— a combination of simple living, anticonsumerism, DIY ethics, self-reliance, resilience, and applied capitalism
Do they provide you with no communication about their choices? The book hasn’t been out long at all. Seems like a strange decision on their part.
No communication. The only thing I can control is the overall list price (19.95) + createspace discounts. The rest happens out in the distribution chain; like I have no say in what, say, Powells decide to charge for it.
As far as I understand the entire amazon system is very automated. The price was probably dropped by some computer algorithm to try to maximize their profit. I still get the same royalty, so overall I’m mighty pleased with this deal. I hope it’ll last a long time 🙂
While I am happy that your royalty remains the same I hope the “deal” is over soon. If everyone continues to shop from azon then there will be no local bookstores in a few years. One market, one giant seller.
@et – Much as I appreciate local shops, amazon has made it possible for small authors to completely bypass traditional publishing gatekeepers. It would be very difficult for me to reach what must be tens of thousands of local book shops throughout the country not to mention the rest of the world. Logistically this is complicated because book stores essentially work on a consignment basis. If they don’t sell the book, it gets sent back to the distributor which in this case would be me. The accounting and tracking alone would be a nightmare.
That said, it’s completely possible for anyone to go down to their local book store and order the book through them.
Bugger,
I ordered the book 10 days ago through Amazon for the full price. Oh well it is still worth it.
Trying to get your book in OZ, through a book store was a non starter.
Should be here in the next couple of days.
In this presentation
http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2009/06/01/presentation-revealing-design-treasures-from-the-amazon/
Jared Spool claims that Amazon can sell all their products at cost and still make money. According to him they can do this because Amazon turns their inventory every 20 days. The terms of payment for suppliers is 45 days. This gives Amazon a window to invest this cash.
This doesn’t necessarily explain why the ERE book has been lowered, there must be all sorts of tactics that Amazon uses to maximize sales and profit.
The whole presentation is good and provides some insights into how Amazon operates but the part relating to my point begins at slide 80. You can skip straight there but it will take a few minutes for the audio to buffer.
Regarding Amazon “losing money on this deal or making no money at all,” Amazon works with razor thin margins and actually makes a decent amount of their money investing revenue and taking advantage of long accounts payable windows. Even if they don’t make much off each sale, it’s helping pad their free cash flow.
Have you noticed a sales spike at all since they lowered their price? It looks like your book has jumped up the sales chart quite a bit from last time I had checked.
@Josh – Absolutely. Paperback sales tripled yesterday, while kindle sales “performed” as usual.
@All – It’s correct that amazon’s account payable terms a higher. For authors, it’s (as far as I remember, but I’d have to check) 60 days from the end of the month. This means that for the books selling now, I’m not going to see any money until December.
Jacob,
I had asked for the discount code the other day for createspace and then received the email regarding the Amazon price drop. I just wanted to let you know that I immediately went and ordered and can’t wait to read it! I will also definitely post a review as soon as I finish it.
Thanks for all of the information!
Maybe they lowered the price to move the inventory to stay in their inventory turnover ratio! Glad to hear you’re not getting hurt by the price drop, Jacob.
Paychex does the same thing when they sign clients up for the TaxPay system. They hold the payroll tax money for a day or so before submitting to the IRS and make a little bit of interest on the “float”. Multiply that by thousands of clients and it’s good money.
@Kevin M – In my case they don’t have an inventory. When people order a book, it’s printed. Nothing exists before the order.
There are a also bunch of other sellers in the amazon market place advertising that they have copies in stock. I find this hard to believe as no such copies have been ordered from the printer. Many of these are drop-shippers who ship directly from the printer ordering at wholesale prices skimming the difference.
Did you have to do anything to get it listed at bn.com, or do you know if you have received any orders from there? I see it is currently listed there for the same price as amazon, so I’m not sure if they are price matching or if this order is getting fulfilled by amazon or something?
Either way, there are not any reviews there so it might be a good place to encourage a few reviews to show up. I am an extremely slow reader so still have a ways to go, but plan to leave reviews when I’m done.
Another thought on the price reduction — maybe they are trying to encourage more kindle sales?
@Josh – Nope. B&N is part of the “enhanced distribution channel” of what createspace acronymizes into EDC.
There are a many online retailers that take the data directly from Bowker (the guys in charge of assigning ISBNs) and automatically list anything in there. You can also find the book online at Powells, Booksamillion, …
If B&N is listing it at 14.36, I bet that’s what brought about amazon’s reduction.
