Morning Coffee – 11 May 2020
Here are a few stories to read this Monday morning.
- When "Lord of the Flies" happened for real, the result was almost peaceful.
- Someone’s building a database of book-buying habits of major 20th-century authors.
- There’s a factoid going around that 80% of authors quit after their third book. It appears that I am the only one who considered the possibility that authors may have changed their pen name.
- Ten ways to feel like a writer even when you are too stressed out to write.
- ICANN blocked the sale of the DotOrg registry to a for-profit company (they would have jacked up the cost of registration).
- People were apparently shocked that Amazon would stop collecting VAT on ebooks when it was no longer required.
- The British Library is building a digital platform for UK libraries. (They probably stole it from another country.)
- BTW, I updated my list of book promotion sites on Saturday.
Comments
Disgusting Dude May 11, 2020 um 3:15 pm
People are equally shocked tbat prices *haven’t* gone down on most non-standard Amazon published books.
“For titles where Amazon sets the price, we will reduce the prices of books not already on promotion,” said a spokesperson. “After receiving today’s notification, we are working as fast as possible to lower prices for customers.”
That’s for APub titles, not Agency books and not all KDP titles.
Nate Hoffelder May 11, 2020 um 3:41 pm
Pretty sure this covers ebooks Amazon sells, and not just the ones it publishes.
Disgusting Dude May 11, 2020 um 3:17 pm
That would be non-Amazon books.
(Not sure how standard crept in.)
Disgusting Dude May 11, 2020 um 6:41 pm
It can’t.
Agency book pricing is controlled by the publisher so Amazon can’t speak for them.
And some have made it clear they are going to use the secret price hike to make up for loss of pbook sales.
The Bookseller has a piece on it:
https://www.thebookseller.com/blogs/e-book-vat-other-side-story-1201919
Nate Hoffelder May 11, 2020 um 6:52 pm
you should read the article, because the statement from Amazon mentions
“For titles where Amazon sets the price, we will reduce the prices of books not already on promotion,” said a spokesperson. “After receiving today’s notification, we are working as fast as possible to lower prices for customers.”