Third-Party Sellers and the Amazon (US) Buy Button

Status
Not open for further replies.

Fuchsia Groan

Becoming a laptop-human hybrid
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Sep 27, 2008
Messages
2,870
Reaction score
1,398
Location
The windswept northern wastes
I wondered if anyone here had insight into Amazon's new policy that allows third-party sellers to "win" the one-click-buy button, as described here and here.

I'm genuinely confused and curious about the implications of this, if any. Some commenters on the PW piece say this policy will take sales and royalties away from authors. Others say those concerns are alarmist, because Amazon vets the third-party sellers of all books labeled as "new."

Any thoughts?

(Mods, I wasn't sure if this belonged here, in General Publishing, or elsewhere. I apologize in advance if it's out of place!)
 

Curlz

cutsie-pie
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jan 5, 2016
Messages
2,213
Reaction score
382
Location
here
Some commenters on the PW piece say this policy will take sales and royalties away from authors
All second-hand sales "take away sales and royalties away from authors", yet I don't see backlash against second-hand bookshops and garage sales. Besides, nothing really is changed in the way third parties sell "new" books on Amazon - they do the same now, their "button" is currently smaller but the option is there all the same.
I'd also like to know if all those people who are against "second-hand books" do actually buy bargain books (second-hand, reduced price etc)?
 

Fuchsia Groan

Becoming a laptop-human hybrid
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Sep 27, 2008
Messages
2,870
Reaction score
1,398
Location
The windswept northern wastes
This policy does not apply to second-hand books, only to "new" books. (Second-hand books presumably, at some point, were purchased from the publisher, and the author was paid.)

The crux of the question here appears to be how certain sellers can afford to discount new books so deeply. It sounds as if there are a number of possible answers, some of which might involve payment for the author and some of which might not.
 

AW Admin

Administrator
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 19, 2008
Messages
18,772
Reaction score
6,285
The difficulty is explained by this Vox article.

Amazon’s third-party sellers have to offer new books, not used ones, but in many cases they don’t seem to have bought their books from publishers. No one is quite sure where their books come from, including, it seems, Amazon itself. The industry publication Publishers Lunch reports that Amazon third-party sellers who worry about breaking the rules have reassured one another that they’re not doing anything wrong by citing the fact that Amazon’s guidelines “as always, [say] nothing about provenance, nothing about purchasing through distribution.” It doesn’t matter, in other words, where the books come from, so long as they are new, unmarked, and sold cheaply.

Books may have been purchased and are being resold as "based on their condition." Publishers have already been paid for those books.

But books bought in lots from warehouses, or books that were review copies, those books were not paid for, and will not be reflected in terms of royalties or sold copies.
 
Last edited:

Fuchsia Groan

Becoming a laptop-human hybrid
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Sep 27, 2008
Messages
2,870
Reaction score
1,398
Location
The windswept northern wastes
Thank you! That's a really useful article.

So it's probably good for authors to check their books' pages often (if they don't already), for this reason:

If the Buy Box winner for a book is out of stock, it will look to most customers as though the book is out of stock everywhere. ... [J]udging from the frantic state of Book Twitter, a number of books appear to have already fallen into this trap, particularly debuts.

In my day job, I receive a fair number of promotional copies of new books (not ARCs; indistinguishable from regular copies). We would never sell them, but when we finish reviewing them (or decide not to), we have been placing them in a Little Free Library we built for that purpose. I used to think giving away the books might help spread word of mouth to people who wouldn't normally hear about or buy them. (Plus, we don't have room to store all those promo copies.) Now I wonder if this is a bad idea, because LFLs could be a source for unethical resellers.

(I assume most resellers do source their books ethically! But this is a side of the business I know very little about, and it seems incumbent on writers to learn more.)
 

Sleeping Cat Books

Booking design projects for fall
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 10, 2016
Messages
72
Reaction score
5
Website
sleepingcatbooks.com
The biggest problem (at least for those who publish through CreateSpace) is that resellers often source through Expanded Distribution Channels (EDC), which offers a considerably lower royalty amount than a sale directly through Amazon. So if the Amazon Buy button is owned by a reseller using EDC, the author is indeed losing out on royalties if the buyer isn't aware of this change and consciously selects to buy from Amazon instead of just clicking the button.
 

ElaineA

All about that action, boss.
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jan 17, 2013
Messages
8,555
Reaction score
8,431
Location
The Seattle suburbs
Website
www.reneedominick.com
In my day job, I receive a fair number of promotional copies of new books (not ARCs; indistinguishable from regular copies). We would never sell them, but when we finish reviewing them (or decide not to), we have been placing them in a Little Free Library we built for that purpose. I used to think giving away the books might help spread word of mouth to people who wouldn't normally hear about or buy them. (Plus, we don't have room to store all those promo copies.) Now I wonder if this is a bad idea, because LFLs could be a source for unethical resellers.

Wouldn't that be easy to prevent with a stamp or sharpie? Write REVIEW COPY, or LITTLE LIBRARY USE ONLY, or something, on the spine and both covers, inside and out, and on the first and last inside pages. If it's marked up and a seller tries to sell it as "new" people will complain, and they'll lose status on Amazon.

It's not a solution to the bigger issue, but it could make people more comfortable donating copies they receive for free. Or putting them in Little Libraries. :)
 

Fuchsia Groan

Becoming a laptop-human hybrid
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Sep 27, 2008
Messages
2,870
Reaction score
1,398
Location
The windswept northern wastes
Wouldn't that be easy to prevent with a stamp or sharpie? Write REVIEW COPY, or LITTLE LIBRARY USE ONLY, or something, on the spine and both covers, inside and out, and on the first and last inside pages. If it's marked up and a seller tries to sell it as "new" people will complain, and they'll lose status on Amazon.

It's not a solution to the bigger issue, but it could make people more comfortable donating copies they receive for free. Or putting them in Little Libraries. :)

Don't know why I didn't think of this earlier. I've started doing it and telling others to do it. Thank you!
 

Anna Iguana

reading all the things
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jan 16, 2017
Messages
925
Reaction score
219
Location
US
My understanding is that there's a second issue: Amazon lists the inventory of some sellers as "available in 2-3 weeks." If such sellers win the auction, that's the wait-time prospective book buyers see, and that is believed to suppress sales. Think I read this in a Huffpo article, a while back, but after googling, I can't find a source to confirm.

ETA: the Vox article that Lisa linked addresses this. Also reminds me of a third issue--concern this will especially harm small presses (with whom Amazon happens to compete) because, if they can't bid high enough to win the buy button, another seller may win, but list the book as temporarily out of stock, costing sales. I've seen concern expressed this could, medium- to long-term, drive some smaller presses out of business. (Not a publishing professional, can't confirm.)
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.