A Not so Beautiful Disaster

Cyia · Mar 3, 2013

Via Twitter link:

http://sarawriteserotica.wordpress....-jamie-mcguire-penalized-for-self-publishing/

Jamie McGuire's self-pubbed Beautiful Disaster was picked up by a commercial publisher and reissued, The self-pubbed version was taken off the market months ago, and well outside the 7-day refund period for Amazon's guidelines. Yet, according to the author:

It appears that Amazon has sent a mass email to everyone who’s ever purchased the self-published version of Beautiful Disaster. They are encouraging readers to request a refund. When asked why they are offering this refund, Amazon customer service has given several different reasons, the most common is problems with content. THERE IS NO PROBLEM WITH THE CONTENT OF BEAUTIFUL DISASTER, and it makes no sense for them to encourage a refund for a book that has already been read and enjoyed 6+ months later, but that is the only information I have for now.

Customer service admits that if you do NOT get the refund, your copy of BD will NOT be affected. If you get a refund, they are offering to reimburse the $4+ difference it costs to purchase the $7.99 version, but what they aren’t telling you is that **I** am paying for every refund.

According to the author, Amazon is taking the returns out of the profits for another self-published novel.

This is the email:

Hello from Amazon.com,
We want to let you know that the edition of Beautiful Disaster that you purchased is no longer available. You can order a new version that is now available here:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008JMKN4Y/?tag=absowrit-20
You can also request a refund on your original purchase by responding to this email. After the refund is issued, you will no longer be able to access this item.
Thank you,
The Kindle Team

So, basically, the thousands of people who bought the SP version of the novel (which is, AFAIK, cover and story, identical to the commercial version) can now return the SP version for a credit. (Which, if you buy the new version, Amazon will make up the price difference for) However, most people who are returning the novel aren't going for the new version. They're keeping the credit, and that credit is coming out of the author's profits for another book entirely because the book being returned is no longer for sale and can't have it's profit's garnished.

According to the person who wrote the linked post, it's been TWO YEARS since she purchased the SP version of the novel, and she's now being asked if she wants to return it.

Can a company actually violate their own TOS?

thebloodfiend · Mar 3, 2013

This doesn't even make any sense.

Has this happened to other self-pubbers gone trade-publishing?

Cyia · Mar 3, 2013

Not that I've heard. Someone suggested it was a hoax / phishing scam (not on the author or Amazon's part), but if that were true, she wouldn't be seeing the returns on her account.

Captcha · Mar 3, 2013

Well, wait - if the SP version has been pulled, that means it will disappear from my kindle, right? It's not a question of returning it for a credit, it's a question of it being TAKEN from me. I think.

So - shouldn't I have a right to a refund for that? And since the author is the one who pulled it, shouldn't she be the one to pay for the refund?

cryaegm · Mar 3, 2013

Captcha said:
Well, wait - if the SP version has been pulled, that means it will disappear from my kindle, right? It's not a question of returning it for a credit, it's a question of it being TAKEN from me. I think.

So - shouldn't I have a right to a refund for that? And since the author is the one who pulled it, shouldn't she be the one to pay for the refund?

"Customer service admits that if you do NOT get the refund, your copy of BD will NOT be affected. If you get a refund, they are offering to reimburse the $4+ difference it costs to purchase the $7.99 version, but what they aren’t telling you is that **I** am paying for every refund."

From the sounds of it, it's not affected if you don't ask for a refund. I don't know for sure--I don't own a kindle or have any kindle ebooks, I'm just going by what is said, but then, the wording is weird so I don't know. And I think she has to pull self-pubbed one because it's now with Atria books, thus competing sales. I could very well be wrong. Hopefully someone will come along and say for sure.

ETA: This all sounds really weird. I've never heard this happen before, so I'm not sure what to say on the matter. Maybe Amazon has done this before, maybe it hasn't. I don't know. I hope someone can come along and shed some light on this situation.

Silver-Midnight · Mar 3, 2013

I'm still trying to understand why they need to return it in the first place. Will the SP version no longer be available even if they don't buy the newer version?

Captcha · Mar 3, 2013

The email from Amazon quoted in the first post says the book will no longer be available. I'm reading that to mean that it will no longer be on people's kindles. I know there have been issues with this in the past, like where Amazon decided certain books violated their prudery standards and pulled the titles and the titles came off people's kindles automatically.

ETA: The e-mail isn't offering a return, it's offering a refund. I assumed that meant that there was nothing left to return, since they'd already pulled the title.

Does anybody have this book on their kindle so we can check?

Cyia · Mar 3, 2013

If you return the book, it's no longer available to you under that ISBN. The book isn't deleted off your Kindle if you don't ask for the refund.

cryaegm · Mar 3, 2013

I'm going to watch this thread as I make chocolate pancakes. This is strange and kind of worrying. I'm not sure why Amazon is doing this. I want to think that Amazon isn't trying to take this out on the author because then that would be really sucky, not just for her, but for anyone who self-publishes on Amazon then gets picked up by a commercial publisher.

Silver-Midnight · Mar 3, 2013

Captcha said:
The email from Amazon quoted in the first post says the book will no longer be available. I'm reading that to mean that it will no longer be on people's kindles. I know there have been issues with this in the past, like where Amazon decided certain books violated their prudery standards and pulled the titles and the titles came off people's kindles automatically.

Oh wow.

Cyia said:
If you return the book, it's no longer available to you under that ISBN. The book isn't deleted off your Kindle if you don't ask for the refund.

Oh, okay. That's better. I was about to say....I mean it's still bad but it's not bad as them forcibly removing the book and asking you to buy the new version.

Filigree · Mar 3, 2013

Amazon, you are not making any friends this week. I know the book biz is a loss leader to you, but take a page from Google and try not to be evil.

James D. Macdonald · Mar 3, 2013

Amazon trying to make sure that once you've published with them you can't go anywhere else?

Lots of us have been saying that once Amazon got a monopoly or near-monopoly that the mask would come off and it would stop being all fluffy kittens and cinnamon buns over there. "Oh no," the Amazon boosters would say, "That'll never happen."

Well, guess what.

Katie Elle · Mar 3, 2013

Amazon trying to make sure that once you've published with them you can't go anywhere else?

That's rather speculative, as are the suggestions that the publisher did this to punish her for not going trade in the first place. In both cases, I particularly think it's speculative because other authors who have signed trade contracts haven't had this happen to them. In some cases their books have remained available in the old version to anyone who bought them. In others, they have been updated to receive the new version.

Something very unusual is going on though because lots of other authors have signed with a trade publisher after initial hot ebook runs and the conversion has not caused issues. Nobody can remember anything like this happening before.

Edit: The most reasonable sounding thing is that there are KF8 problems with the old book, the author can't update the file because it's unpublished, and Amazon has bungled getting updated versions for their customers and failed to communicate with anyone. The old saying "never attribute to malice what could be explained by stupidity" goes double for Amazon and for anyone really who's system relies so heavily on automated systems.

Kylabelle · Mar 3, 2013

James D. Macdonald said:
Amazon trying to make sure that once you've published with them you can't go anywhere else?

Lots of us have been saying that once Amazon got a monopoly or near-monopoly that the mask would come off and it would stop being all fluffy kittens and cinnamon buns over there. "Oh no," the Amazon boosters would say, "That'll never happen."

Well, guess what.

It would be nice and cozy to believe this instance is some kind of anomaly, but my intuition has been screaming at me about Amazon for a while now. It may be the first time this has happened but I believe it is a turn in the tide and there will be more such events come to light.

I'm grateful for the early warning.

Captcha · Mar 3, 2013

I just checked out the kindle boards on this and there's definitely some discussion. One post I found interesting said that one of the characters quotes quite a bit of a Rolling Stones song verbatim in the SP version. I somehow doubt the Stones gave rights to a self-published author to do that, and maybe they didn't give rights to the new publisher, either.

In which case there really is a problem with the content of the SP version - it's a copyright violation.

I did try to read this book but couldn't stand the glorification of an unhealthy relationship, so I have no idea if the Stones thing is accurate. But if it is, I think it adds a new twist.

Lexxie · Mar 3, 2013

I just saw the Rolling Stones / Satisfaction thing as well : https://twitter.com/jane_l/status/308329574503178240/photo/1

absitinvidia · Mar 3, 2013

The general consensus is that copyright infringement led to the book being pulled (the Rolling Stones lyrics, as others have mentioned above).

Captcha · Mar 3, 2013

So the author is being a bit disingenuous in her post? With the whole "there are no content issues" thing?

I mean, if she violated copyright, she should take some responsibility, shouldn't she?

(I'm struggling with my feelings on this because I really, REALLY disliked the book. So maybe I'm being harsher on the author than I should be? I'm not sure.)

JSSchley · Mar 3, 2013

Captcha said:
So the author is being a bit disingenuous in her post? With the whole "there are no content issues" thing?

To give Fawkes the benefit of the doubt, it seems to me from her post and the comments that she didn't realize there was a potential copyright issue. And I can see why, without knowing that, it would cause concern, as Fawkes is also a self-pub erotica author who landed a print deal with St. Martin's in much the same way McGuire landed hers with Atria.

I hope the copyright issue is the real issue at hand; though why no one figured this out before now is confusing. BD has been out through Atria for a long time.

Buffysquirrel · Mar 3, 2013

Didn't Amazon say after the whole Triffids/copyright debacle that they wouldn't delete books from Kindles again? Maybe this is how they're handling the issue instead.

amergina · Mar 3, 2013

JSSchley said:
To give Fawkes the benefit of the doubt, it seems to me from her post and the comments that she didn't realize there was a potential copyright issue. And I can see why, without knowing that, it would cause concern, as Fawkes is also a self-pub erotica author who landed a print deal with St. Martin's in much the same way McGuire landed hers with Atria.

I hope the copyright issue is the real issue at hand; though why no one figured this out before now is confusing. BD has been out through Atria for a long time.

In reading Jane Little's Twitter feed, the Atria (S&S) version only has the line "I Can't Get No Satisfaction" where as the self pubbed version has practically the entire song lyrics.

So I suspect Atria realized it was a problem and edited it down to what they felt they could defend as fair use. i.e., one line.

James D. Macdonald · Mar 3, 2013

More Amazon weirdness:

http://quietbabylon.com/2013/algorithmic-rape-jokes-in-the-library-of-babel/

amergina · Mar 3, 2013

James D. Macdonald said:
More Amazon weirdness:

http://quietbabylon.com/2013/algorithmic-rape-jokes-in-the-library-of-babel/

There's a thread on that in P&CE:

http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=265507

Captcha · Mar 3, 2013

JSSchley said:
To give Fawkes the benefit of the doubt, it seems to me from her post and the comments that she didn't realize there was a potential copyright issue. And I can see why, without knowing that, it would cause concern, as Fawkes is also a self-pub erotica author who landed a print deal with St. Martin's in much the same way McGuire landed hers with Atria.

I hope the copyright issue is the real issue at hand; though why no one figured this out before now is confusing. BD has been out through Atria for a long time.

Sorry, I'm lost now - who's Fawkes? Was the post quoted in the OP from McGuire's facebook, or somewhere else?

ETA: And if the post from the OP IS from McGuire, then I think the reason "why no one figured this out before now" might be that the author was pretty much lying about things. Instead of saying, "I screwed up and violated copyright in the first version so I need to pull it - but you can get the non-violating version by doing X," she went on the offensive. Maybe I'm misunderstanding things?

ETA2: Sorry, I figured out who Fawkes is. And, yeah, I think she was probably taking things at face value and trusting a fellow author. But I don't buy that nobody at the new publisher ever mentioned to McGuire that there was a copyright issue, so I don't buy that McGuire is ignorant of the issue.

JSSchley · Mar 3, 2013

amergina said:
In reading Jane Little's Twitter feed, the Atria (S&S) version only has the line "I Can't Get No Satisfaction" where as the self pubbed version has practically the entire song lyrics.

So I suspect Atria realized it was a problem and edited it down to what they felt they could defend as fair use. i.e., one line.

Sorry, wasn't clear. I presumed that Atria, knowing more about fair use, edited that passage down, and therefore the author has been aware there was a potential problem with the SP version for almost a year. She could've gone about correcting the problem herself, or at least, alerting Amazon to the problem. Now, I'm no fan of the Zon, but if the issue is truly the use of the lyrics, I confess I don't have a ton of sympathy for her that Amazon took action.

Captcha said:
Sorry, I'm lost now - who's Fawkes? Was the post quoted in the OP from McGuire's facebook, or somewhere else?

The author of the blog post Cyia linked above, who is also the author of a similar "self-pub to big trade deal" BDSM romance. I'm just pointing out that I don't think she knew about the copyright thing when she wrote her post, and so I don't think she's trying to mislead. And if you don't know about the copyright thing, I can see why this action would be particularly concerning to her, given the similarity of her situation to McGuire's.

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