# "Amazon is playing indie-authors like pawns" says Smashwords founder Mark Coker



## BBGriffith (Mar 13, 2012)

Not sure if this has been distributed around here or not. Interesting take from Mark Coker. What say ye KB?

http://selfpublishingadvice.org/blog/amazon-plays-indie-authors-like-pawns/


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## Remington Kane (Feb 19, 2011)

Once again, Amazon is the great satan, and Indie authors are foolish dupes. Ho hum.


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## Jan Strnad (May 27, 2010)

I agree with everything he says...in principle. 

Unfortunately, at the moment (and for the last two years), I make substantially more from the KDP Select Program than I made from B&N, Apple, Sony, Diesel, and Kobo combined.

Others report different results, of course, but that's how it's been shaking out for me.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

> The exclusivity piece is completely unnecessary, and only causes long term harm to authors and Amazon's competitors.


Yeah, I think we're all pretty aware that it's a program to hurt the competitors. Most of us are selfishly concerned (obsessed?) with our own careers, though. We act as individuals, not as a group, so we'll always be little pawns, running to whatever grass looks the most green.

I've got some books in Select and some out. I'll do what's best for me, my family, my career, and what little is left of my sanity. (As do most people.)


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Jan Strnad said:


> I agree with everything he says...in principle.
> 
> Unfortunately, at the moment (and for the last two years), I make substantially more from the KDP Select Program than I made from B&N, Apple, Sony, Diesel, and Kobo combined.
> 
> Others report different results, of course, but that's how it's been shaking out for me.


Currently, the folks in India seem to be working hard on fixing an issue I'm having with a promotion. They are sending daily updates, even just to let me know that they haven't been able to sort it out. Like any huge agency, there is good with the bad.


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## 60911 (Jun 13, 2012)

Dalya said:


> I've got some books in Select and some out. I'll do what's best for me, my family, my career, *and what little is left of my sanity*. (As do most people.)


You been hoarding some sanity, Dalya? That stuff is supposed to stay outside the WC doors!


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## Jason Varrone (Feb 5, 2012)

genevieveaclark said:


> I'm not sure why we should be expected to care about what Mark Coker says unless it's about fixing long-standing problems at Smashwords.
> 
> Get your own house in order, etc etc.


100% agreed. After weeks I'm still waiting for: 1) B&N and Apple to get books up after SW shipped them, 2) premium distribution approval, and 3) shipments to go out for approved SW titles. I love the SW model and platform, I truly do, but wow, it is slow.......


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

RobertJCrane said:


> You been hoarding some sanity, Dalya? That stuff is supposed to stay outside the WC doors!


I have 35,000 words of sanity left. And then it's Crazy Town!


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## A.A (Mar 30, 2012)

I'm grateful for the opportunity Amazon has given me - they've made the whole process of uploading your book and cover so easy to understand. I'm also grateful for the KB board, because here so many different aspects of indie publishing are discussed and I think no one who comes here regularly would be in the dark about other options and paths. I don't feel like a pawn.

The article makes us sound a little, er, unintelligent that we can be 'played'. 

I am going to opt out of Select and try SmashWords for everything I've currently written, but not because I feel disgruntled but because I won't know unless I try. I'm grateful that Mark Coker has SmashWords there as an option (though I know we can upload directly to various sites).

Jeez I'm feeling grateful today


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## jimkukral (Oct 31, 2011)

How dare Amazon give us so much opportunity? They are evil!

/sarcasm

I get his point. He's a competitor who is being crushed and it sucks. But... my advice to Mark.

1. Find more creative ways to create more eyeballs and readers on your site Mark and quit complaining. You sound like a traditional publisher complaining, but again, doing nothing to compete. Get crazy, differentiate! Compete!

2. Why not start by redesigning the entire site to something that resembles a site that was made to look professional and meets the standards of 2012?

Compete, or die!


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

I know I shouldn't be, but I'm getting worked up now.

So, a certain party is saying, "*Don't be a pawn!*"

Why not say something that indies care about? How about "*You can now upload your epubs!*" Or ... I don't know. How about "*We are (for reals) shipping weekly!*"

Anyone? Anyone?


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## 41413 (Apr 4, 2011)

Dalya said:


> Why not say something that indies care about? How about "*You can now upload your epubs!*" Or ... I don't know. How about "*We are (for reals) shipping weekly!*"


How about, "Our customer service will be responsive and treat you with respect"? That would be a huge leg up on the competitors.

How about, "We're launching a site that looks like it was designed after 2003"?

Or, "We're adding features to the site that make it an appealing marketplace for readers, instead of just being the place that authors are forced to go to distribute to Apple if they can't get approved to sell directly"?


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

jimkukral said:


> 2. Why not start by redesigning the entire site to something that resembles a site that was made to look professional and meets the standards of 2012?


This. Your website sucks, Mark.

And if you allowed direct uploads four years ago, I would've given you a ton of my business. But you use a crappy book macerator instead.


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## AmberC (Mar 28, 2012)

Dalya said:


> Why not say something that indies care about? How about "*You can now upload your epubs!*" Or ... I don't know. How about "*We are (for reals) shipping weekly!*"
> 
> Anyone? Anyone?


100% THIS!


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## Adam Pepper (May 28, 2011)

Not sure why Mark feels the need for condescending rhetoric. In my experience, the only sales I've made on BN or Kobo are readers I've sent there. Amazon sends its customers to me. I'm not a pawn, I'm a partner. The relationship is mutually beneficial.


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## philstern (Mar 14, 2011)

I agree with Mark in principle. However, I was up on Smashwords for several months, and did virtually nothing. The Amazon Select program has worked much better for me.

And I think Amazon will go farther, limiting the 70% royalty only to those in Select. Then everyone truly will have to go one way or the other.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

Hugh Howey said:


> This. Your website sucks, Mark.
> 
> And if you allowed direct uploads four years ago, I would've given you a ton of my business. But you use a crappy book macerator instead.


I like my strawberries macerated.

In the comments, he says epubs by Christmas.

Their target market is homeless people who use library computers, so ... hence it's taken 4 years to offer the epub option. Totally understandable. The breast-feeding fetish stuff has to come from somewhere.*

*No offense intended to homeless people, who probably like breast-feeding fetish stuff at a similar rate as the home-having population.


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## Guest (Oct 23, 2012)

I think people should look around this forum at the problems people are having, particularly those authors who are in Select that find their books arbitrarily frozen while Amazon investigates who-knows-what. More and more indies are reporting serious, financially-damaging problems with Amazon. Just the act of changing your price can flag your book for investigation, and then it is four or more days of emails hoping they reactivate your book because it isn't available for sale anywhere else and you are losing money. Regardless of how you feel about Mark's site, nothing he is saying is not factually true. Even if you don't want to use Smashwords, you can upload directly to a lot of sites now. Wide distribution is a good thing. Particularly on those days when Amazon decides you have a "high risk" book or just shuts down your account for "irregularities." 

Smashwords needs a lot of work. But I also firmly believe Mark has always been pro-indie. Whereas Amazon has always been pro-Amazon.


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## DCBourone (Sep 10, 2012)

Yep, Amazon the mega-fauna carnivore.

But "relatively" user friendly.

Would love to use/harness Smashwords, but find 

the interface, quoting charming girl-with-a-blade

above, somehow suggests dial-tones, and rotary phones.


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## Adam Pepper (May 28, 2011)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Whereas Amazon has always been pro-Amazon.


And I've always been pro-me and pro my career.

We really dont need more warnings about the risks of Amazon. We get it, Julie. We always have. We need compelling reasons to go elsewhere. We need to see results elsewhere that rival what we can get from Amazon.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Dalya said:


> I know I shouldn't be, but I'm getting worked up now.
> 
> So, a certain party is saying, "*Don't be a pawn!*"
> 
> ...


He talks a lot about trying to convince Amazon to ditch exclusivity. How about talking to B&N and iTunes about giving us some visibility instead!

There is a REASON we choose to be "pawns". It is known as that mysterious thing: sales.


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## That one girl (Apr 12, 2011)

I might take what he has to say more seriously if it weren't that I've sold just three non-erotic books on Smashwords in sixteen months.


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## Alondo (Aug 30, 2011)

95% of what I sell is on Kindle, but I still think exclusivity is a bad thing for the ebook market in the long term, so I agree with what he says on that point at least.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Alondo said:


> 95% of what I sell is on Kindle, but I still think exclusivity is a bad thing for the ebook market in the long term, so I agree with what he says on that point at least.


I don't think it's ideal but what is bad for the e-book market is B&N, Kobo and iTunes having poorly designed stores and not giving indies any way to gain visibility. Changing THAT would instantly kill exclusivity with Amazon.


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## Alondo (Aug 30, 2011)

JRTomlin said:


> I don't think it's ideal but what is bad for the e-book market is B&N, Kobo and iTunes having poorly designed stores and not giving indies any way to gain visibility. Changing THAT would instantly kill exclusivity with Amazon.


Couldn't agree more. Let's hope someone's listening.


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## That one girl (Apr 12, 2011)

JRTomlin said:


> I don't think it's ideal but what is bad for the e-book market is B&N, Kobo and iTunes having poorly designed stores and not giving indies any way to gain visibility. Changing THAT would instantly kill exclusivity with Amazon.


Exactly. As much as I love my iBooks app, I hardly use it because I hate the iBookstore. I do think Kobo is moving in the right direction, but I don't think it will be a contender for a few more years.


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## H. S. St. Ours (Mar 24, 2012)

Never went the Smashwords route. Was always a do-it-yourself kind of indie writer (is that redundant?) and posted "by hand" on B&N via PubIt!, iBookstore via iTune Producer, and of course, Amazon via KDP. (Never felt a need for Kobo.) Also on Goodreads and Wattpad too and getting reads. 

So to those who let Smashwords get to them, I say: pull out now, and re-submit directly. Take back control.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

H.S. St.Ours said:


> Never went the Smashwords route. Was always a do-it-yourself kind of indie writer (is that redundant?) and posted "by hand" on B&N via PubIt!, iBookstore via iTune Producer, and of course, Amazon via KDP. (Never felt a need for Kobo.) Also on Goodreads and Wattpad too and getting reads.
> 
> So to those who let Smashwords get to them, I say: pull out now, and re-submit directly. Take back control.


While I agree that more control is good, I get so few sales in those places, it's not worth the time and trouble. Simple honesty. I am pulling most of the novels I do have on SW at the moment though.

_To put them back in Select._


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Two things:

1. -- let's be careful about the close to inflammatory language. . .some posts border on personal attacks.

2. -- I'm a reader, not a writer.  I only buy from Amazon.  I tried Smashwords early on and wasn't happy with the quality of the books I got there.  Nor the extra effort required on MY part to get them on my Kindle.  Now, it's possible that's changed, but the site looks exactly the same as it did in 2008, so. . . . . . .


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## Ali Cooper (May 1, 2010)

Yes, amazon is certainly playing authors for their own ends. And yes they're exploiting the not so nice traits of greed and selfishness that, from what I've seen, are more prevalent in writers than other areas of the arts. But the point is, the authors who participate do so willingly.

On the other hand, I used to admire smashwords. But they're upload/conversion and distribution seem to get increasingly complicated and unpredictable. The most unprofessional part is not being able to view your book in all formats before it's unleashed.

I agree with the things Mark Coker has been saying about amazon recently, but the bottom line is that he should be competing by providing a more professional service and promotion forums rather than just knocking them.


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## Incognita (Apr 3, 2011)

Hugh Howey said:


> This. Your website sucks, Mark.
> 
> And if you allowed direct uploads four years ago, I would've given you a ton of my business. But you use a crappy book macerator instead.


This. This. This. THIS.

The reason I stopped uploading to Smashwords wasn't because I'd sold my soul to Amazon (although I did have books come in and out of Select, my whole catalogue was never locked up at any given time). It was because I was sick of that #[email protected]!! meatgrinder.

Get rid of that, update your website, make it easier for people to actually find things...and then we'll talk.


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## Jeff Menapace (Mar 5, 2011)

smreine said:


> How about, "Our customer service will be responsive and treat you with respect"? That would be a huge leg up on the competitors.
> 
> How about, "We're launching a site that looks like it was designed after 2003"?
> 
> Or, "We're adding features to the site that make it an appealing marketplace for readers, instead of just being the place that authors are forced to go to distribute to Apple if they can't get approved to sell directly"?


LOL. I do enjoy reading your posts


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## Alondo (Aug 30, 2011)

Ali Cooper said:


> Yes, amazon is certainly playing authors for their own ends. And yes they're exploiting the not so nice traits of greed and selfishness that, from what I've seen, are more prevalent in writers than other areas of the arts. But the point is, the authors who participate do so willingly.
> 
> On the other hand, I used to admire smashwords. But they're upload/conversion and distribution seem to get increasingly complicated and unpredictable. The most unprofessional part is not being able to view your book in all formats before it's unleashed.
> 
> I agree with the things Mark Coker has been saying about amazon recently, but the bottom line is that he should be competing by providing a more professional service and promotion forums rather than just knocking them.


My impression is that SW operates on a shoestring, and I'm sure that's a part of the problem from Mark Coker's point of view. He just doesn't have the resources to do what he would like to do. When I tried to upload my Trilogy to SW, I was told that they wanted to accommodate larger books, but didn't have the funds to do it, and didn't know when they would be able to. Running a "more professional service" takes big bucks. Amazon, on the other hand, has more money than you can shake a stick at. It's not exactly a level playing field.


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## kurzon (Feb 26, 2011)

I put out a new book on the first of the month. I've had around 150 sales on Amazon US, a few on Kobo, and 30 sales direct on Smashwords. [Won't know about B&N, Sony, etc until after the usual delay - and delays related to those sites, so far as I can tell, are down to those sites, not Smashwords, since some of those sites are clearly able to get the book up right away and others take weeks.]

I've never gone Select and likely never will because I loathe exclusivity. I have readers who would have to pay an extra $2 for my books if they bought through Amazon. I have readers who hate Amazon and don't want to use it. I have readers who own devices other than Kindles, and don't want to go through the rigamarole of converting and sideloading.

My Amazon sales dropped considerably when Select was introduced and have never regained the same momentum, though I still sell steadily. It seems fairly clear Amazon weights its recommendation engines in favour of exclusive titles. I expect it would be financially advantageous to me to go with Select and gain that extra weight. I sell in small amounts on the other sites, but more than I once did.

But I'm not willing to tell 1/5 of my "new release" readers that I'm happy to inconvenience/not sell to them.

I do agree that it would be a wonderful thing if the other distributors stepped up their game, but that doesn't mean I'm going to ignore them. Amazon is a business doing its practical best to gain an advantage. They're not evil for that, they're smart. But for me, I'm not comfortable with the whole "all the eggs in one basket" option, especially with all the stuff we've been hearing lately about books being pulled for this and that and the other reason.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Ali Cooper said:


> And yes they're exploiting the not so nice traits of greed and selfishness that, from what I've seen, are more prevalent in writers than other areas of the arts.


The desire to earn as much money as you can for your work is not greed and selfishness. It's the desire to get paid for your work.


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## eBooksHabit (Mar 5, 2012)

Pawns can become queens, and many have via Amazon (some in this thread even).


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## RenataSuerth (May 6, 2012)

Amazon saw an opportunity - a lot of indie-authors needing a place to publish - and went with it. 
Good for them. 
More importantly, they made it incredibly easy. I was able to upload my ebook ALL BY MYSELF! This
is impressive because I can't even change the book cover on kindleboards! (That's a separate post.)

_Cleaned up your sig, Renata, PM me if you need more help. --Betsy_


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

All of last year, about 90% of my sales were from Amazon.

Then, last month, something changed.

Don't ask me what it was, because I don't know.

My sales looked like this:

45% B & N
35% Kobo
20% Amazon

OK, there was probably a sale on Apple, too. I've said before I'm not an iPerson. That's probably the reason.

This month is shaping up the same.

I'm not in the US, so while I go direct for Kobo, I cannot go direct to either B & N or Apple. I want to have a presence at Apple, because it's a decent market, even though I raely sell anything there. Like B & N before, I have no idea how or when I might start selling there.

It's been months since I sold anything on the SW site (I use it mostly for giveaways), but SW has been instrumental in getting me a lot of sales. I think you want to have a presence (not necessarily all your books, but a presence) on all those sites, because you never know when one of the retailers stuffs up and affects your sales there.


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## Susan Kaye Quinn (Aug 8, 2011)

> My sales looked like this:
> 
> 45% B & N
> 35% Kobo
> 20% Amazon


Very interesting - I've seen this happen, the sudden switch, with other authors too. I think once you get a boost into whatever algorithm works at the other retailers, you can see a huge surge in sales. Until that...nada. As other people have said, I wish everyone's algorithms were as indie-friendly as Amazon.

(And Smash doesn't seem likely to ever be a major player.)


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## jimkukral (Oct 31, 2011)

I was going to publish this on Huffington Post, but thought I'd get feedback here first. Too harsh?

Dear Mark,

We've never met. You're way more successful than I am. You run a really cool company (Smashwords) and you're well respected in the publishing industry. I've only been publishing book content for 3-years or so. I've been creating Web content in video, blog and eBook form for over 15. I only have 8 books on the market now and I'm nowhere near successful as a big-time selling author. I'm a publishing nobody.

But I do know a thing or two about branding and Web businesses and competition.

That being said. I just read this post where you talk about how Amazon is playing indie authors like pawns.

You're right. They are. You know why? Because nobody wants to compete with them! Even Smashwords. A few points.

*Point 1*

Your website design is straight outta 2005 man. I know maybe you guys are looking for some home-grown "indie" look but it's not working. It looks to me like the inside of an old and not visited used bookstore. The kind of place only a handful of people go in, and ONLY because they need a book they can't find anywhere else, even Amazon.

I don't want to go there. I don't want to shop there. I don't want to submit books there. And either do a lot of authors who I'm sure will comment on this post. It's really not that expensive in today's day and age to get a better look for your brand. With all the fans you have, I bet you could get a design to do it for free. Thank me later for that suggestion.

*Point 2*

Quit complaining and compete! You are of course right about Amazon; but being right doesn't make a successful business. Why not compete instead? You sound like every traditional publisher over the last 4-years or so complaining about how Amazon drank their milkshake.

Why didn't the "Big Six" publishers create the ereading revolution? Why didn't they band together and build a Kindle? Right, because they are, and always have been, in the business of paper and they refused to change. They refuse (still do) to budge an inch. Will you change?

*Point 3*

I gotta ask and I'm not being facetious. What does Smashwords do for an author that Amazon can't? Because as an author I'm not seeing what it is? You help them convert books to digital form better. What else?

See point #2. Why not do something better or different or bigger?

*Point 4*

Authors and reader want more choices, yes. The problem is that Smashwords and everyone else pulling on Amazon's coat strings isn't giving us those choices. I pray that Google books finally comes out and competes with Amazon. They could do it overnight if they wanted to. We want you to succeed, we really do.

*Point 5*

Finally. What's the point of sitting back and complaining about what a competitor is doing? Be better! I get it, your business model may just be to hang back and be that company that trails and feeds off the crumbs. That's fine. But stop complaining about the big shark if you choose to be the lamprey.

I hope you make some changes and I hope you explode your business, because we need you more than ever. Authors want more competition, and you've got the reach and potential to make it happen. With respect.

Sincerely,

Jim F. Kukral


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## B. Justin Shier (Apr 1, 2011)

Alondo said:


> My impression is that SW operates on a shoestring, and I'm sure that's a part of the problem from Mark Coker's point of view. He just doesn't have the resources to do what he would like to do. When I tried to upload my Trilogy to SW, I was told that they wanted to accommodate larger books, but didn't have the funds to do it, and didn't know when they would be able to. Running a "more professional service" takes big bucks. Amazon, on the other hand, has more money than you can shake a stick at. It's not exactly a level playing field.


You know, if a year ago Mark had come on this board and announced a Kickstarter fundraising drive to enable EPUB uploads for Smashwords, I would have ponied up some dough. I believed it was in my interests for Mark to succeed. But now I look at what www.vook.com has accomplished in the same time frame, and I am left scratching my head.

B.


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## eBooksHabit (Mar 5, 2012)

It's harsh, but it's truthful. 

Post as is.


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## Shane Murray (Aug 1, 2012)

jimkukral said:


> 2. Why not start by redesigning the entire site to something that resembles a site that was made to look professional and meets the standards of 2012?
> 
> Compete, or die!


Yup. The first time I saw that sight I thought it looked like something made by a high school student.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

JRTomlin said:


> He talks a lot about trying to convince Amazon to ditch exclusivity. How about talking to B&N and iTunes about giving us some visibility instead!
> 
> There is a REASON we choose to be "pawns". It is known as that mysterious thing: sales.


^^^^
This.

Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Apple, and any other online booksellers need to get search engines that actually find the books customers are looking for.

Also-boughts, recommends, etc also help buyers discover our books at Amazon. That is why Amazon sells more books than anyone else. I really don't understand why the other booksellers have not copied that system. It cannot be that difficult a programming proposition.


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## balaspa (Dec 27, 2009)

All I know is the numbers. For Amazon - I sell hundreds of books a month.  For B&N, I sell, if I am lucky, 20 books a month.  Kobo? I have sold, I think, two books.  Smashwords? Sold about three...and those are year-long totals.

So, really, I don't see what he is pushing.  I like the idea of Smashwords, but their ability to do promotion and other things makes them not as viable.  I just don't sell much via Smashwords.


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## Shane Murray (Aug 1, 2012)

T.S. Welti said:


> I might take what he has to say more seriously if it weren't that I've sold just three non-erotic books on Smashwords in sixteen months.


Burn!!


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## cdvsmx5 (May 23, 2012)

Where's the popcorn when we need it?


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## Nathan Elliott (May 29, 2012)

jimkukral said:


> I was going to publish this on Huffington Post, but thought I'd get feedback here first. Too harsh?


I don't know. About the stop complaining and compete thing.... I am not sure that they want to compete. I think they want to cooperate--SW is not a retailer. Mark Coker had a great idea to be a distributor/aggregator, but it can't reall work well unless the retailers let it work. I don't think they are gonna let it. Amazon doesn't seem very interested in working with Smashwords from what I can see. I cannot believe for a second that the perpetual "we're working on it" that comes out of SW regarding Amazon integration is at all SW's fault. I imagine SW would work 36 hours a day and drop everything else if Amazon would just give them an opportunity to actually finally get set up as an aggregator. I think Amazon just doesn't want to work with aggregators for whatever reason. Plus, the other retailers seem to enjoy dragging their feet about actually listing the books that SW ships to them. Now BN and Kobo have their own interfaces that they are pushing, so I doubt they're gonna try any harder to get the SW titles up in a timely manner or stop messing them up after they are up. I don't see what SW can do about that besides pester the retailers (which they already do), but they still seem to get the blame for the delays.

Because Apple is such a pain to work with, SW might have a future as a go-between there, and there are some channels that you just cannot reach in other ways. And if you are outside the US, SW opens some doors that retailers were foolish to close in the first place. So, maybe there are some opportunities for them in a cooperative role.

It isn't the old-school look of SW or any clunkiness of their site that is killing them, IMHO. These days, I am not even sure it is the meatgrinder, which is a bit suboptimal but useable. I think it is just that their partners don't seem to be very good at ingesting the SW titles. I think SW's goal of being an aggregator for all retailers means that they cannot try to compete like you suggest. If they do make headway as a competitor, you can bet that the retailers will just sit on the SW titles even longer and totally kill the aggregation aspect of SW.

I think SW needs to decide whether they are retail or a distributor. I don't think they can go far enough being a distributor based on the lack of cooperation from retail "partners." So, if the retailers won't play nice, maybe they are better viewed as competitors, and maybe SW should work on retail and just expect retaliation on the ebook ingestion front. I don't know the answer to that one. SW has a huge catalog. Maybe they can do something with it besides try to shove it at unwilling partners.

I guess I do agree that Mark and company need to think hard rather than complain. But I can't blame him for wanting to vent. I suspect Amazon has been wasting MC and SW's time stringing them along for a while now. I'd be a little steamed too.

I hope SW takes off. MC is a good guy if a little angry at the moment. And there is a need for a one-stop shop for ditribution *if* the retailers will allow it. I wish SW the best. I hope MC will rest assured that the moment it makes sense to do so, people will leave KDP Select in droves. We aren't stupid. Amazon just offered a lot in exchange for exclusivity, and now they seem to offer much less, so people will be quick to leave if SW or anybody else gives them a good reason. As a distributor, I don't think that is up to Smashwords to do. Some retailer needs to get their act together. If Smashwords wanted to be that retailer and risk crossing their "partners" then that might be cool.

I will say one thing... if you gave Mark Coker the kind of backing taht Kobo got, Amazon might be trembling. Maybe someone will pick up SW and give them what they need. I mean, they don't have a 100 million bucks, but darnit, they do already have a search engine that works. Imagine if they did have that money.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> But I also firmly believe Mark has always been pro-indie. Whereas Amazon has always been pro-Amazon.


I'd say Amazon's self-interest has made far more money for independent authors than anyone's pro-indie attitude.


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## MJWare (Jun 25, 2010)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Smashwords needs a lot of work. But I also firmly believe Mark has always been pro-indie. Whereas Amazon has always been pro-Amazon.


Julie, I used to be pro-Smashwords. I know firsthand how hard it is grow a small business.

However, after Smashwords cost me several hundred in lost sales and Mark never replied to me (after I beta'd his latest book), I've changed my tune.

I had an e-mail conversation with mark several years ago, explaining that he was soon going to be too large for e-mail support (which is what their support form does). I explained if he had a ticketing system, he could track open tickets that hadn't been resolved.
He expressed no interest in increasing customer service. The impression I got is that he didn't want to know whose support requests weren't getting answered.

Bottom line there's some simple steps Mark refuses to take to improve customer service.

Both Mark and Amazon are only worried about their own bottom lines. Neither one is looking out for us (not that they necessarily should be).


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Terrence OBrien said:


> I'd say Amazon's self-interest has made far more money for independent authors than anyone's pro-indie attitude.


I totally agree with this. In part at least, Amazon's best interest is to give us a chance to sell as much as we can so they get their cut. Sure at times there is a divergenc of interests, but none of the others even see that much.


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## GUTMAN (Dec 22, 2011)

The Meatgrinder is a nightmare.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Mark Coker's revenue from Smashwords was over 6 million last year, and it's projected to be over 12 million this year.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jjcolao/2012/06/07/apples-biggest-unknown-supplier-of-e-books/

While that is not net income, I do think there should be enough to improve the customer service division. Going to a ticket system makes the most sense.

One place Mark is getting smashed in is-while he can control when he submits books to the vendors, he can not control how responsive they choose to be to him. Many of the delays may be because the stores themselves don't necessarily respect indie books and may not have responsive systems set up themselves to deal with Smashwords and indies.


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## K. A. Jordan (Aug 5, 2010)

This niche industry of ours is still very, very young. Currently every vendor site has it's drawbacks. It takes massive numbers of man-hours to build a site like Amazon's. 

B&N didn't have enough money - or expertise. Hopefully Microsoft will lend them a few geeks, or a few dozen geeks, okay a couple hundred top-notch geeks.  

Mark simply hasn't had enough time or money. He'll get there, in time. 

Every point of market share the other sites gain for themselves means more visibiltiy for the content producers. I expect it to take 10 years for them to catch up - who knows who will end up on top? Even Walmart is having trouble these days. 

IMO - It's too early to call who is going to be where by the time this niche industry matures.


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## Casper Parks (May 1, 2011)

I do not chime in very often in the Writers Café.

The Kindle Select Program was good for me. The giveaways are very helpful getting an author's name out to the public. Feedback from people wanting to buy e-books stated that Amazon's format was not usable, and requests for my e-books at Barnes & Noble.

I opted out of automatic renewal for the Select Program. Will miss the giveaways, those are fun to monitor. Next book, I am debating on the ninety day agreement with Amazon.

I have not promoted e-books at B & N. Still working on formatting issues, their customer service does not reply to messages. Two books uploaded, but last letter of each sentence is cut-off in the "read sample pages". However, both show good in the preview after uploading. That issue with sample pages bothers me and working on it.

If you want to sell e-books at Sony, as an indie you must use a third party such as Author Solutions. Do not recall if Smash Words was on that small list.

Is there a near future state of affairs on the horizon, where Indies are forced to use third parties?

If that happens, prepare to meet the "new gatekeepers" and "new rules".

*Here is where Authors Must Beware!*​
Make sure of those online contracts.

Is there wording where the author is giving film rights?

When saying near future, a gradual shift over the next few years

Amazon, I believe will continue to help Indies without forcing a third party. Amazon is strong and independent, and it is unlikely they would yield to pressure.

Will Barnes & Noble and or Kobo start forcing a third party?

I hope not.

For customer service, easy of uploading and setting the book pages that customer see, I give Amazon an "A+". Simply out of respect for Amazon, I continue giving them loyalty. When uploading a new title, Amazon is first on the list. Create Space, very good customer service and another "A+" for Amazon.

Amazon was the first that stepped up to bat for Indies.

Perhaps this comes from Amazon's merger beginnings. A number of years ago, Amazon rewarded their first employees who had stuck with them huge bonuses. Enough money that many of those employees retired and taking life easy.

So, yes&#8230; Amazon has earned my respect&#8230;


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## James Bruno (Mar 15, 2011)

As with a lot of other authors, B&N, Smashwords, et al. did very little for my sales, and I found SW so complicated and clunky, I gave up on it. That said, KDP Select is now doing little for me, so, I'm following many fellow authors in letting Select expire and will try my hand again with the others. While I take notice of Coker's assertion that the other platforms are growing and will offer authors added opportunities in the near future, however, I still have my doubts.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Amazon is a retailer. Can someone give us an actual example of a retail monopoly? Then we can see how Amazon compares.

And Also Boughts? They can be eliminated at any time.


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## portiadacosta (Feb 28, 2011)

I hate the meatgrinder, the Smashwords site is dismal, and their support system is useless... but...

In the middle of last month, virtually overnight, something happened at Amazon that pretty much cut my rate of sale there in half and it's been declining ever since. Whereas over at Smashwords, for all its faults, my sales at other outlets are growing. My upcoming payment will be over double what it was last quarter, and though a modest sum by some people's standards, it'll pay some bills quite nicely. And if the sales reported column at SW is to be believed, the next quarter might end up doubling again!

So I'm inclined to allow MC some latitude. His site is helping me increase my self publishing income at the moment [via outlets I can't reach directly from the UK] while changes at Amazon are drastically reducing it. I'm not saying things won't change, and my Amazon situation won't improve some day, but that's how it is at the moment for me.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Same for me, Portia. Middle of last month.

At this point in time, my Kobo sales are THREE TIMES my Amazon sales for this month. Whatever it was that happened, I have no idea, and I doubt that MC had anything to do with it, but SW is a _vehicle_ through which I can get into other sites. I don't really care what else SW is trying to be.

And I do think MC sounds like a whining child, and his business is probably better served by him shutting up and improving his site and services.

I mean--look at Kobo. They just quietly came out of nowhere with a simple, easy-to-use, clean site.


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## Alain Gomez (Nov 12, 2010)

Guys!  I have a great idea!  We should all band together to publish and sell books so we're no longer pawns.  We could have our own company name and everything!  But then everyone would want to join and we'd probably have to start limiting membership so we appear credible.  So we'd just have to have them send in their manuscripts before they could join and....  wait... this is starting to sound familiar....


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## Kalen ODonnell (Nov 24, 2011)

Alain Gomez said:


> Guys! I have a great idea! We should all band together to publish and sell books so we're no longer pawns. We could have our own company name and everything! But then everyone would want to join and we'd probably have to start limiting membership so we appear credible. So we'd just have to have them send in their manuscripts before they could join and.... wait... this is starting to sound familiar....


I just legit Laughed Out Loud.

*doffs his hat to you*


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## Wansit (Sep 27, 2012)

Has any seen this? http://thewritingbomb.blogspot.ca/2012/04/whats-next-for-indie-authors-after-kdp.html

"Scott Nicholson and I both predicted that the Select program could have a six-month life span. But I think this program is pulling a Benjamin Button on us because it's growing weaker by the day. Therefore, I'm guessing that Amazon will roll out another program of some kind by mid to late summer. I also think there's a chance that Amazon is just waiting to release the next monster as soon as Smashwords or B&N attempt a counter attack."

A new Amazon program in the works? With built-in promotional tools?


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## Skate (Jan 23, 2011)

In the past 18 months I have made the grand total of $22 dollars through Smashwords on a book that has earned a whole lot more than that on Amazon, even though it's not in KDP Select. In the past 12 months I have had nothing from Smashwords itself but free downloads of the sample. 

I have had my differences of opinion with Amazon, but in general they've been good to me, especially since Select. I don't feel like a pawn. I feel like I'm just going with what works for me. If Smashwords started to look like a good prospect, I'd upload more books to them.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

I don't like being played like prawns.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

I'm of two minds about Smashwords.

On the one hand, the Meatgrinder's pretty terrible.

The website is out of date.

And my biggest fear is that when Mark and company finally do unveil Smashwords Direct (which he claims will allow us all to upload ePubs instead of Word .docs), is that there will be some sort of fee to be part of the "premium" service that allows you to upload .epubs.

Or, worse, that it'll be just as "flawless" as Meatgrinder. Which is to say, far from perfect.

That's a fear; I've only heard Mark's rumors about Smashwords Direct coming by the end of this year. But simply because it's being called by different branding (Smashwords Direct instead of just Smashwords), that's why I fear a membership fee of some sort.

When I first started publishing, about 17 months ago, Smashwords was the no-brainer part of advice every new author got when they came to KB.



> "Go direct on Amazon and BN, but use Smashwords for everything else."


I'm not currently convinced that's such good advice. For a few reasons.

First, it's fine for Mark to talk up his retailer/clients. Coolness.

However, what matters is the bottom line. Results. Sales made. That sort of thing.

On Amazon, I get paid just about every month, for over a year now.

On BN.com, I get paid about every 1-3 months, starting around the first of the year, so only for about ten months now.

On Smashwords, I have yet to earn $10 to get paid even once.

That's just my Craig Hansen books.

Add in my pseudonym sales, and I'll have been paid from Smashwords for four consecutive quarters now, once the Q3 2012 payment comes in, in a few days.

But at best, Smashwords still competes only with BN.com in terms of what I'm earning from them. And combined, NONE of them come close to Amazon.

Literally, even with pseudonym sales added in, about 90 percent or more of my sales come from Amazon.

With all the Meatgrinder problems, I have recently pulled my titles from Smashwords' distribution-to-Kobo deal, and gone direct with Kobo Writing Life.

I will still use Smashwords for the foreseeable, because I don't own an Apple device that'll let me upload direct to iTunes. And actually, although Smashwords failed me in several ways with its Kobo distribution, I've seen some nice numbers from Apple and Sony through them. Not stellar, but regular.

But the biggest gripe is this: The only books that REALLY move for me are free books, via Smashwords. And those don't lead to sales of other titles, like giveaways on Amazon tend to do.

So, every author's mileage will vary, and that's natural.

But for me, I'd be a lot more excited about Smashwords if the sales they generated for me were even 25% of what Amazon brings in for me.

Heck, they distribute to WAY more retailers. It *should* be selling me a multiple of Amazon's sales numbers, not a fraction.

Finally, I need to call out Mark on a whopper in his article.

(And it's such a whopper, I'm wondering if he wrote it during one of the recent presidential debates...)

Mark wrote something to the effect of, "Don't bank on Amazon because their market share has been dropping the last few years.

Well, of course it has.

There wasn't much OF an eBook market when Amazon released the first Kindle device. So naturally, it owned the lion's share of the market!

Now, in the last 2-3 years, there are a lot more players in the game. No one should expect Amazon's market share to stay at 80-90 percent as more competitors hop on board.

However, what Mark conveniently overlooks by saying this is this: The market in eBooks has exploded in the last four years, as well, growing from a niche market in terms of sales volume, to *just about* the dominant delivery platform in all of publishing.

So, here's where Mark's argument falls apart.

Let's imagine that four years ago, Amazon owned 90 percent of the eBook sales market. But that market was TINY. Probably less than 1 million Kindles sold, prior to the release of the second-gen Kindles.

And then the K3-generation devices come along, with steep price drops, and the market's been booming ever since the cost of a Kindle went below $200.

So, now the market's HUGE. And let's say Amazon now only has 60 percent of the eBook market.

But if the market four years ago was, say, (not actual figures) a $10M sales volume proposition, and today is (conservatively) a $100M sales volume proposition, which would you rather have?

90 percent of $10M?

Or 60 percent of $100M?

Again, those sales volume numbers are purely for illustration purposes.

The point is, in those same four years as more competitors jumped into the eBook space and Amazon's marketshare went down, the eBook market as a whole just completely multiplied to the Nth degree.

A smaller share of a much larger pie? Most companies would take that, any day.

BUT...

But I said I'm of two minds about Smashwords, and I am.

I think anyone critiquing Mark and company for what they haven't done or fixed should also CREDIT him for the great things Smashwords HAS done.

1) He went to bat with Kobo to STOP DISCOUNTING INDISCRIMINATELY because it was hurting the incomes of indie authors who were getting most of their income from Amazon.

Where's the self-interest there? There is none. He negotiated with Kobo, won, and saved indie authors a lot of income that Smashwords/Mark isn't even getting a share of. (Amazon income.)

To me, that's heroic.

2) As I recall, early this year, PayPal got too big for its britches and started trying to kill off certain types of fiction that were legal to write, but which PayPal's BOD found offensive.

Yes, we're talking about adult-reading books... I have friends who write the stuff and for several months in early 2012, it was all they could talk about... PayPal is out to kill erotica authors!

Mark's was the ONLY company that went to bat against PayPal's high-handed attempts to outlaw the sale of "legal to write, but distasteful to some" fiction.

He did so by approaching them as a company that uses their services and negotiating it all out, until PayPal blinked and said, "Well... maybe we can live with not censoring what kind of books people buy with our MasterCard."

Mark's company has a financial interest in erotica sales since many indies who use Smashwords write erotica, so this may have had some self-interest involved, but again, he went up against a company and negotiated with them and struck a blow for preserving freedom of speech.

Even if you don't care for that type of "speech" and even if you don't write it yourself, that's still heroic work.

So, for all the shortfalls and inconveniences of Meatgrinder and the archaic website design... let's not go too far. Let's remember that Mark has done some VERY good things for this industry, and for indies especially, as the head of Smashwords.


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## Guest (Oct 24, 2012)

BBGriffith said:


> Not sure if this has been distributed around here or not. Interesting take from Mark Coker. What say ye KB?
> 
> http://selfpublishingadvice.org/blog/amazon-plays-indie-authors-like-pawns/


I'm telling the same what Mark says a long-long time ago.

But seriously, like as few said, every site has its drawback, SW and every other includes. But each of them has its own advantages as well. Unlike many I also made a lot more via SW and all the subsidiaries than on Amazon ever. And Amazon has the worst, third world country paying system of all; stone age cheque system. Heck, Smashwords even trying to make the life of international authors much easier (Copy-paste from SW account);

_Smashwords is consulting with the IRS. It is our opinion, as well as the opinion of our tax counsel, that Smashwords authors and publishers should not be subject to ANY IRS withholdings because Smashwords is acting as your distributor. If, and this is a big IF, Smashwords is able to obtain a favorable ruling on this matter before these proceeds are submitted to the IRS, then the withholdings will be refunded. Do not count on Smashwords prevailing with the IRS._

Unlike that junkyard Amazon, Smashwords is trying to make our life easier on every possible way, W7/W8 form included. They're also using PayPal and their sale reports is damned accurate (Every sale appears within 10-15 seconds. Comparing to this, Amazon sales doesn't appear many times and they're claiming the customer is lying if you dare to ask, where is the sale. Heck, how is it possible that I never had this problem via SW. Everytime a customer said, they've purchased via Smashwords, the sale was there. But many times when a customer said they've purchased via Amazon, the sale rarely appeared.). As for the meatgrinder; if you can't format a book, don't do it on your own. It's that simple. Everything is a nightmare if you don't have a clue about how to do things, and if you learn from blogs and trying to do things without experience (Reading blogs won't give you experience.). SW's meatgrinder is not a nightmare at all. You just need to follow the rules, just as you follow the rules for every other conversion. Apple EPub also has it's own tricks, so as Amazon's mobi format, or Createspace 6x9. So it's a stupid thing to say that Meatgrinder sucks. Each of them sucks on their own way if you don't know how to format properly.

Personally if I should choose between Amazon and SW, I prefer SW and every other retailers. And I do this a long time ago.

_[edited by moderator. We will not let this thread be derailed. Thank you. --Betsy/KB Moderator]_


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

He who pays the piper, calls the tune.

Nothing against smashwords as I do have some books on there, but after having only recieved $10 in 12 months, I only put my new stuff on select. I can appreciate some authors do make money on there and some genres do better than others, but I'll stick with select and Amazon for the thousands of dollars they have paid me.

I just keep watching the situation with regards to market penetration and if I feel things are starting to even out, then I'll switch.


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## Guest (Oct 24, 2012)

Mark did not call indies "pawns." He said Amazon was treating indies like pawns. That is factually true. None of us are "partners" with Amazon. We are replaceable, nameless cheap content providers. 

Mark did not say to not use Amazon and only use Smashwords. He said to use multiple retailers. He didn't say to stop using Amazon. He said don't let Amazon be the only place your books are sold. 

Mark was the only person willing to fight with PayPal when they were forcing retailers to pull erotic content. Mark is the person who went to bat for those indies affected by PayPal's actions. He didn't have to. He could have done what every other site was doing and just pulling authors' content. But he didn't. 

Mark has been trying to work with the IRS to get the withholding situation resolved to help international authors. Mark is the only person even bothering to take on that fight. He could have done what every other retailer did and just shrugged his shoulders. But he didn't.

And while neither of those cases impact me, I have enormous respect for him because of it. Because those are the actions of a REAL business partner who actually cares about his authors and doesn't just see data points and algorithms. 

Smashwords is far from perfect. But I also do a fair amount of business there. Yeah, the meatgrinder sucks. But it is a necessary evil because of the various requirements of different retailers. Just because a book doesn't make it through the meatgrinder doesn't mean it can't be sold on Smashwords itself, after all. The existence of the meatgrinder doesn't negate Mark's points. Sure, I would love the search functionality of the site to be better. But at least I don't have to do backflips to change my price and then worry if some algorithm is going to flag my book as suspect and freeze my account. 

I just think some people are taking Mark's points completely out of context for some reason and seeing them as some personal attack on their honor instead of just general statements.


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## Guest (Oct 24, 2012)

What Julie said. +1.


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## Alondo (Aug 30, 2011)

eBooksHabit said:


> It's harsh, but it's truthful.
> 
> Post as is.


I agree. You've nothing to lose.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

I make about $1500 every three months from Smashwords, and the one book I've placed in Select fell flat.

Add to that the fact that Smashwords allows me to put out books for free, which eventually get price-matched by Amazon, which have driven sales of my other books up to thousands of dollars per month.

I like Amazon.  I've made a lot of money with them.  But some of the things I've seen them do, especially to erotica writers, makes me leery.  

Most of us have a goal of quitting our day jobs and making a living off of our writing, but I would be very hesitant to make that switch if all (or even most) of my eggs were in Amazon's basket.  Put my family at risk because someone at Amazon wakes up one day and decides to freeze my account?  I don't think so.


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## Guest (Oct 24, 2012)

swolf said:


> Put my family at risk because someone at Amazon wakes up one day and decides to freeze my account? I don't think so.


The worst part is that it wouldn't even be a "someone". It would be a program running an algorithm that flags your account for some unknown reason that nobody will be able to explain to you.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> I just think some people are taking Mark's points completely out of context for some reason and seeing them as some personal attack on their honor instead of just general statements.


I agree it's not personal. Seems like a general attack on our honor.



> That is factually true. None of us are "partners" with Amazon. We are replaceable, nameless cheap content providers.


So what? Seems like a pretty good deal all around. I'm quite happy to be a supplier. I suspect there are a few more out there.


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## Adam Pepper (May 28, 2011)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Mark did not call indies "pawns." He said Amazon was treating indies like pawns.


Mark didnt use the word treating he used the word "playing." "Amazon is playing indie authors." And it wasnt in passing. It was his headline. The connotation is clear.



Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> That is factually true. None of us are "partners" with Amazon. We are replaceable, nameless cheap content providers.


If the relationship is mutually beneficial, then it's essentially a partnership.


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## Alondo (Aug 30, 2011)

swolf said:


> I make about $1500 every three months from Smashwords, and the one book I've placed in Select fell flat.
> 
> Add to that the fact that Smashwords allows me to put out books for free, which eventually get price-matched by Amazon, which have driven sales of my other books up to thousands of dollars per month.
> 
> ...


So true. I could easily have made the decision to write full time earlier this year, but then Amazon suddenly deleted my best seller with no notice or explanation during the great copyright fiasco. I lost ranking, visibility and a whole bunch of sales. I never even had an apology - just a note saying they would try to make sure it didn't happen to other authors. Had I quit my day job, I would have been in a real bind. They may be promoting you today, but they can just as easily kick you in the teeth tomorrow. If you take the plunge and invest in Amazon as a full time writing career, then "you're a braver man than I, Gunga Din!!!"


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## Wansit (Sep 27, 2012)

swolf said:


> I make about $1500 every three months from Smashwords, and the one book I've placed in Select fell flat.
> 
> Add to that the fact that Smashwords allows me to put out books for free, which eventually get price-matched by Amazon, which have driven sales of my other books up to thousands of dollars per month.
> 
> ...


I wonder how true this is for other genres on SW? As a poster above mentioned SW is generally good to erotica


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## Guest (Oct 24, 2012)

Adam Pepper said:


> If the relationship is mutually beneficial, then it's essentially a partnership.


My relationship with the kid operating the drive-thru window at McDonald's is "mutually beneficial" since it gets me my food and he gets paid. I would hardly call it a "partnership."

If you are happy with Amazon, great. Keep on keeping on. Unlike Amazon, Mark doesn't force authors to do anything. He was simply pointing out that it is better to diversify than it is to have all of your eggs in one basket.

I am not opposed to exclusivity deals. I actually have one with Onebookshelf.com to sell my RPG products in digital format. But I have a "real" partnership with them. I get regular communications from them on various sitewide promotions they are doing. When I did my charity sale last year, they waived their commission to support it. If there is a problem, I get a response back in a day from a real person that I know, not someone in a customer service center in India or whereever repeated canned responses. If there is a problem, they don't freeze my account and make me jump through hoops. I get an email that says "Hey, *****. This is what is going on. Can you look into this and let us know how you want to resolve it?" And yes, they are a 100x smaller than Amazon. But you know what? Their specialization in that particular market and the care they provide to publishers is a 1000x better than how Amazon treats me.


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## Carradee (Aug 21, 2010)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Mark did not call indies "pawns." He said Amazon was treating indies like pawns. That is factually true. None of us are "partners" with Amazon. We are replaceable, nameless cheap content providers.
> 
> Mark did not say to not use Amazon and only use Smashwords. He said to use multiple retailers. He didn't say to stop using Amazon. He said don't let Amazon be the only place your books are sold.


Thank you, Julie. 



Gutman said:


> The Meatgrinder is a nightmare.


*scratches head* I've only ever had minimal problems with it, easily repairable as I was figuring out how it worked. Granted, I'm fairly formatting-savvy in all the major (and a few not-major) word processing programs.


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## Jan Strnad (May 27, 2010)

> They may be promoting you today, but they can just as easily kick you in the teeth tomorrow.


Exactly how is this different from working for an employer who can lay you off when he needs (or wants) to trim expenses?

Day jobs may be more secure than freelancing, but there's no guarantee that they'll last, either. As millions have found out in this economic recession.

Not that I'm disagreeing with your point. Just adding to it.


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## Adam Pepper (May 28, 2011)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> He was simply pointing out that it is better to diversify than it is to have all of your eggs in one basket.


If he was simply pointing that out, I would have simply agreed with him. The headline plays into the rampant fear-mongering and anti-Amazon sentiment and does so by belittling so many authors who he claims to be championing.

I have nothing against the guy. He's fighting the good fight and I wish him well. But the article is not a public service message for indies and Mark is a capitalist, not a martyr.


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## Nicole Ciacchella (May 21, 2012)

I haven't used Smashwords, mainly because I didn't want to deal with the meat grinder.  If they do start accepting .epubs--without charging a premium for the service--I'll consider distributing through them when my Select contracts expire.

When The Eye's original contract expired, I uploaded to B&N and Kobo.  My sales were so anemic it was depressing.  I sold a grand total of 1 book on Kobo, and I don't think I sold enough on B&N to get a payment.  However, my sales on Amazon kept increasing, and I ultimately made the decision to unpublish on the other sites and return to exclusivity.  It's paid off for me, as I've had more borrows this month alone than I had sales on the other outlets.  

I'm not really keen on exclusivity, but Amazon is doing more for me as a writer than the other sites did.  What's more, Amazon is also bringing my book to more readers, which is something I care about passionately.  When my Select period expires, I might try branching out to other retailers again, but Amazon is what works best for me right now.  

The fact of the matter is, I think ALL of us would be over the moon thrilled if other retailers could do for us what Amazon does.  I wish the other retailers would catch on to that and figure out some way of offering us better promotional tools than Amazon does.  If they did so, I'd jump ship from Amazon without a backward glance.  I have no loyalty to any particular retailer.  I just want to be able to make a living wage selling my books.


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## Alondo (Aug 30, 2011)

Jan Strnad said:


> Exactly how is this different from working for an employer who can lay you off when he needs (or wants) to trim expenses?
> 
> Day jobs may be more secure than freelancing, but there's no guarantee that they'll last, either. As millions have found out in this economic recession.
> 
> Not that I'm disagreeing with your point. Just adding to it.


In my country, if an employer does that then they have to give notice, pay redundancy or face a tribunal.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> In my country, if an employer does that then they have to give notice, pay redundancy or face a tribunal.


What country is that?


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## Alondo (Aug 30, 2011)

Terrence OBrien said:


> In my country, if an employer does that then they have to give notice, pay redundancy or face a tribunal.
> 
> What country is that?


UK


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## BrianKittrell (Jan 8, 2011)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> The worst part is that it wouldn't even be a "someone". It would be a program running an algorithm that flags your account for some unknown reason that nobody will be able to *ever* explain to you *because the answer isn't in their canned responses*.


Fixed. 



Adam Pepper said:


> If the relationship is mutually beneficial, then it's essentially a partnership.


Amazon doesn't ask me how to sell books, and I don't ask Amazon how to write. They're the owner/operator of a marketplace we sell through, nothing more.

Beyond that, I think exclusivity is bad. It only helps Amazon.

Lots of people have said that Select has made them a lot of money, and that's great. Do what's right for your business. I won't tell anyone to stop doing something if they're finding success. Success is getting harder to find for most, with the declining sales and lost momentum from all of the glitches lately, so get it where you can.

That said, I've had books on all of the major distributors for a solid year now. My titles on B&N are finally starting to gain some real traction after 12 months. (By real traction, I mean in the area of $500 per month consistently for three months now.) Not as big as Amazon, but it's growing. I don't know the answer, though. Maybe it just takes a while to catch on over there compared to the Zon.

I've also made about what I see most people making from borrows from Smashwords alone. (In the area of about $400 per quarter, I would say.) Much lower than the best person getting borrows, but much higher than the worst person getting borrows (which is my only Select book, currently at 0 borrows). That book is very Amazon-centric (formatting from MS Word to Kindle .mobi), so I put it into Select for 90 days. If I get more publishing books ready, I'll probably drop it from Select, combine it with those other short publishing guides, and sell it everywhere. But, I digress.

Do what's right for your business, but I don't think exclusivity is benefiting anyone but Amazon.


----------



## Guest (Oct 24, 2012)

Adam Pepper said:


> If he was simply pointing that out, I would have simply agreed with him. *The headline plays into the rampant fear-mongering *and anti-Amazon sentiment and does so by belittling so many authors who he claims to be championing.


So because the website hosting the guest blog post made a decision to pull the link-bait out of Mark's post and use that as a headline, you are mad at Mark? You don't disagree with Mark's sentiments, but you are mad about the headline (which he probably had nothing to do with?)


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> So because the website hosting the guest blog post made a decision to pull the link-bait out of Mark's post and use that as a headline, you are mad at Mark? You don't disagree with Mark's sentiments, but you are mad about the headline (which he probably had nothing to do with?)


Let's chill...I don't think anyone posting here knows who picked the title of the blog post.

Thanks,

Betsy


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

Jan Strnad said:


> Exactly how is this different from working for an employer who can lay you off when he needs (or wants) to trim expenses?
> 
> Day jobs may be more secure than freelancing, but there's no guarantee that they'll last, either. As millions have found out in this economic recession.
> 
> Not that I'm disagreeing with your point. Just adding to it.


It's different because if I get laid off, there are many other businesses that I can work for in my profession. Amazon is currently the big dog, and if you get cut off from them, or have your income lowered by them, all the other options for self-publishing aren't going to provide enough money to live on. And this problem will only get worse if Select puts other book distributors out of business.

Of course, you can always go back to your former profession, but some companies are leery about gaps in resumes, and some professions (such as software developer, in my case) require you to keep up with constant technology changes.


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## Adam Pepper (May 28, 2011)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> So because the website hosting the guest blog post made a decision to pull the link-bait out of Mark's post and use that as a headline, you are mad at Mark? You don't disagree with Mark's sentiments, but you are mad about the headline (which he probably had nothing to do with?)


I'm not mad at Mark at all. I'm just calling it as I see it. He's acting in his own self interest. As am I. If the two should meet we'll do business together. That's generally how good business is conducted based on the mutual interest of two or more parties. Good business isnt conducted based on hysteria and irrationality. It's irrational to expect writers to turn down money now on the fear they won't make money later.


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## Joebruno999 (Oct 20, 2010)

What do you expect Mark Coker to say? Amazon is killing him in his bank account.

I took all eight of my books off Smashwords and am going exclusively on KDP Select.

But that's just me.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> My relationship with the kid operating the drive-thru window at McDonald's is "mutually beneficial" since it gets me my food and he gets paid. I would hardly call it a "partnership."
> 
> If you are happy with Amazon, great. Keep on keeping on. Unlike Amazon, Mark doesn't force authors to do anything. He was simply pointing out that it is better to diversify than it is to have all of your eggs in one basket.
> 
> I am not opposed to exclusivity deals. I actually have one with Onebookshelf.com to sell my RPG products in digital format. But I have a "real" partnership with them. I get regular communications from them on various sitewide promotions they are doing. When I did my charity sale last year, they waived their commission to support it. If there is a problem, I get a response back in a day from a real person that I know, not someone in a customer service center in India or whereever repeated canned responses. If there is a problem, they don't freeze my account and make me jump through hoops. I get an email that says "Hey, Julie. This is what is going on. Can you look into this and let us know how you want to resolve it?" And yes, they are a 100x smaller than Amazon. But you know what? Their specialization in that particular market and the care they provide to publishers is a 1000x better than how Amazon treats me.


No, but he has no problem with making demeaning and condescending remarks while pretending he is "pro-indie". Like Amazon, he is out for Smashwords. He is a businessman. He should be out for his own business, but he needs to stop pretending he's operating it like a charity. And I don't need a charity anyway thanks.

I don't care how sweet and nice his CS is (and they have not been particularly responsive to me--it takes at least a week to get a canned response), it's business. I don't look for sweet and nice. I look for profit. It is business. And insulting your suppliers is rarely the best way to ensure that they continue doing business with you. How about instead trying to see that books ARE in fact shipped weekly like they claim.


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## Joebruno999 (Oct 20, 2010)

And it's damn annoying to have to "format" your books before you can load them on Smashwords. Formatting is a foreign language to me, so I had to hire people to do it for me. $50-$60 bucks down the drain, each time.

Never again.


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## jimkukral (Oct 31, 2011)

Bottom line is we need leadership and competition. Mark is in the unique position to do both. I for one want him to compete and lead and make the industry better, but the path he's on isn't really doing that. So I'm disappointed. He can run his business any way he wants, and it's working, he's very profitable, but stop complaining about Amazon if you don't really want to compete with them. That's all I'm saying. 

Although, I get why he does it. Great publicity.


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## Jeff Menapace (Mar 5, 2011)

Here's a question:  How do you delete a Smashwords profile/account.  I can't seem to figure out how


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Nicole Ciacchella said:


> The fact of the matter is, I think ALL of us would be over the moon thrilled if other retailers could do for us what Amazon does. I wish the other retailers would catch on to that and figure out some way of offering us better promotional tools than Amazon does. If they did so, I'd jump ship from Amazon without a backward glance. I have no loyalty to any particular retailer. I just want to be able to make a living wage selling my books.


Well said!

How can we get this message across to the other booksellers? Here is a blog post I wrote a few months ago, about this:
--------------------------------------------------

I have had it up to here with all the news stories lately about how Sony, Kobo, Apple, and Barnes and Noble plan to compete with Amazon by slashing prices. Really? You fools just lost a lawsuit over your attempts to make Amazon quit slashing prices, and now you want to get in on that action? And you think it will get you some of Amazon's market share? You can't see the forrest for the trees!

Amazon gets my business because I can find the books I want to buy on Amazon, not because of its tactics in price wars.

Yes, I can find what I am looking for at Amazon! When I enter search terms at Amazon, I find books about those search terms. That does not reliably happen at any other current online book retailer, and that is what is giving Amazon all the market share. I know people who buy their content from Barnes and Noble or the iBookstore because they have Nooks or iPads. Guess what? They go to Amazon first to search for the topics that interest them and note the titles they want to purchase.

When a friend recommends a book to me, I know I can go to Amazon and find that book in less than 5 seconds flat. But wait, there's more. Not only will I find that book, *Amazon will recommend other books their customers bought when they bought that book. This is marketing magic, folks.*

By contrast, how long does it take me to even find what I am looking for at Sony, Kobo, Apple, and Barnes and Noble's online bookstores? Sometimes, forever. In some cases where I know a book is on sale at their site because I know the author, I cannot even find the book there if I search for it by title and author name. Fail. Epic fail.

*No one wants Amazon to be a monopoly. *

That hurts me as a customer just as much as it hurts you as a competitor. It hurts me as an author, too. I do not want Amazon controlling all my sales. I want to sell in multiple online bookstores, not exclusively through Amazon. However, messing around with prices is not going to do diddly until you make it so people can find the books they want to buy!

Please, I am begging in case you can't tell: Sony! Kobo! Apple! Barnes and Noble! Fix the search and book discovering functions in your online bookstores. If you want to have any hope of competing with Amazon, the first thing you need to do is *make it so customers can go to your site instead of Amazon to find the books they want to buy*.

Hello Reader! You can help. Write to Sony, Kobo, Apple, or Barnes and Noble and ask them to please fix the search function in their online bookstore so that you can find the books you want to buy on their site instead of going to Amazon:

Barnes and Noble
Andy Milevoj, Vice President, Investor Relations
telephone: (212) 633-3489
e-mail: [email protected]

Kobo
TODD HUMPHREY, EVP, Business Development
135 Liberty St. Suite 101
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M6K 1A7

Apple
Eddy Cue, Senior Vice President, Internet Software and Services
1 Infinite Loop
Cupertino, CA 95014

Sony
Tadashi Saito, Executive Vice President, Chief Strategy Officer
1-7-1 Konan,
Minato-ku, Tokyo 108-0075,
Japan


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## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

Alondo said:


> In my country, if an employer does that then they have to give notice, pay redundancy or face a tribunal.


Same here. Big problem trying to fire/sack an employee. All sorts of hoops to jump through first .


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## Guest (Oct 24, 2012)

Jan Hurst-Nicholson said:


> Same here. Big problem trying to fire/sack an employee. All sorts of hoops to jump through first .


Here in the U.S., we have these lovely "right to work" laws, which mean an employer can fire you for any reason or no reason, unless it involves a specific protected situation. So I can be a great employee for ten years, never have a single write-up, get wonderful performance reviews every year, and if my boss decided it would be more cost effective to fire me and replace me with someone who will do my job for half the money, they don't have to give me a reason.

It's also how some companies get around union contracts. They just fire EVERYONE, and then make you reapply for your old job at a lower wage. And in some cases, if you refuse to apply or accept the position, they will then fight you over your unemployment benefits, claiming they have a position for you and you refused to take it.


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## Bob Mayer (Feb 20, 2011)

There are many road to Oz and Oz means different things for different people.  

I always take into account what dog someone has in the hunt, when I evaluate the hunt.  Mark certainly has a dog in the hunt.  And it's not indie authors but his own business, which is totally understandable.  

My dog is my own business and sales.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Bob Mayer said:


> There are many road to Oz and Oz means different things for different people.
> 
> I always take into account what dog someone has in the hunt, when I evaluate the hunt. Mark certainly has a dog in the hunt. And it's not indie authors but his own business, which is totally understandable.
> 
> My dog is my own business and sales.


Exactly.

Mind you he frequently pretends that he is in it to protect indies. That doesn't mean its true. And why should he be except for PR...


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> Here in the U.S., we have these lovely "right to work" laws, which mean an employer can fire you for any reason or no reason, unless it involves a specific protected situation.


State "Right to work" laws generally prohibit mandatory union membership. "Employment at will" doctrine deals with firing people at will.

Employment at will doctrine also generally covers the employee's right to leave his employer for any reason.

Are there contracts, protected classes, etc that have to be considered? Yes. Can we list those things forever? Yes.

Ain't this a great country?



> My dog is my own business and sales.


Well said. Mine, too.


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## MJWare (Jun 25, 2010)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Mark was the only person willing to fight with PayPal when they were forcing retailers to pull erotic content. Mark is the person who went to bat for those indies affected by PayPal's actions. He didn't have to. He could have done what every other site was doing and just pulling authors' content. But he didn't.


Was Mark upset about the Paypal porn thing? You bet, by his own admission he gets 30% of his $$$ from porn/romance. 
He stood to lose *a lot* of money if erotica authors stopped pubbing through him.

Mark looks out for his own self interest, that's all. Does that make him a bad guy, no way. We all do the same 90% of the time. It's human nature.


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## Pamela (Oct 6, 2010)

Like many here I had my books on Smashwords.  Big nothing in sales, even with all the outlets and giving free coupons.  Now I'm with Amazon Select.  Waiting to see what they come up with next.

I liked Mark until he started proclaiming how much agents could do for indie writers, and how our future would have agents helping us sell.  As far as I'm concerned, agents are bloated sneaky untalented blood-sucking parasites, and good riddance to them all.


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## Herc- The Reluctant Geek (Feb 10, 2010)

Dalya said:


> I don't like being played like prawns.


That's exactly what I thought when I first read the thread title... mmmm prawns. I'm hungry.


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## Beatriz (Feb 22, 2011)

jimkukral said:


> How dare Amazon give us so much opportunity? They are evil!
> 
> /sarcasm
> 
> ...


Very well said and I couldn't agree with you more. This sounds like the "green eye monster" to me, and I'm very happy with KDP select. But on the other hand, it's good to hear that they're actually fighting to get us indies back.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

MJAWare said:


> Mark looks out for his own self interest, that's all.


If you think that's the only reason (implied by your use of "that's all") Mark has done some of the things he's done, you're just wrong.

Amazon, BN.com, and loads of tinier retailers were all too happy to capitulate to PayPal's content demands. They had just as much of a financial interest as Smashwords.

Heck, they had more. Amazon doesn't just sell way more books than anyone else, they also sell... wait for it... way more erotica than anyone else.

As did all those other companies.

But none of them had an executive willing to "cross swords" with PayPal and their content demands. Mark alone did that.

Same deal (and even moreso) with Mark negotiating with Kobo to stop discounting willy-nilly. Where was the "personal interest, that's all" there, MJA?

Kobo was a business partner of his. Amazon wasn't.

But a bunch of writers said, "Kobo's discounting our books to free, or below $2.99, at random, Amazon's matching, and it's killing my Amazon income!"

Mark could have said, "Complain to Amazon."

Mark could have said, "Kobo's a distribution partner, I don't wanna tick them off."

Mark could have said a lot of things, or ignored the complaint completely.

But instead, he sat down with a business PARTNER, and explained to them why random discounting was hurting the non-partner Amazon income of Smashwords authors, and got them to discontinue the practice. (At least in North America.)

He had nothing to gain, per se, in doing that. He could have lost Kobo as a partner! He put that at risk to protect his authors... and the ones complaining the loudest were the ones not making that much.

He cared enough to do it anyway, even though doing so didn't add a single dime in sales to Smashwords' ledger.

Look, there are legit complaints about Smashwords. Site issues.

But let's keep things in perspective and not make this a "hate on Mark for his opinion" thing, can't we?

Does every such discussion here have to be good vs. evil?

Can't we agree that there's pluses and minuses to all these issues?

Even the biggest Smashwords haters will admit the main reason they use Smashwords is not so much to make money, but to manipulate Amazon into making a book free.

If one hates Smashwords so much... pull out of their eco-system.

Ahh, but then how would one manipulate Amazon into making their books free, right?

And it'd take away the opportunity to trash on Smashwords when they don't get your free book back to paid status as fast as you'd like, thus hurting your sales.

Face it... There are exceptions, sure... but a lot of writers don't exactly have pure motives for even BEING on Smashwords in the first place. If everyone who was on Smashwords and had USED Smashwords to make their book free on Amazon by using other retailers as pawns to pressure Amazon into price-matching... I wonder how many authors with more than one book would remain?

Let he or she without culpability cast the first stone Mark's way...


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

CraigInTwinCities said:


> Amazon, BN.com, and loads of tinier retailers were all too happy to capitulate to PayPal's content demands. They had just as much of a financial interest as Smashwords.


Actually, Amazon and BN had nothing to do with the Paypal clampdown. Amazon doesn't use Paypal, and even if they did, they're big enough to tell Paypal to go pound salt if Paypal ever tried to tell them what they couldn't sell.

And BN was never affected. One of my pen names was in the direct crosshairs of what Paypal was attempting to ban (step-incest) and BN never took it down, nor asked me to take it down. Hell, BN even allows pure incest.

But yeah, Mark did go to bat for us in that case, and from all indications, Paypal backed off because of his efforts.


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## Guest (Oct 25, 2012)

CraigInTwinCities said:


> Face it... There are exceptions, sure... but a lot of writers don't exactly have pure motives for even BEING on Smashwords in the first place. If everyone who was on Smashwords and had USED Smashwords to make their book free on Amazon by using other retailers as pawns to pressure Amazon into price-matching... I wonder how many authors with more than one book would remain?


This is a point I have mentioned in the past. So many authors only have their books on Smashwords to trigger Amazon's price matching. They don't even have Smashwords links on their sites. And it isn't even just Smashwords. They don't have links to anything other than Amazon. I have lots of Amazon links on my site, but I also link to other sites that sell my books because it's good business. Why dictate to a customer where they have to buy the book? Why not give them the opportunity to shop where they prefer to shop? Lots of people shop Smashwords because they can use Paypal there. There are people who refuse to shop on Amazon because of DRM. International customers don't want to pay the additional fees Amazon levies.

Mark should charge a service fee to anyone who only uses them to distribute free books. He knows people do it. Heck, he's a member here at KB. If you are just going to consume his server space with free books in order to trigger price matching on Amazon, maybe he should charge a service fee. And it'd take away the opportunity to trash on Smashwords when they don't get your free book back to paid status as fast as you'd like, thus hurting your sales.

Face it... There are exceptions, sure... but a lot of writers don't exactly have pure motives for even BEING on Smashwords in the first place. If everyone who was on Smashwords and had USED Smashwords to make their book free on Amazon by using other retailers as pawns to pressure Amazon into price-matching... I wonder how many authors with more than one book would remain?

Let he or she without culpability cast the first stone Mark's way...
[/quote]


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## julidrevezzo (Sep 15, 2012)

smreine said:


> How about, "We're launching a site that looks like it was designed after 2003"?


*laughs* I'll second that! I will say this though: at least when you make an update to the Smashwords version (like, price) the page changes instantaneously. Would be nice if Amazon got their act together like that instead of taking twelve days--I mean hours--to "approve" it.


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## Accord64 (Mar 12, 2012)

jimkukral said:


> 2. Why not start by redesigning the entire site to something that resembles a site that was made to look professional and meets the standards of 2012?


While I agree, it won't help much if they can't deliver on what's behind the website. Mainly, my problem has always the premium distribution estimates. I recently uploaded a new book, and according to their shipping schedule (on the Channel Manager):

1. They don't ship to Apple "multiple times per day". I'm on day six and no ship date.

2. They don't ship to Barnes & Noble "every Thursday or Friday". My book skipped a cycle and hopefully will go out today?

3. They don't ship to Sony "every Thursday or Friday". My book skipped a cycle and then shipped on Wednesday. Wednesday? 

4. They don't ship to Kobo daily. My book took three days - which is actually the best performance of all the channels so far.

My point here is that if you say you're going to do something, then do it. I've found that they rarely meet their shipping estimates.

Mark likes to make comparisons to Amazon, well how about this? My book was uploaded and up for sale on Amazon in under 12 hours. It took several days (including delays getting into premium status) on Smashwords to get shipped to only ONE of the premium channels.


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## BrianKittrell (Jan 8, 2011)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> And it isn't even just Smashwords. They don't have links to anything other than Amazon. I have lots of Amazon links on my site, but I also link to other sites that sell my books because it's good business.


I just wanted to mention that I was one of those folks that didn't link anywhere else for a long time. One of the people at Diesel actually contacted me to ask why. I was kind of embarrassed, really. I had never heard of Diesel eBooks before then, but I was quick to add a link. I already had B&N and Amazon linked, but I wasn't paying attention to every place the books were for sale. I'm trying to reorganize my site to provide for all of the legit marketplaces, though.


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## Anisa Claire West (Sep 19, 2012)

As a member of the Amazon KDP Select Program, I have mixed feelings about the article.  For a new author, I think KDP can be very helpful because of the free promotion.  Before I offered my books for free, NOBODY had purchased them except friends and family.  After the free promotion, I've been slowly but steadily seeing sales rise.  

For more established authors, KDP Select may be too limiting.  If any of my books really "takes off" I will discontinue KDP Select and sell on other channels like iTunes and Barnes & Noble.

Bottom Line: KDP Select is helpful for a novice writer with no fan base but unnecessary for an established author with a loyal following.


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## MJWare (Jun 25, 2010)

CraigInTwinCities said:


> Same deal (and even moreso) with Mark negotiating with Kobo to stop discounting willy-nilly. Where was the "personal interest, that's all" there, MJA?


Whoa, take a deep breathe. I'm not saying Mark is a bad guy. He seems nice. There's noting wrong with being motivated by your own personal interests. It's needed for survival--literally.
Now to answer your question: Authors were starting--more than just starting, many already had--to remove their books from Kobo distribution. That meant less money for him, that meant he had to put a stop to it.



CraigInTwinCities said:


> Let he or she without culpability cast the first stone Mark's way...


I'm not throwing any stones. Just saying Smashwords needs better support and it's not a priority for them. I still use them. I still think Mark's a nice guy. I just think he needs to provide better customer service.

Amazon has stuff they need to improve on. Heck, I need to loose 10 pounds, there's always room for improvement. I think this discussion is great, but I'm not throwing anyone under a bus or anything.


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

I'm cynical today... forgive me. 

The entire erotica/paypal issue was NOT Mark Coker being pro-indie. It was him being pro his bottom line. Paypal threatened HIS company's pay interface unless the books were taken down. He, in turn, tried to turn it into a censorship issue and mobilized his army of authors making good money selling erotica on his site (and other authors helped carry the banner too without a dog in the fight) but it wasn't a universal issue indie authors agreed on. Being pro-indie is the President of Random House chiming in on the Paypal/erotica issue and saying indie authors should have more access, not less, to payment interfaces not contingent on the content they produce (which didn't happen to my knowledge, but a case of someone championing a cause outside of financial gain for it).

And his responses to comments about the Meatgrinder are telling. You can't say "Look at all of the flaws this company has" and not expect a fair assessment of your OWN flaws and failings. I don't doubt that some of his work is what spurned on doors opening for direct publishing at other outlets (like Kobo and BN) because those companies could safely test the waters through his company before fully committing. But to stay a ground-breaker, an innovator, a true champion of progress, YOU HAVE TO KEEP MOVING FORWARD...

There are a number of issues facing indie authors Smashwords could get it on and innovate. Instead, every month or so Mark Coker goes to some blog and writes about Amazon the Evil Empire. I urge him to spend more energy on beating them. _After all, even if you use Smashwords to push your book everywhere, aren't you STILL relying on a single point of entry into the market, but just one that goes through his wallet first?_


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## A.R. Williams (Jan 9, 2011)

BrianKittrell said:


> I just wanted to mention that I was one of those folks that didn't link anywhere else for a long time. One of the people at Diesel actually contacted me to ask why. I was kind of embarrassed, really. I had never heard of Diesel eBooks before then, but I was quick to add a link. I already had B&N and Amazon linked, but I wasn't paying attention to every place the books were for sale. I'm trying to reorganize my site to provide for all of the legit marketplaces, though.


I've linked to every site my books have been available since the beginning. But my latest book ( published July 23, 2012 ) still is not up on Diesel or Sony. Can't link to what isn't there. I contacted Smaswords about it and they said some retailers were backlogged. ::shrugs:: That's fine. Maybe one day they'll get the book up. And maybe one day I'll link to them. But I'm not going to check to see if they've done their job anymore.


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## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

On balance I think Mark has been a big help for SP authors, though his railing about Amazon does him little good. Myself I don't like the searching and navigation and website SW has, but that's just me. I'm sure many authors may sell good numbers using SW. 

For Coker it must be frustrating to deal with or against Amazon and he should realize authors will go with the stores that can sell the author's books...not the stores that can't. SW needs many improvements which I hope they will develop, since the more stores that can sell ebooks--the better it is for authors. 

I don't see any reason to knock Mark, I'm sure the guy has a lot on his plate and definitely does not have Amazons money or muscle.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

Elizabeth Ann West said:


> He, in turn, tried to turn it into a censorship issue and mobilized his army of authors making good money selling erotica on his site


Revisionist history.

It was a censorship issue (by definition) and was labeled that before Mark joined the battle. As far as I know, the Electronic Frontier Foundation were the first ones to step up and vocally defend the rights of independent authors, and calling it what it was - censorship.

Mark originally went along with Paypal, and asked that all authors who were breaking Paypal's new rules take down their offending content (before he took it down for us.) It was actually the 'army of authors' who convinced him to change his mind and fight what Paypal was doing.

And what Mark did certainly was pro-indie, because only independent authors were being targeted. Of course, it may be an issue that you have no problem with, because perhaps you're okay with censoring content you happen to dislike, but that doesn't mean it's not an issue that independent authors face.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

swolf said:


> Revisionist history.
> 
> It was a censorship issue (by definition) and was labeled that before Mark joined the battle. As far as I know, the Electronic Frontier Foundation were the first ones to step up and vocally defend the rights of independent authors, and calling it what it was - censorship.
> 
> ...


Whoever was the first, it was still Mark Coker being pro-Smashwords since they were losing business. Now, that is not a criticism. He SHOULD be pro-Smashwords.

And not everyone who thinks Coker should stop going around marketing himself as a hero to the indie-community didn't care about that issue. I was pretty vocal in my support of the authors who were hit but Paypal's bullying. But Coker is still just a businessman, doing what is best for his own business. And absolutely nothing he says will convince me I should go against my own best interests.


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

No I'm saying it was an issue that wasn't completely pro-indie without there being a financial stake for Smashwords. And, the indie community has authors that would benefit financially from not having erotica titles next to their titles because their audience is very vocal about what they are "exposed" to. Just as erotica readers don't really go "OOOH, yes, variety" when there is a MG or YA novel next to a "Step Daddy Spank Me Harder." Our reader community has a separate page for Christian fiction just so that readers who WANT only clean titles presented to them don't complain when romances, thrillers, and paranormal books are posted on our mainstream pages. So all I am saying is that issue was not 100% all indie authors in agreement about a) did Paypal have the right to dictate who uses their private service and b) what is the solution where it comes to turning off some readers to make others happy and vice versa.

At this point, I think Mark Coker's unwillingness to address legitimate business concerns of indie authors in regards to using his site's service (including the massive number of unchecked free titles there with no service charge like Julie mentioned, meatgrinder, etc) and instead continually campaign against Amazon is beginning to tip his public perception the other way. If he was truly just so altruistic like some authors want to paint him, he would say "You know, I am troubled by the exclusivity aspect, but if you want to try it out, go ahead, see if it works for you, then after 90 days, come to us and get your book in many channels with one interface to control them." But to act like the real problem isn't all of the authors jumping ship, then realizing either exclusive works for their title or that they LIKE this thing called direct control of their listing and the authors going back and forth and the sheer number of book pulls his company had headaches over is rather misleading to authors going to a site for "self publishing advice."

Smashwords' only obstacle to greatness is Smashwords itself. Authors have the freedom and right to make their books exclusive to any sales channel they want to for any period of time, and Amazon has as much right to protect their infrastructure of providing marketing services as Smashwords has to say if you make an epub through our meatgrinder, you can't upload it anywhere else.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

JRTomlin said:


> Whoever was the first, it was still Mark Coker being pro-Smashwords since they were losing business. Now, that is not a criticism. He SHOULD be pro-Smashwords.


Mark is pro-indie. Just because he's made a business out of it doesn't change that fact. Anyone who's been paying attention since Smashwords appeared knows that Mark's heart is in the right place, and this isn't only about the money to him.



JRTomlin said:


> And not everyone who thinks Coker should stop going around marketing himself as a hero to the indie-community didn't care about that issue.


Never said they didn't.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

Elizabeth Ann West said:


> No I'm saying it was an issue that wasn't completely pro-indie without there being a financial stake for Smashwords.


No, what you said was this:



Elizabeth Ann West]but it wasn't a universal issue indie authors agreed on.[/quote]
[quote author=Elizabeth Ann West said:


> And, the indie community has authors that would benefit financially from not having erotica titles next to their titles because their audience is very vocal about what they are "exposed" to. Just as erotica readers don't really go "OOOH, yes, variety" when there is a MG or YA novel next to a "Step Daddy Spank Me Harder."


No, for the record, I'm not in favor of other authors being censored so they don't appear next to my books.



Elizabeth Ann West said:


> Our reader community has a separate page for Christian fiction just so that readers who WANT only clean titles presented to them don't complain when romances, thrillers, and paranormal books are posted on our mainstream pages.


That's an issue of categorization that should be addressed by Amazon, or any other book seller. Not by censorship.



Elizabeth Ann West said:


> So all I am saying is that issue was not 100% all indie authors in agreement about a) did Paypal have the right to dictate who uses their private service and b) what is the solution where it comes to turning off some readers to make others happy and vice versa.


Yes, Paypal has every right to dictate their business policies. That doesn't change the fact that it's censorship, and that any author should be against censorhip in any form, even if it isn't their book being censored. And the solution to b is simple, categorization on Amazon's website, not censorship. (Actually, it's troubling that you, as an author, see Paypal's action as a solution to problem b.)



Elizabeth Ann West said:


> At this point, I think Mark Coker's unwillingness to address legitimate business concerns of indie authors in regards to using his site's service (including the massive number of unchecked free titles there with no service charge like Julie mentioned, meatgrinder, etc) and instead continually campaign against Amazon is beginning to tip his public perception the other way. If he was truly just so altruistic like some authors want to paint him, he would say "You know, I am troubled by the exclusivity aspect, but if you want to try it out, go ahead, see if it works for you, then after 90 days, come to us and get your book in many channels with one interface to control them." But to act like the real problem isn't all of the authors jumping ship, then realizing either exclusive works for their title or that they LIKE this thing called direct control of their listing and the authors going back and forth and the sheer number of book pulls his company had headaches over is rather misleading to authors going to a site for "self publishing advice."


Mark is simply warning where this road could lead. It is Amazon's goal (as is any company's goal) to drive their competition out of business. Mark is telling us, that as independent authors, we should think about what it would mean if Amazon was the only game in town.

Of course, the problem with Mark's advice is that we are not a monolith of 'indie writers'. We are individuals all doing what's best for us right now. So even if individuals follow his advice, it's not going to make a difference unless the majority of individuals do. And no one is going to assume the majority is going to do it, so they're going to keep doing what's best for them at the moment.



Elizabeth Ann West said:


> Smashwords' only obstacle to greatness is Smashwords itself. Authors have the freedom and right to make their books exclusive to any sales channel they want to for any period of time, and Amazon has as much right to protect their infrastructure of providing marketing services as Smashwords has to say if you make an epub through our meatgrinder, you can't upload it anywhere else.


Mark isn't arguing that Amazon doesn't have the right to do what their doing. He's warning us where it could lead.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Folks,

let's not derail this thread into a discussion of what is and isn't censorship; we've had those threads before and they never end.  You're welcome to start a separate thread if you feel like going around that circle again.    For the purposes of this thread, please agree to disagree on that issue.  Let's keep this thread about Mark's blog post.

Thanks,

Betsy
KB Moderator


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

Swolf, I'm an indie author and we don't agree on this issue, ergo, it was NOT a universal issue everyone in the indie community agreed on. I do believe Paypal as a private company had every right to say "No, I don't want to do business with you." But I'm not going to start arguing the merits of that issue as it's long since been resolved and you know that you and I do not agree on the definition of censorship. 

Doesn't change that Smashwords had a financial stake in the issue, that's all.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Elizabeth Ann West said:


> No I'm saying it was an issue that wasn't completely pro-indie without there being a financial stake for Smashwords.


Is there any issue regarding indie publishing we can debate on this board that we don't all have some kind of financial stake in, directly or indirectly? Of course he had a financial stake in the outcome. I don't see what that has to do with anything. It doesn't really diminish the fact that he changed his mind--he was giving in to Paypal at first--and fought for writers' ability to write and publish what they want. It doesn't make him any less pro-indie that it benefited him, too. And I certainly don't think he's ever tried to pretend it didn't.



> And, the indie community has authors that would benefit financially from not having erotica titles next to their titles because their audience is very vocal about what they are "exposed" to. Just as erotica readers don't really go "OOOH, yes, variety" when there is a MG or YA novel next to a "Step Daddy Spank Me Harder."


Because someone who reads a title like that doesn't read anything else? I think you have an idea that there are good readers who read regular fiction, and erotica readers who must not do anything but read smut all day and would never read something like The Hunger Games or your book. This is an unfortunate perception.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

Elizabeth Ann West said:


> Swolf, I'm an indie author and we don't agree on this issue, ergo, it was NOT a universal issue everyone in the indie community agreed on.


According to that logic, nothing can be a univeral issue if one person disagrees. Since you're bound to find at least one diverse opinion in any large group, the concept of a 'universal issue' becomes imaginary.



Elizabeth Ann West said:


> I do believe Paypal as a private company had every right to say "No, I don't want to do business with you."


I've already agreed with that point.



Elizabeth Ann West said:


> But I'm not going to start arguing the merits of that issue as it's long since been resolved and you know that you and I do not agree on the definition of censorship.


I'm not in the mood to argue it either, so I'll just stick with the one in the dictionary.



Elizabeth Ann West said:


> Doesn't change that Smashwords had a financial stake in the issue, that's all.


And as I said, most of us know Mark well enough to know that his motivation isn't completely financial.


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

Sorry, but I think Mark is almost singularly responsible for getting PayPal to back down. 

Of the indie retailers I dealt with:

All Romance hid. They complied with PayPal's demands and adding insult to injury threw indie erotica into a ghetto where we were banned from using categories, which are the main feature of the site and were indispensable in connecting customers to indie authors.

Bookstrand issued a public denunciation of indie erotica, claiming that they had never published any of the "disgusting themes" that indies did such as incest. At that time this letter was released, the number one seller in their store was a book from their in-house label Siren featuring identical twins. They then went on to ban all indies from their site.

Mark asked people to comply, but went to the press and got all sorts of publicity, not just the indie readers press, but places like Forbes, and PayPal backed down. 

Prior to the PayPal debacle BS & ARE made up 40% of my sales. ARe now makes up roughly 1%. I'll bitch about the meatgrinder and other problems at Smashwords and I'll disagree with the particular article that spawned this thread, but this is one where all of us who write indie erotica owe him a big thanks.


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

No I don't. I READ EROTICA. I enjoy it. 

I deal with reader complaints all day on Facebook pages about what they WANT to see on deal pages, and it's why we had to separate out by genre. As marketers/book sellers we can't make every single reader happy and various genres have fans with different types of wants when they are shopping for books. Amazon knows this, that's why they do the tailored search thing.

But why is it that anytime ANYONE says the honest truth that there is a marketing sensitivity when it comes to erotica (and I would argue there is a sensitivity for many genres, including YA, MG, Christian fiction, and any genre with a firmly entrenched fan base with an idea of what is or isn't qualified for their genre), it devolves to "you must be a prude" type argument?

Sheesh.  Yes, some readers don't care. Some do. How does anyone make judgement calls on who to alienate when everyone has money? Do you say "forget you" to the readers who do care? Why is it most blogs, including the Kindle Blog won't promote erotica? Our site's policy is to promote books at our team's discretion, because I've turned down advertising dollars from books I deemed to be nothing but spammy get-rich quick bait that my readers aren't interested in and would hurt my credibility with them as a source of ebook deals for books they WANT. We have promoted erotica with tasteful covers and as to what is tasteful, it's again, whatever our team is okay with because I literally have readers who get upset when there are books they read with curse words in them.

As Betsy says, this isn't on topic. And I will step away from this thread, but I don't appreciate being labeled as someone who thinks there are good readers or bad readers out there. That's simply not true. There are readers who will gladly TELL you want they want and those who don't care. And there just as many readers who get upset about a book being a surprise Christian preachy book, too. And for an ebook store, or any place that sells or promotes ebooks, like Smashwords, like Amazon, etc. these are considerations.


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## Guest (Oct 25, 2012)

Katie Elle said:


> Sorry, but I think Mark is almost singularly responsible for getting PayPal to back down.


This is really the point. Of course Mark has a financial stake in Smashwords. Every business owner has a financial stake in his or her business. Character boils down to the decisions you make when your own interests are at risk. Everyone else (All Romance, Bookstrand, and many others) when faced with PayPal's ultimatum, put their financial interests first and threw indies under the bus. They decided to protect their financial stake by simply kicking indies to the corner. Mark was the only one that went to the indie community and said "Guys, this is what I have to do right now, this is why, and this is what I plan on doing to fix it." He could have taken the same route as everyone else to protect his financial stake. Instead, he came clean and told indies exactly what was going on. Mark winning that fight with Paypal was NOT a forgone conclusion. _It was a big risk._ But Mark has a strong sense of fairness and, despite the risk to her business, took actions nobody else would. To dismiss his decisions as merely protecting his business diminishes the risk he took. If that had blown up in his face, he could have lost his business. The safe path would have been to do what everyone else did. If he was only concerned about his financial risk, that is what he would have done.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

I've asked that you step away from the censorship discussion and Elizabeth West and swolf have each gotten one additional lick in.  Future posts that address this may be removed in their entirety, even if the remainder of the post is on topic.

Thanks.

Betsy
KB Moderator


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

swolf said:


> Mark is simply warning where this road could lead. It is Amazon's goal (as is any company's goal) to drive their competition out of business. Mark is telling us, that as independent authors, we should think about what it would mean if Amazon was the only game in town.
> 
> Of course, the problem with Mark's advice is that we are not a monolith of 'indie writers'. We are individuals all doing what's best for us right now. So even if individuals follow his advice, it's not going to make a difference unless the majority of individuals do. And no one is going to assume the majority is going to do it, so they're going to keep doing what's best for them at the moment.
> 
> Mark isn't arguing that Amazon doesn't have the right to do what their doing. He's warning us where it could lead.


I'm not getting into the whole censorship thing so I'll just discuss these points that I snipped. 

I don't agree that most companies have a goal to drive their competition out of business or that such a thing is Amazon's goal. It simply isn't a practical goal for most companies, including Amazon. They are more likely to choose an achievable goal, and even hinting that Amazon _could_ drive Apple out of business makes me snicker. FAT CHANCE. Apple has such deep pockets the idea is ludicrous.

What Amazon wants to do, what most companies want to do (although I won't go into Walmart which may be an exception) is to get as large a share of the market as possible. Achieving this often includes a strategy of having "exclusive products". The policy rarely if ever drives other companies out of business but it is sometimes a good strategy for increasing or maintaining market share.

Nowhere does Mark Cocker actually discuss how Amazon could acquire a monopoly of the e-book market? They had something like that when the market started which people sometimes wave around as a proof of Amazon as the "Evil Empire Monopolist". However, in almost all NEW markets the originator of the market has the monopoly. It doesn't last. Amazon did not retain a monopoly of e-books. Now Amazon is fighting, yes, using exclusive products, to hang onto a large market share. I have no problem with their doing that. I don't think in the long run that it will be totally successful and suspect their market share will decrease as SOME other online retailer figures out how to make a decent online store. So far, in my opinion, they haven't. But they will.

ETA: And let's not forget that the other "Evil Empire Monopolist", Microsoft, is now backing Nook Books. In the fight over e-book market share, Amazon may be the small fry when you look at total assets. It may be an interesting fight. While I agree that our best interest is growing the e-book market, I do not delude myself that where I sell my few books is what will determine the outcome. I suspect Bill Gates would laugh at the idea (in the unlikely event he gave it any thought  ) .

Oops, left an essential "not" out of a sentence. Fixed now.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

JRTomlin said:


> I don't agree that most companies have a goal to drive their competition out of business or that such a thing is Amazon's goal. It simply isn't a practical goal for most companies, including Amazon. They are more likely to choose an achievable goal, and even hinting that Amazon _could_ drive Apple out of business makes me snicker. FAT CHANCE. Apple has such deep pockets the idea is ludicrous.


It's the goal of every company to acquire every customer out there, which would put their competitors out of business.

And of course, when I say 'out of business', I mean out of the business the company is trying to dominate. Amazon doesn't make computers, so of course they're not going to drive Apple out of the computer business. But if they acquire enough of the exclusive rights to online content, they may convice Apple that being in the online bookselling business may not be profitable for them.



JRTomlin said:


> What Amazon wants to do, what most companies want to do (although I won't go into Walmart which may be an exception) is to get as large a share of the market as possible.


That's right, and 'as large a share of the market as possible' is all of the market.

Amazon already dominates online booksales. If they were happy with a large market share, they wouldn't have come up with Select.



JRTomlin said:


> Nowhere does Mark actually discuss how Amazon could acquire a monopoly of the e-book market.


From here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-coker/amazon-ebooks-kdp-select_b_1139260.html



> The new Amazon KDP Select program reeks of predatory business practice. Amazon is leveraging their dominance as the world's largest ebook retailer (and world's largest payer to indie authors) to attain monopolistic advantage by effectively denying its competing retailers access to the books from indie authors.


And from the same link:



> European Commission and US Department of Justice Unwittingly Assist Amazon's March toward Monopoly





JRTomlin said:


> They had something like that when the market started which people sometimes wave around as a proof of Amazon as the "Evil Empire Monopolist". However, in almost all NEW markets the originator of the market has the monopoly. It doesn't last. Amazon did retain a monopoly of e-books. Now Amazon is fighting, yes, using exclusive products, to hang onto a large market share. I have no problem with their doing that. I don't think in the long run that it will be totally successful and suspect their market share will decrease as SOME other online retailer figures out how to make a decent online store. So far, in my opinion, they haven't. But they will.


If Amazon reaches their goal of acquiring exclusive rights to the vast majority of independent books, it would set the bar very high for any startup to compete with them.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

swolf said:


> It's the goal of every company to acquire every customer out there, which would put their competitors out of business.
> 
> And of course, when I say 'out of business', I mean out of the business the company is trying to dominate. Amazon doesn't make computers, so of course they're not going to drive Apple out of the computer business. But if they acquire enough of the exclusive rights to online content, they may convice Apple that being in the online bookselling business may not be profitable for them.
> 
> ...


Acquiring a large business share does not equate, in 90% of the cases, to driving your competitor out of business. Driving other companies out of business is simply rarely a practical business goal.

Yes, Amazon has a rather thin majority of e-book sales. Their share of the market has gone markedly_down_ in the past few years from 90% to something probably below 60%, hardly proof that they are driving everyone else out of the market.

Mr. Cocker's statement proves nothing except that he said it. It certainly doesn't prove that Amazon expects to "empty everyone else's shelves".

A new startup isn't the issue. The issues are things like how likely is it that Apple will publicly admit defeat by Amazon and walk away from the e-book market? (my reaction: HA!) How likely is it that Nook Books will go out of business with Microsoft backing? (Highly unlikely) How likely is it that Rakuten having paid $315M cash for Kobo and since put a lot of work and clout into it is going to flush the project and walk away? (Pretty darn unlikely, especially since they are very competitive outside the US)

ETA: A worldwide monopoly of e-books at this stage of the game is way beyond unlikely. It would need some mechanism a lot more than the _some _of small fry of the publishing world (us) giving Amazon an exclusive.

I'd watch assuming that exclusives will give a company that much clout or business. I had to think of KMart and Martha Stewart in this regard: a link for people who don't remember how well THAT went. 

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2009/09/16/martha-stewart-says-kmart-is-a-bad-thing/


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

JRTomlin said:


> Acquiring a large business share does not equate, in 90% of the cases, to driving your competitor out of business. Driving other companies out of business is simply rarely a practical business goal.


No, it is a very prevalent business goal. If a company isn't trying to get every potential customer out there, they're not doing their job properly. And if I was investing in them, I'd want to know why.



JRTomlin said:


> Yes, Amazon has a rather thin majority of e-book sales. Their share of the market has gone markedly_down_ in the past few years from 90% to something probably below 60%, hardly proof that they are driving everyone else out of the market.


I didn't present it as proof they were driving everyone else out of the market. I presented it as proof that they already owned a large market share and weren't happy with that, proving they _wanted_ to drive everyone else out of the market.



JRTomlin said:


> Mr. Cocker's statement proves nothing except that he said it.


Never said it did. You said that "Nowhere does Mark Cocker actually discuss how Amazon could acquire a monopoly" and I pointed out where he did discuss that.



JRTomlin said:


> A new startup isn't the issue. The issues are things like how likely is it that Apple will publicly admit defeat by Amazon and walk away from the e-book market? (my reaction: HA!) How likely is it that Nook Books will go out of business with Microsoft backing? (Highly unlikely) How likely is it that Rakuten having paid $315M cash for Kobo and since put a lot of work and clout into it is going to flush the project and walk away? (Pretty darn unlikely, especially since they are very competitive outside the US)


To paraphrase you, those predictions don't prove anything except that you made them.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

swolf said:


> No, it is a very prevalent business goal. If a company isn't trying to get every potential customer out there, they're not doing their job properly. And if I was investing in them, I'd want to know why.
> 
> I didn't present it as proof they were driving everyone else out of the market. I presented it as proof that they already owned a large market share and weren't happy with that, proving they _wanted_ to drive everyone else out of the market.
> 
> ...


I didn't say he didn't accuse them of it. He give no MECHANISM by which they can do it. They haven't by Select, that's for sure.

HOW is Amazon going to drive Apple out of business? Nook Books? Kobo? Have they "emptied the shelves" in the past year since Select came out? No. So it is now? *Exactly how*? Tell me a mechanism--the HOW that I asked for. He hasn't. You haven't. So I take it as whinging about Amazon, not serious business predictions.

ETA: Very few businesses think they are going to "get every customer out there" any more than I think I'm going to get every reader out there. It simply is rarely a practical goal. Someone isn't going to think the location is right, the color of the store is right, the search engine is right, they don't like to shop online, they prefer to shop online, the selection isn't right, whatever... And they go elsewhere. So instead businesses concentrate on achievable goals.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

It's Coker, guys. C-O-K-E-R.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

shelleyo1 said:


> It's Coker, guys. C-O-K-E-R.


Oops. Thanks. I should have known that. No insult intended to Mr. Coker.

ETA: I don't know the man and don't refer to him by his first name.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

JRTomlin said:


> I didn't say he didn't accuse them of it. He give no MECHANISM by which they can do it. They haven't by Select, that's for sure.
> 
> HOW is Amazon going to drive Apple out of business? Nook Books? Kobo? Have they "emptied the shelves" in the past year since Select came out? No. So it is now? *Exactly how*? Tell me a mechanism. He hasn't. You haven't. So I take it as whinging about Amazon, not serious business predictions.


That article I linked to *laid out the logic and business practices* that Amazon was using in an attempt to create a monopoly.

You may *disagree* with his logic, but please don't claim he hasn't discussed it.

(edited to add some bold type so I can be as emphatic as you.)


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

shelleyo1 said:


> It's Coker, guys. C-O-K-E-R.


Not when him and I are alone. *winks*


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

swolf said:


> That article I linked to *laid out the logic and business practices* that Amazon was using in an attempt to create a monopoly.
> 
> You may *disagree* with his logic, but please don't claim he hasn't discussed it.
> 
> (edited to add some bold type so I can be as emphatic as you.)


Yep. A year ago in that link, he said that Amazon was going to eat the world via Select.

We see exactly how accurate his prediction was. I've made my points and am not going to repeat them again.

ETA: Took out where I did in fact repeat the heart of my points. 'Nuff said. swolf has his opinion which mirrors Mr. Coker's. I have mine.

And I apologize. I wasn't aware that bolding three words in a post was a crime.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

JRTomlin said:


> Yep. A year ago in that link, he said that Amazon was going to eat the world via Select.
> 
> We see exactly how accurate his prediction was. I've made my points and am not going to repeat them again. No proof--just whining and accusations.


So, has he discussed it or not?

And in the world of business where companies make long-term plans, you've decided something hasn't worked because it hasn't created a monopoly within a year? Seriously?

So, I have a dilemma. I can either believe someone who's not only an owner of an online publishing site (the largest publisher of independent ebooks in the world, by the way) but also has proven to be a loyal and helpful leader to independent authors, or, I could believe some anonymous poster on a message board who's calling him a whiner and providing no proof his warnings are unfounded, other than, 'it hasn't happened yet.'

Yeah, tough call.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

swolf said:


> So, has he discussed it or not?
> 
> And in the world of business where companies make long-term plans, you've decided something hasn't worked because it hasn't created a monopoly within a year? Seriously?
> 
> ...


An anonymous poster... Looks at sig. _Whatever_. I don't care whether you believe me or not and I don't care if you think that Mark Coker is the savior of the publishing world. (He ain't my leader so... that assertion, I'll ignore)

ETA: Has he discussed _how_ Amazon would destroy everyone else? No. He made assertions that they would, which is not the same thing.

By the way, if Mr. Coker is indeed the owner of "the largest publisher of independent ebooks in the world" (he may or may not be), what happened to all that "Amazon is going to eat the world with Select and drive all the rest of us out of business" stuff? Huh. Well, you will believe what you like. He certainly has given no evidence of his opinions and I don't care who he is, that's what I expect. Now this is nothing more than a useless back and forth, so as I said a moment ago, I am done. I won't answer further comments.

My opinion is pretty obvious for whoever wants to believe that I and those who share my opinion are right or not.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

JRTomlin said:


> An anonymous poster... Looks at sig. _Whatever_. I don't care whether you don't believe me or not and I don't care if you think that Mark Coker is the savior of the publishing world. (He ain't my leader so... that assertion, I'll ignore)
> 
> By the way, if Mr. Coker is indeed the owner of "the largest publisher of independent ebooks in the world" (he may or may not be), what happened to all that "Amazon is going to eat the world with Select and drive all the rest of us out of business" stuff? Huh. Well, you will believe what you like. He certainly have given no evidence of his opinions and I don't care who he is, that's what I expect.


Once again, your fallback argument is 'it hasn't happened yet, so he must be wrong.' Real hard to take that kind of logic seriously.

And I never said he was right. Just a warning we should all consider.

And yes, you're anonymous. Am I supposed to know who 'JRTomlin' is, and what relevant knowledge he or she brings to this discussion?


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Contrary to how Ms. West tried to paint me (via implication) as a "pro-Coker" guy, anyone who's careful enough to read completely my 2-3 posts in this thread will understand, my opinion is more complex than that.

But I'm not a fan of the "gotta be all positive" or "gotta be all negative" approach so many folks tend to fall into in these discussions.

No one said Mark Coker/Smashwords was "completely" altruistic with no financial interest on the PayPal issue. I did describe his willingness to negotiate them into submission "heroic." Why? Because if it was such an easy task, motivated only by profit, why was he basically the only one willing to sit down at that table and negotiate? He fought a battle no one else was interested in fighting. And his was hardly the only company with something to lose.

Where I *did* suggest some altruism on his part was in an entirely separate issue: his willingness to ask Smashwords partner Kobo to stop their random, rampant book discounting. He did this even though 1) Kobo was a business partner, 2) Amazon was not, and 3) asking Kobo to stop discounting resulted in (very possibly) LOWER sales of Smashwords titles on Kobo because they could no longer declare Smashwords titles to be "on sale," and despite the fact that Kobo cleaning up their system resulted in Kobo not being active in Smashwords for several months, costing everyone money, top to bottom.

Now, the argument could be made that Smashwords stood to lose a lot of authors opting out of Smashwords if he didn't "fix" the Kobo issue.

But keep this in mind:

1) In all honesty, he was asking a BUSINESS PARTNER to change HOW THEY DO BUSINESS because of the business practices and arbitrary rules of a company (Amazon) that WAS NOT a business partner. 

2) No matter how many authors were getting riled up by Kobo discounting costing those authors money in their Amazon checks -- and really, why should Kobo or Smashwords care about Amazon's rules and practices? -- I can tell you this: a lot of those authors would have simply withdrawn from Kobo as a distribution channel and stuck around on Smashwords.

And, when it comes right down to it? Keep in mind that losing a business partner is probably a MUCH bigger financial hit for a company like Smashwords than losing a handful of loud, complaining indie writers. (None of whom thought that maybe Amazon would be a good place to take their complaint. Interesting...)

So...

All that being both stated and now re-stated, let me reiterate what I first said in my first post on this thread:

I'm of TWO minds on Smashwords. (In other words, there are things I like, and things I dislike, about the company.)

And even if I was as shallow as some suggest and only being pro-Mark and pro-Smashwords (I'm not) ... that doesn't mean I'm not pro-Amazon. Heck, I just bought a Kindle PaperWhite, to thank Amazon for not abandoning black-and-white eInk devices for nothing but tablets.

I wonder...

...how many people would riot if I were to suggest that Steve Jobs was not a genius and not an altruistic revolutionary, but "just a businessman looking to protect the financial bottom line of his company, Apple."

I mean, considering Apple's current practices (in place before Jobs passed) include suing their competition instead of trying to offer better products than them (Apple v. Samsung lawsuit, I'm looking at you) AND in vastly overpricing their products, both historically and currently, because they assert they're "better" than anyone else's (contempt for the average, budget-conscious consumer) ... well, it'd be a pretty easy argument to make.

I mean, the best tagline for Apple historically would, in all honesty, be: _Apple. We cater to those who can afford us, and look down on you if you can't._

Hmmm...


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

1. I'd say history demonstrates Jeff Bezos is the most pro-indie person in history.

2. Anyone know of a real world retail monopoly? That would help in analyzing the notion that Amazon is heading in that direction. It's an interesting theory, but one that should be grounded in observation before being used as a decision variable.

3. Business wants profits. Firms are quite happy to coexist if they can all make money. Note the price fixing behavior of the publishers. They cooperated with each other. They didn't try to eliminate each other. 

4. It's hard to say Apple over-prices its products when millions of people buy them, and then come back to buy more.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Terrence OBrien said:


> 1. I'd say history demonstrates Jeff Bezos is the most pro-indie person in history.
> 
> 2. Anyone know of a real world retail monopoly? That would help in analyzing the notion that Amazon is heading in that direction. It's an interesting theory, but one that should be grounded in observation before being used as a decision variable.
> 
> 3. Business wants profits. Firms are quite happy to coexist if they can all make money. Note the price fixing behavior of the publishers. They cooperated with each other. They didn't try to eliminate each other.


Tsk. Stop making me agree with you. It's getting to be a habit.


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## kurzon (Feb 26, 2011)

If nothing else, Select is certainly the most divisive thing Amazon has done to the self-publishing community.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

Terrence OBrien said:


> 1. I'd say history demonstrates Jeff Bezos is the most pro-indie person in history.
> 
> 2. Anyone know of a real world retail monopoly? That would help in analyzing the notion that Amazon is heading in that direction. It's an interesting theory, but one that should be grounded in observation before being used as a decision variable.
> 
> ...


*claps*


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

Katie Elle said:


> Prior to the PayPal debacle BS & ARE made up 40% of my sales. ARe now makes up roughly 1%. I'll bitch about the meatgrinder and other problems at Smashwords and I'll disagree with the particular article that spawned this thread, but this is one where all of us who write indie erotica owe him a big thanks.


It's not just your sales at ARe, which have gone down the drain. I don't even write erotica and was never affected by the "rules changes" (though I did support erotica authors on the issue) and my ARe sales have completely died since the whole PayPal issue. And I've heard similar stories from other indie writers, which makes me suspect that it's a widespread problem. I think that ARe has lost a lot of customers due to the whole PayPal/erotica thing, because a lot of erotica readers went elsewhere, when ARe lumped all the erotica into one big category, and took their non-erotica business with them.



Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> This is a point I have mentioned in the past. So many authors only have their books on Smashwords to trigger Amazon's price matching. They don't even have Smashwords links on their sites. And it isn't even just Smashwords. They don't have links to anything other than Amazon. I have lots of Amazon links on my site, but I also link to other sites that sell my books because it's good business. Why dictate to a customer where they have to buy the book? Why not give them the opportunity to shop where they prefer to shop? Lots of people shop Smashwords because they can use Paypal there. There are people who refuse to shop on Amazon because of DRM. International customers don't want to pay the additional fees Amazon levies.


I'll never understand why people won't at least link to other retailers or at least Amazons other than .com? I don't link to every Kobo retail partner separately, because there are a lot of them and I don't even know half of them, but otherwise I have a link for every retailer for every book on my site. And yes, it takes time to set the links (speaking as someone who just spent two hours adding Amazon JP links for 27 books), but why would you not link to every place where your book is for sale?

Otherwise I agree with Mr Coker. I never joined Select, because I don't believe in exclusivity, and my sales on Kobo and XinXii are steadily growing (though ARe sales died and DriveThruFiction has only ever been sporadic). Now if Smashwords would only start accepting epubs, because I'd really love to start working with them.


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