
A Truth About Partnering with Amazon …

image courtesy of Linen Press website
Continuing where last week’s beat A Harsh Truth About Poetry Publishing… (and the comment discussion) left off, I want to explore some more about independent (usually small) press publishing. Amazon anyone? On Monday of this week Lynn Michell of UK based Linen Press wrote an article in The Guardian titled “Amazon, the greedy giant with small publishers in its grip.” I would recommend that you read the whole thing, but I will attempt to summarize it below.
Michell writes about the 2 options that a publisher has when using Amazon. The first is called Amazon Advantage and the second is Amazon Fulfillment. To set the stage, let’s learn about the press — Linen Press is a small independent publisher:
But after costs for the book such as artwork/cover image, typesetting, the creation of digital files, marketing and postage, Amazon Advantage turns out not to be financially viable or responsible for a small press like hers because:
How about Amazon Fulfillment? Any better?
And what about those hidden costs? Well for one, if you use Fulfillment, you are not the top listing (the “main seller” that one gets when clicking on the cover image on Amazon) as you are if you use Advantage.
The other hidden cost is storage fees. Amazon does not like having lots of inventory on hand and it is not shy about charging you for inventory that has been there for 365 days or more. And if you decide to pull that inventory, guess what? There is a fee for that as well. The article ends with this justification for a small press using Amazon:
But what if there was? Similar to the discussion around last week’s beat, the issues that Michell writes about with Amazon are not unique to her press. They are issues that all independent small presses have to deal with. I want this beat on Real Pants to actually offer a solution or at least an idea for a solution to these problems that independent small presses face and have with regards to things such as selling books and distribution, etc…
So on next Wednesday, in my next beat I will explore an idea that I have been working on (and talking about with a few other small press publishers). It is an idea that I think can help independent publishers of all sizes. It is not necessarily an original idea but as far as I know has not been tried before in the way we have been discussing it. It is an idea that I hope to have something concrete for by summer.
- Female Brazilian Writers Talk About the Difficulties of Publishing in Brazil - April 20, 2017
- A Few (by Luna Miguel) - April 11, 2017
- Thank you for publishing poetry - December 20, 2016