and ship larger volumes and sell at a more reasonable price, they just haven't had to in the past.


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## jasonvanhee (Feb 16, 2011)

Joseph Robert Lewis said:


> My friend in New Zealand has been telling me how difficult it is to get books there and how incredibly expensive they are. Makes me feel grateful for the cheap options available to me, but it is hard to believe that books are such poorly distributed products! I mean, they're books. Should we know how to ship and sell them reasonably by now? We've had 500 years to figure that one out.


Books are very, very heavy, as I'm sure you know if you've moved. Ugh. My back. (Hence the beauty of ebooks, which are very very light, but I digress). Being so damnably heavy, they cost a ton to ship, and the more shipping involved, the worse it gets. Plus, it's a small market, and on two islands in NZ which makes things more difficult still, so...there's just a lot of costs involved. But again, one wonders at the strange pricing for digital commodities which turn up.

ps, loving Heirs of Mars so far.


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## Aaron Pogue (Feb 18, 2011)

Bob Mayer said:



> Ultimately it's a case of publishers trying to protect their business interests rather than the welfare of the reader.


I chose that quote as the most recent, but several people have commented on the publishing industry trying to protect its old business model. Joe Konrath complains that they're in the business of "selling paper," and all of this is a deliberate effort to make e-Books unappealing precisely because they can't control that market.

I'm reading _The Future of Ideas_ by Lawrence Lessig at the moment, and he points out that this sort of entrenchment is perfectly rational (and inevitable) behavior for any established business facing a changing industry. That doesn't mean consumers should support it, but we shouldn't waste a lot of time waving our fingers and grumbling, either, because economic realities force them to behave that way.

They will inevitably lose out to new players that _can_ afford to function in the new market. That's where we come in.


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## Joseph Robert Lewis (Oct 31, 2010)

I don't have any ill-will against most of the folks in the publishing industry. I know they're good people with a passion for good books, but they find themselves working for subsidiaries of massive international conglomerates that only care about profit margins, and publishing has never been very profitable. 

So the good folks are forced to toe the corporate line and compromise left and right to stay in their jobs just for the chance to discover a good writer and publish a good book. I sympathize with editors a lot.


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## tim290280 (Jan 11, 2011)

jasonvanhee said:


> Books are very, very heavy, as I'm sure you know if you've moved. Ugh. My back. (Hence the beauty of ebooks, which are very very light, but I digress). Being so damnably heavy, they cost a ton to ship, and the more shipping involved, the worse it gets. Plus, it's a small market, and on two islands in NZ which makes things more difficult still, so...there's just a lot of costs involved. But again, one wonders at the strange pricing for digital commodities which turn up.
> 
> ps, loving Heirs of Mars so far.


See my post above, the shipping argument is BS. Most of it is protectionist marketing strategies or insular market places.

I found out the cost structure as it related to musical instrument imports in Australia, but the rationale holds true for most long life consumables. Half the issue is the "just in time" model. Importers don't actually import in bulk from wholesalers, they import on a small order basis from on-sellers. This raises the costs considerably and adds more links in the supply chain for Aussies and our friends across the Tasman Sea (they can cop it even worse as products often get imported into Australia then sent to New Zealand!).


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## jasonvanhee (Feb 16, 2011)

tim290280 said:


> See my post above, the shipping argument is BS. Most of it is protectionist marketing strategies or insular market places.
> 
> I found out the cost structure as it related to musical instrument imports in Australia, but the rationale holds true for most long life consumables. Half the issue is the "just in time" model. Importers don't actually import in bulk from wholesalers, they import on a small order basis from on-sellers. This raises the costs considerably and adds more links in the supply chain for Aussies and our friends across the Tasman Sea (they can cop it even worse as products often get imported into Australia then sent to New Zealand!).


It's not BS, actually. It does cost money to ship things, and the more steps there are, the more money it costs. You, as an individual consumer, can order direct from someplace and get an item pretty cheaply, because you don't have to pay but one intermediary. A merchant pays their distributor, who pays a shipping company, who pays the actual producer (perhaps, but may pay another distributor). Each of those middle men has to take a cut, and it adds to the final cost each time. The further out you are, the more middle men there are, the higher the cost. Now, does it justify everything about higher costs? Not necessarily, but it's not BS.


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## Julia444 (Feb 24, 2011)

You make a great point; some publishers are still figuring out how to react to the whole Kindle phenomenon, and I think that affects pricing as well.  I think they are still in the midst of a learning curve, but if they took the time to have a staffer read boards like this, they'd learn a lot about their readers!!

I hope you enjoy the book when you finally get it.  

Julia


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## PeggyI (Jan 9, 2011)

It's sounds like some people haven't read the Globalization memo yet.


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## tim290280 (Jan 11, 2011)

jasonvanhee said:


> It's not BS, actually. It does cost money to ship things, and the more steps there are, the more money it costs. You, as an individual consumer, can order direct from someplace and get an item pretty cheaply, because you don't have to pay but one intermediary. A merchant pays their distributor, who pays a shipping company, who pays the actual producer (perhaps, but may pay another distributor). Each of those middle men has to take a cut, and it adds to the final cost each time. The further out you are, the more middle men there are, the higher the cost. Now, does it justify everything about higher costs? Not necessarily, but it's not BS.


Not really. I know what you are saying is the case, I said as much in my post, but if I am sourcing a product I am paying retail and paying postage. A retailer should be able to pay wholesale and ship in bulk. These two factors alone should decrease the costs over what I can source as a public consumer. Now the crappy supply chain means that retailers aren't sourcing efficiently, so the "shipping costs" argument is BS as they haven't sourced at an internationally competitive rate. So we're both saying the same thing, I just don't accept that they can pass on their inefficiencies to the consumer, especially not now that we have the internet and a global market place.


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## Joseph Robert Lewis (Oct 31, 2010)

As an alternative to those global shipping charges, why don't big companies set up local manufacturing? I mean, in the case of books, we're talking about a little print-on-demand office in a major city or two. One office could produce copies of *all* books on file. Sounds cost effective to me.


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## Aaron Pogue (Feb 18, 2011)

Joseph Robert Lewis said:


> As an alternative to those global shipping charges, why don't big companies set up local manufacturing? I mean, in the case of books, we're talking about a little print-on-demand office in a major city or two. One office could produce copies of *all* books on file. Sounds cost effective to me.


I'm pretty sure the big publishing houses still think of their centuries-old, acid-etched metal-plate technology as their big competitive advantage. I don't see them rushing to set up PoD shops just to save on shipping.

That's not to say it's a bad idea. The publishing industry has just shown an incredible resistance to good ideas, as long as they've got an old idea that still works at all.


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## Bob Mayer (Feb 20, 2011)

I believe the thing that will save bookstores-- and some publishers-- is indeed Print On Demand in the bookstores. The Espresso machine is in several bookstores here in the Seattle area. What's killing publishers, besides eBooks, is shipping and returns. Got to remember a bookstore is a consignment store. I remember when a 50% sell through was considered average. Now they want 80% sell through. The problem with that is the easiest way to reach that goal is to order less books. When less books are racked, less books are sold. It's a vicious cycle that has destroyed the midlist, because they're the first to go when cutting back orders.
The price point has to get lower on POD and then it will dominate print.

_--- edited... no self-promotion outside the Book Bazaar forum. please read our Forum Decorum thread._


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## tim290280 (Jan 11, 2011)

I should clarify something about Aussie books; we actually have a subsidised local print market. Basically all local books are printed in Australia. All overseas books have to be optioned within 30 days to be printed locally or they are allowed to be imported. So basically we do have local printing, but because of the laws involved the print costs are artificially inflated. Bookstores and publishers also like to add extra margins into their print costs so that each book is paying for itself, rather than having a breakeven point for a print run.

Plus the point that Bob made holds very true in Australia, sell through is a killer in a small market like Australia. Bookstores and publishers also tend to be opportunistic and will sell various books at over price. Print on demand will be the future, but it will have to be fast, good quality and cheaper. Although the sums I have seen suggest it would actually make Aussie books cheaper right now (cuts out a lot of overheads).


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## Tara Maya (Nov 4, 2010)

The whole thing is weird to me. The publishers cannot be the only ones to blame because I am a small publisher/indie writer, so why don't I have the option to make my ebooks available in Australia? Or are they? (I actually have no idea if Canadian, Australian, French etc. readers can buy my books, and if so if they must do them from Amazon UK or Amazon US.) Why am I not allowed to buy *my own* ebooks even in a market where I know I am selling, like the UK? Why are US buyers not allowed to buy ebooks from Amazon UK and vice versa? This is clearly not something in the power of the publisher, because no one asked me. I would have said, make the books available everywhere at the same price. It's very confusing and frustrating.


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## Joseph Robert Lewis (Oct 31, 2010)

Tara Maya said:


> The whole thing is weird to me. The publishers cannot be the only ones to blame because I am a small publisher/indie writer, so why don't I have the option to make my ebooks available in Australia? Or are they? (I actually have no idea if Canadian, Australian, French etc. readers can buy my books, and if so if they must do them from Amazon UK or Amazon US.) Why am I not allowed to buy *my own* ebooks even in a market where I know I am selling, like the UK? Why are US buyers not allowed to buy ebooks from Amazon UK and vice versa? This is clearly not something in the power of the publisher, because no one asked me. I would have said, make the books available everywhere at the same price. It's very confusing and frustrating.


I'm no expert, so correct me if I get this wrong, but my understanding is that individual corporations (like Amazon US) are only able to buy/sell within set geographic boundaries without paying huge import/export taxes. This is why they set up other corporations like Amazon UK to operate in other zones.

I know for a fact that readers in Thailand and Australia have bought my ebooks from Amazon US, but they have to pay $3 to $6 *extra *for "download" fees and other charges to make that happen.


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## Aaron Pogue (Feb 18, 2011)

Joseph Robert Lewis said:


> I know for a fact that readers in Thailand and Australia have bought my ebooks from Amazon US, but they have to pay $3 to $6 *extra *for "download" fees and other charges to make that happen.


Oof, that's brutal. This is really the part of the market I don't know enough about yet. Thanks for sharing your experience.


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## SEAN H. ROBERTSON (Mar 14, 2011)

Whew, read through pretty much all your posts. Thank God for self-publishing/Amazon-CreateSpace. Works for me right now.


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## Jcas (Sep 3, 2010)

I would desperately love to read a novel called Pope Joan on my kindle, found it on Amazon get really excited then that green notice Not Available To Australia pops up, i get so annoyed i have gone to the authors page to ask about it, but they dont even respond


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## jasonvanhee (Feb 16, 2011)

Joseph Robert Lewis said:


> I'm no expert, so correct me if I get this wrong, but my understanding is that individual corporations (like Amazon US) are only able to buy/sell within set geographic boundaries without paying huge import/export taxes. This is why they set up other corporations like Amazon UK to operate in other zones.
> 
> I know for a fact that readers in Thailand and Australia have bought my ebooks from Amazon US, but they have to pay $3 to $6 *extra *for "download" fees and other charges to make that happen.


It's true. Very true. I'm given to understand that for Amazon.co.uk, you can't even order digital content unless you actually live in the UK, though you can order standard books. It's all very troublesome.


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## nomesque (Apr 12, 2010)

Joseph Robert Lewis said:


> I know for a fact that readers in Thailand and Australia have bought my ebooks from Amazon US, but they have to pay $3 to $6 *extra *for "download" fees and other charges to make that happen.


Australia is now on zero extra fees - ie, same as the US. Although I did get hit with small 'foreign currency transaction' fees from my Amazon purchases before I learnt to buy gift cards.


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## Joseph Robert Lewis (Oct 31, 2010)

Jcas said:


> I would desperately love to read a novel called Pope Joan on my kindle, found it on Amazon get really excited then that green notice Not Available To Australia pops up, i get so annoyed i have gone to the authors page to ask about it, but they dont even respond


That's a pity. I've seen a huge disparity between authors who are willing to engage with and help their readers and authors who cut themselves off from the world. I understand the loner instinct, but as a professional storyteller, it seems a little counter-intuitive to me.


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## Guest (Mar 16, 2011)

Tara Maya said:


> The whole thing is weird to me. The publishers cannot be the only ones to blame because I am a small publisher/indie writer, so why don't I have the option to make my ebooks available in Australia? Or are they? (I actually have no idea if Canadian, Australian, French etc. readers can buy my books, and if so if they must do them from Amazon UK or Amazon US.) Why am I not allowed to buy *my own* ebooks even in a market where I know I am selling, like the UK? Why are US buyers not allowed to buy ebooks from Amazon UK and vice versa? This is clearly not something in the power of the publisher, because no one asked me. I would have said, make the books available everywhere at the same price. It's very confusing and frustrating.


It all has to do with international tax codes, laws and tariffs. Country specific rights have ALWAYS been a huge problem in the publishing industry. This is not new to digital publishing. That's why for so many decades authors needed an agent just to navigate the various laws to sell rights in different countries. Some countries are very protectionist. Some have such lacks laws that they practically legalize piracy and counterfeiting by turning a blind eye to it(China...cough...). And let's not even get into censorship issues. We are spoiled here in the U.S. We don't KNOW what real censorship is. Sure, we whine and moan if a company won't let us publish our book to their site, but we don't have a government that says "You cannot publish that...period." Denying the Holocaust is illegal in most of Europe (We just call it stupid and repulsive here in the States). But if you publish a Holocaust denial book in the U.S., you'll get protests and complaints but still be able to sell it. You can be arrested or fined in parts of Europe for the same thing.

This, ultimately, is part of the disconnect between indies and publishers. Indies don't understand the legal issues surrounding so much of the industry, and assume the publishers are deliberately doing something to spite authors. In reality as a business publishers have a host of legal issues to navigate that indies often just ignore. nd for the most part, they get away with because they fly under the radar. Almost every day I see indie books that clearly violate copyright or trademark law, misrepresent themselves, or engaged in behavior that I honestly think the author does not realize is illegal. But for now, most are dealing in such low sales numbers and such a small amount of money that nobody has noticed...yet.


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## Aaron Pogue (Feb 18, 2011)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Almost every day I see indie books that clearly violate copyright or trademark law, misrepresent themselves, or engaged in behavior that I honestly think the author does not realize is illegal. But for now, most are dealing in such low sales numbers and such a small amount of money that nobody has noticed...yet.


Ugh. That was a pretty terrifying and sobering thing to read.

I _try_ to keep up on these things. The next book I'm publishing, written by a friend, featured a demon obsessed with the band INXS. Whenever he spoke, throughout the novel, it would be in quotes of INXS lyrics.

I told her it was unique and charming, but she had to do something about it. I suggested she try to contact the band and just get permission (thinking maybe INXS would be generous about it). She ended up just changing all the lyrics -- and we both agree the book is better for it. It was a fun gimmick, but her own creativity made for a better work.

It's a challenge, though. I've often wondered just how much of the publishers' "Ebooks cost just as much as paper books" argument was based on the fact that -- printing, stocking, and shipping aside -- e-Books cost every bit as much in lawyer fees.


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