[Promotion] Books Butterfly

Deb Kinnard said:

CTripp, isn't Harlequin still stiffing their authors by sequestering their e-book royalties in a wholly-owned subsidiary corporation? I think the actual royalty figure as received by the author was in the neighborhood of 4%. The authors lost a class-action suit over this, IIRC.

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I think the class action suit was settled in the authors' favour last summer, but might be wrong; and I also think Harlequin stopped doing the thing they were sued for quite a while ago--2011, perhaps. But I've not checked and my memory is fallible, so don't quote me on this.

That doesn't make Book Butterfly's assertions any more or less true. It's common knowledge that in real-money terms, advances for trade published authors are either flat (I saw one author say she was still getting about $2000 US, identical to advances she'd received in the 70s) or dropping. But, of course, trade publishers can always pay seven figure advances to a celebrity.

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I have friends who are regularly getting advances in the tens of thousands, who aren't celebrities or even established authors. So much depends on the book, the genre, and so on that I'm not sure we can determine that advances have not risen with inflation, or that they've dropped.

People want to work with a friendly face that's on their side, not defensive wall-of-text folk that threaten legal action (deserved or not) - all of these reponses are so damaging to your public image.

BooksButterfly said:

Lots of attempts to destroy us over the years. And all for one reason - the dinosaurs are scared to death of indie authors, the mammals

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BooksButterfly said:

the promotion companies and promotion channels are helping you. However, the only real solution is if the bookstores decide to go with the future OR a platform emerges that helps the mammals instead of defending the dinosaurs

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Just thought I'd mention that birds are theropod dinosaurs and there are almost twice as many species of them than there are mammals.

hth

The Harlequin suit was settled out of court for (IIRC around $4 million.)

And yes, what CameronJohnston said.

Marissa, do you know whether any of the HQ authors who were stiffed got any of the settlement money?

I don't know if they've actually received any cash yet, but one of the authors who brought the suit is a friend--I'll ask next time I see her at a chapter meeting (if I can find a non-awkward way to do so.)

There's an article about the Harlequin lawsuit by Patricia McLinn in the Authors Guild Winter Bulletin which begins "Sitting in front of me is the settlement check I received from a class action lawsuit against Harlequin."

So yes, at least some of the authors have received their money from the settlement.

I meant to post my experience here re BB about a year ago! Not sure if things will have changed much at BB but it may help someone if there's still the same person at the helm. So read on (bearing in mind the elapsed 12 months):

I recognise this style of emailing immediately from BooksButterfly. The internet is a wonderful thing for exposing such tactics and to realize you’re not alone in being on the receiving end. Watch this space and see if the same poster doesn’t come on and glaze you all again with his copy and pasting. His tactics are to single a person out to make them – the paying customer – look as if they are the only ones who are dissatisfied and therefore they at fault. Before I go any further, I made a mistake. I put my hands up and apologised several times but he didn’t have the grace to accept it. I mean, when someone, a customer, apologises for making a mistake, the professional will say ‘no worries’ or ‘easily done’ and we will crack a joke and all go off for a (virtual) cuppa together. But not Mr Singh who instead had a big sulk. So my friends, read on. There will be no copying and pasting for him to add because I include it all below:

I previously bought two promotions with them and I was happy with the first as they offered pro-rated refunds. The first one, sales were reasonable and I probably broke even. The second one didn’t but I got a pro-rated refund.

Fast forward circa 18 months and I purchased another - (in spite of the hefty hike in prices).

The mistake I made was to forget to discount on Amazon. I made a mistake! Hardly a hanging offence! But I didn’t realize I’d not discounted on Amazon. Please note I had on Smashwords and Kobo. I have many books and many things on the go at any one time and a long term illness affecting memory (not an excuse, but an explanation).

So I was disconcerted as to why no sales were appearing. I politely emailed on days 2 and 3 and as I’d got no reply from BB, I was getting worried (not realizing my error on Amazon at this stage). So I tried the chat function on BB and again no reply. (Most chat functions have somebody on the other end but an answer came there none). In chat it is a bit more informal and I was a bit put out about the lack of correspondence as I’d paid £70 for this promo (more than I’d ever paid for any promo) and my informal chat mail was sent as an email.

On the 4th day I then got an email back – this time from Mr Singh – not the previously charming and professional Newton I’d been dealing with for this promotion.

This is when he told me I’d not discounted my book and the promo had been cancelled. This was Day 4 and the first I knew of it. I was very apologetic but I noticed Mr Singh didn’t do the proper address or signing off as he had with previous promos some 18 months-two years earlier. He also said my email rejected theirs. This caused me concern naturally and I asked him for details so I could report it to my ISP if emails were going missing. He gave me 4 email addresses and I replied to him using them all and asking him to forward details about the emails that had been returned so I could investigate.

He didn’t confirm whether my email had arrived or forward the ‘bounced back emails’ as requested so I had no proof this had actually happened. I heard nothing more but as I still had paid for the promo I contacted him to let him know my book was now discounted on Amazon and could I run it the current week instead and also to check that he’d received the email about missing emails? Up until this point, I’d not noticed anything untoward with Mr Singh apart from the slightly impolite lack of address and signing off in the previous emails. But then he started telling me not to order any more promotions with them after this one because I ‘didn’t reduce the price’ and sent them ‘angry emails’ .


However as I’d paid for the promotion I asked for it to to be run and that here in the UK, at any rate, if we have paid for something and there is a problem, a good firm will care about good customer relations and will do anything to make sure the customer is happy and diffuse the situation if they care about the reputation of their business. I explained that my emails were not angry, I always signed off politely, something which he was no longer doing which I considered quite unprofessional. I also told him that after this I didn’t want to order any other promos as I felt their prices were very high and I was not happy with his unforgiving attitude. (If he think somebody saying ‘anyone there?’ in a chat box is angry then he’s led a very sheltered life).

But instead of bowing out and saving any shred of credibility he might still have had, he kept coming back with more and more irrational. defensive and unprofessional accusations, eg about the fact that I’d marked my emails ‘high importance’ and 3 out of 10k people marked their emails as highly important and blah de blah and it wasn’t as if I needed 911 (uh? I’m in the UK, we don’t use 911) and wittering on about authors who ‘reply to me instantly, drop everyone else and focus on my promotion’ (what a disparaging view of his customers and authors in general) and generally throwing his toys out of the pram which makes me wonder how he ever came to work with authors or any paying customers in the first place. Funny too, how he suddenly found the return button after having ignored all my previous emails. He seriously needs to go on some basic personal communications skills course.

In the end I actually had to block him in the end because of his desperate and infantile need to have the last (nasty) word and I felt I was being pestered.


So the moral of this tale for Books Butterfly is this:

Rule 1) Isn’t it the customer who’s always right and ergo who decide if they wish to use this business in the future?

Rule 2) A little goodwill goes a long way. Be gracious enough to accept an apology instead of becoming all defensive and nit-picking and sulking like a two year old.

Rule 3) Apologise yourself. Your customer is your lifeblood. Don’t be arrogant and bull-headed or attack your customer. It not only makes you look a ***, it will have far-reaching consequences

Rule 4) Keep your customer onboard because if you don’t your good reputation will be trashed, Word of mouth is the most powerful of recommendations.

Responding to Kate about pricing issue

Firstly, on behalf of the team I apologize for rudeness, including perceived rudeness (of email not being 'signed off') and real rudeness you experienced

Secondly

1) If you do a pricing mistake, we could do what nearly every other promotion site does i.e. you didn't reduce your price. You lose the spot
We act in good faith and give you a new spot

So we are not the bad guys here. Either due to Amazon pricing mistake or due to you forgetting to change the price, you missed your promotion. We offered you a new spot. that really is the best possible scenario if you are an author who bought a package and then forgot to discount your book. With nearly every other promotion site you'd just lose the spot forever - they would not offer you a make up slot (at their own cost - you do end up taking two slots if you don't discount for the first slot)

2) We did not intend any rudeness. Often there are busy times and team does not 'sign off'. We really don't know what etiquette is in these situations. We've lived mostly in US and Canada and both those places, no offence taken if there is no signing off in an email, especially if it's in an ongoing thread

3) We've seen all the correspondence and it seems it escalated as we were expecting (perhaps a mistake on our part) - I messed up the pricing. Thank you for giving me a new spot. These are the dates

And it seems you were expecting us to sign off every email (we didn't know you expected that) and be super polite about you not discounting your book. We totally understand why/how you would expect us to not get frazzled by you not discounting the book and then also expecting super customer service. We don't really know what proper etiquette is as most people who miss their spot (usually due to Amazon pricing mistakes and errors) are very happy to get a make up spot and not lose their money. We really don't get people who get upset after their pricing mistake and us offering a make up slot for no charge

That's why we requested you (politely) to kindly not submit to us in future

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If you have already used that slot we offered you - great
If not please email us and we will set it up for you

The person you talked to doesn't do customer service any more so you will be corresponding with someone who will be Ok even if you expect us to be super polite after you've missed discounting your book. Emails don't have context so you're imagining things that are not there (that no sign off in email means there is rudeness). Live chat is usually 9 am to 9 pm EST and at US night time the Europe team takes over. However, you can miss us. Generally it's almost 24/7. There is also phone support at 1-844-We-Promote

Live chat or Phone - 3 or 4 minutes and issue is resolved

In general, if you mess up your pricing (or much more likely - if the book store messes up your pricing) then we will in good faith offer you a make up spot. If that happens please be patient as we are giving you a new spot at our own cost

Kate JR said:

I meant to post my experience here re BB about a year ago! Not sure if things will have changed much at BB but it may help someone if there's still the same person at the helm. So read on (bearing in mind the elapsed 12 months):

I recognise this style of emailing immediately from BooksButterfly. The internet is a wonderful thing for exposing such tactics and to realize you’re not alone in being on the receiving end. Watch this space and see if the same poster doesn’t come on and glaze you all again with his copy and pasting. His tactics are to single a person out to make them – the paying customer – look as if they are the only ones who are dissatisfied and therefore they at fault.

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BooksButterfly said:

The person you talked to doesn't do customer service any more so you will be corresponding with someone who will be Ok even if you expect us to be super polite after you've missed discounting your book. Emails don't have context so you're imagining things that are not there (that no sign off in email means there is rudeness).

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I know at this point you won't listen to me, or anyone else, who says this method of dealing with customer complaints makes you look bad. It's been said before and ignored. Though I do have to appreciate the humour in responding this way after someone specifically mentions that you will respond this way. That is not how you prove someone wrong.

It doesn't matter that a single person doesn't do customer service anymore when all the staff are encouraged to behave the same way. It's been the same style throughout on the thread, so it's clearly company policy, not something that can be pinned on one person. When a company has a policy of the customer always being wrong, it's going to shine through. Deal with the core problem and you'll have something to say. Anything else is just reinforcing that nothing has changed.

Responding to Polenth

Polenth said:

I know at this point you won't listen to me, or anyone else, who says this method of dealing with customer complaints makes you look bad. It's been said before and ignored. Though I do have to appreciate the humour in responding this way after someone specifically mentions that you will respond this way. That is not how you prove someone wrong.

It doesn't matter that a single person doesn't do customer service anymore when all the staff are encouraged to behave the same way. It's been the same style throughout on the thread, so it's clearly company policy, not something that can be pinned on one person. When a company has a policy of the customer always being wrong, it's going to shine through. Deal with the core problem and you'll have something to say. Anything else is just reinforcing that nothing has changed.

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Hi Polenth

thanks for the feedback

We actually have taken in feedback and made lots of improvements. These include

1) Availability of live chat since early 2017, so author clients can get instant responses. They just have to use the live chat at www.booksbutterfly.com - it's at the bottom right of each page. The live chat text specifically asks to leave email address. So even in the rare case you don't find someone you can leave your contact email and the issue and we will fix it

2) Toll Free Number (1-844-We-Promote) starting 2017 and dedicated numbers for USA, Canada, and England. So they have someone to talk to

3) A new team to respond to emails that responds relatively faster (1 to 2 business days instead of the earlier team which would take 1 to 4 business days and also miss a few emails every week)

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In the past (before March 2017) - email response within 1 to 4 business days

Now - option of instant live chat, or phone support, or email response within 1 to 2 business days

We continue to take in feedback and improve

The improvements have dropped number of problems drastically and led to a great reduction in disputes and problems -

Screenshots showing our Low Dispute Rate in April to Dec 2017 (6 disputes from 3,182 promotion packages sold) - https://www.booksbutterfly.com/images/LowDisputeRate_2017.png
Low Dispute Rate in Jan to June 2018 (5 disputes from 1,977 promotion packages sold) - https://www.booksbutterfly.com/images/LowDisputeRate5.png

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Things are getting better for our author clients, and dispute rate has fallen a lot

Our attitude is not - Customer is Always Wrong
Neither is it - Customer is Always Right

It's - we are entrepreneurs providing a service to entrepreneurs and artists

For the 98% that are great customers and good customers and are OK with a win-win arrangement we will do our very best
For the 1% or 2% that want win for themselves and lose for us, we will resolve the issue to the extent that is reasonable. Then we will avoid working with them in the future

Any reasonable person would be happy with getting a free re-run after they forgot to discount their book and messed up their promotion spot. This author is leaving a comment one year later, and we totally understand why the author is upset and we apologize sincerely for the rudeness

We also, at the same time, believe 100% that it is the author's responsibility to discount the book, and the author should be happy that a re-run was offered.
We stand by our policy that we will offer a free re-run if an author messes up pricing, and that is more than reasonable. We hope that if there is a pricing issue by the store or if an author forgets to discount their book, then they will be happy with free re-run, which does cost us a slot (even though author does not have to pay again we lose that spot), and that they will be reasonable and patient

This particular case was exacerbated by author's email (I think it was a company server or aol) rejecting emails from both our outlook and gmail accounts (we email twice), so they did not get our emails informing them that book is not discounted and asking them to discount the book

When the author tries to assign responsibility to us for not discounting their book and for their email not working it is very tough to not be overwhelmed by the win-lose proposition they are offering us - yes, it is unacceptable to be rude and we apologize for that. It was a mistake to be human in that moment

At the same time, we reject the notion that it is our mistake if the author doesn't discount the book. Vast majority of authors who experience pricing mistakes by store or forget to discount their book are very happy to get a free re-run. In roughly 10 cases we've had authors who thought it was our mistake, and 3 of those have written things on the Internet. That is another point of feedback to us - to be more flexible/careful in such cases

So, Polenth, thank you very much. We identified this pattern thanks to you and now in this case we know to be super careful when an author starts thinking it's our responsibility if they forget to discount the book or if the ebook store messes up their promotion

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BooksButterfly said:

At the same time, we reject the notion that it is our mistake if the author doesn't discount the book. Vast majority of authors who experience pricing mistakes by store or forget to discount their book are very happy to get a free re-run. In roughly 10 cases we've had authors who thought it was our mistake, and 3 of those have written things on the Internet. That is another point of feedback to us - to be more flexible/careful in such cases

So, Polenth, thank you very much. We identified this pattern thanks to you and now in this case we know to be super careful when an author starts thinking it's our responsibility if they forget to discount the book or if the ebook store messes up their promotion

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You're still making snarky digs about the person complaining. Customer service isn't only about being available. It's about cutting out passive aggressive comments, snark, and outright attacks. Customers certainly can be in the wrong, but that doesn't mean the way you're responding is appropriate.

If you understood the pattern I'm talking about, you wouldn't have replied to me at all. You'd let people post their negative experiences without feeling the need to reply each time, knowing they'd be outweighed by the positive ones. But the way it's gone here, it doesn't matter anymore if someone did have a positive experience, because the problem isn't when everything works. It's that when it doesn't work, you escalate the situation to maximum drama levels.

In other words, no one is going to care that you reply faster when the main problem is that you attack customers.

I'm seconding Polenth's comments. I wouldn't want to get involved with a company that was as snarky and negative as this one has shown itself to be through the comments here. It's not good.

Polenth said:

You're still making snarky digs about the person complaining. Customer service isn't only about being available. It's about cutting out passive aggressive comments, snark, and outright attacks. Customers certainly can be in the wrong, but that doesn't mean the way you're responding is appropriate.

If you understood the pattern I'm talking about, you wouldn't have replied to me at all. You'd let people post their negative experiences without feeling the need to reply each time, knowing they'd be outweighed by the positive ones. But the way it's gone here, it doesn't matter anymore if someone did have a positive experience, because the problem isn't when everything works. It's that when it doesn't work, you escalate the situation to maximum drama levels.

In other words, no one is going to care that you reply faster when the main problem is that you attack customers.

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With all due respect, Polenth and Old Hack,

1) You are reading things in my responses that are not there

2) There is absolutely no snark. We wish all authors the best. Even in cases where they have unreasonable expectations. In those cases we wish them the best, resolve the issue to the extent possible and then request them to not work with us any more

3) We do not attack customers

4) We do not escalate situations

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Polenth, I think we can just agree to disagree. You are making ASSUMPTIONS

You are mis-interpreting our responses. There is no snark and no ill intent. We are being forthright. We believe that it is very important to be candid with everyone. 98% of our customers are happy to very happy. For remaining customers there is not a good match and we try to resolve the issue to the extent possible and then politely request them to not submit to us again - that is a better and more honest response than rejecting their books in future on some grounds of 'not a good fit' when the real reason is that we can't match their particular expectation levels

I'd request you to consider for a second and view our responses through the lens of - Be Candid with Everyone (as Jack Welch Advises)

rather than things that are not meant (like being snarky or having ill intent)

We connect 300 to 500 authors every day with 8 million readers and we bear no ill intent towards any authors

Also, just to be very clear -

So, Polenth, thank you very much. We identified this pattern thanks to you and now in this case we know to be super careful when an author starts thinking it's our responsibility if they forget to discount the book or if the ebook store messes up their promotion

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This was not snark at all
This really is us being thankful. Because this is a pattern that we did not realize until reading your comment and thinking about it from a feedback perspective

Perhaps somewhere between 300 to 600 authors (out of 10,000+ that have worked with us) have had Amazon mess up their promotion pricing (or in some cases forgot to discount)

In all those cases - we know that we offer a free re-run and they are happy. That makes perfect sense to us

If we have 8 or 9 cases where authors were instead still upset at us, it's very helpful to understand that's a case where those authors, for some reason, assume we could have somehow fixed the issue on our end, before it became an issue. So instead of thinking of it as - What the heck is going on here. why does a free re-run not solve the issue

We can now think of it as - the assumption by these authors that there was some button on our end to fix it magically. That button does not exist. So we are thinking - author should have fixed pricing. And author is thinking - we should have fixed pricing

That is what escalates the issue - a lack of communication and people not being on the same page

So your feedback is valuable

BooksButterfly said:

With all due respect, Polenth and Old Hack,

1) You are reading things in my responses that are not there

2) There is absolutely no snark. We wish all authors the best. Even in cases where they have unreasonable expectations. In those cases we wish them the best, resolve the issue to the extent possible and then request them to not work with us any more

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I disagree.

Your responses in this thread sound very snarky to me, and by continuing in this vein you're making things worse, not better.

I wouldn't work with you.

Old Hack said:

I disagree.

Your responses in this thread sound very snarky to me, and by continuing in this vein you're making things worse, not better.

I wouldn't work with you.

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Old Hack, we can just agree to disagree

We wrote without an ounce of snark or ill intent

It's unfortunate that it is being interpreted as snarky, when there is no such intent

We wish every author the best and it's best to just agree to disagree as now there is nothing of value being added to the discussion

Wow, I've only just come back on this thread since I posted about the appalling, defensive and shoddy customer service from Books Butterfly, notwithstanding my error in forgetting to discount on Amazon which has already been covered in my previous thread. Thanks to everyone else for commenting. The fact that they keep coming back and defending themselves with more of the same snarky comments says it all. The gracious and grown up thing would be to say 'apologies our customer service didn't meet the high standard we expect and needs improving and we're very sorry you were made to feel the way you did' and 'in order to show our good will we will offer you a discount for your next promotion'. This is what good customer service looks like in the UK but attacking the few authors who have had to complain is not good policy or professional. Books Butterfly are still the same old same old and I wouldn't touch them with a bargepole unless (or even if) they have the good grace to buck their ideas up. Because actually, it's more than the few authors that they say are dissatisfied with their customer service, these forums (presumably) reach far many authors who will be (rightly) put off by the company's attitude.

Hi Kate

Firstly, as we mentioned earlier a few posts back - on behalf of the team I apologize for rudeness, including rudeness we did not intend (of email not being 'signed off')

Secondly, we have now sold over $1.5 million of book promotion packages. 65% of customers become repeat customers

Thirdly, we have only 12 disputes out of the last 3,920 book promotion packages sold - https://www.booksbutterfly.com/images/2018_LowDisputeRate1.png

These are facts and we have provided screenshots

We wish the best to all authors. We are constantly working to improve communication and customer satisfaction. Our customers can now contact us via email, live chat, toll free phone number, and dedicated numbers in the US, UK, and Canada. We are doing a lot to make the experience better for customers