Amazon wade back into serialized content with Kindle Vella

Posted onLeave a comment

A new addition to Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing, Vella is an online writing platform where readers can purchase tokens to read serialized content. Initially Vella will be offered only on the Kindle iOS app and Amazon.com, not on Kindle devices or the Kindle Android, Mac, or PC apps, suggesting this may be aimed at stealing some iPhone users away from Apple Books, or it may be a means of beating Apple to the punch. Serialization of paid digital content first became popular in Asia (particularly China, Korea, and Japan) and Read More …

READ THIS before shipping books to Canadians!

Posted on2 Comments

The recent upset over changes to Australia’s rules on GST applied to low-value goods has for some of my clients once again raised the spectre of similar issues selling and shipping to consumers in Canada. Those using Fulfilled by Amazon or Amazon Advantage have had to open an account with Amazon Canada and ship product to their fulfillment warehouses there or use a Canadian broker. All of which is expensive. You can, as many do, simply elect to use a different method of selling to Canadians, such as through eBay Read More …

READ THIS before selling books to Australians!

Posted on2 Comments

Last July, Australia changed its sales tax law to level the playing field between international sellers and domestic ones. Previously, Australia’s sales tax, the GST (Goods and Services Tax), was not collected on physical items purchased outside Australia for less than AUS $1000 (“low-value goods”) and imported by the consumer. This allowed Australians to save money by buying off international websites, especially ones that provided free shipping or a price low enough to offset the shipping costs. But it also hurt those Australian businesses that do have to charge sales Read More …

Did Amazon ban an erotic ebook over nude drawings?

Posted on4 Comments

Late last November, a client of mine received a shocking email from Amazon: they were removing one of her erotic novels from Kindle Direct Publishing over violations of their content standards (such as they are), along with a threat that, should she violate these standards again, she would be permanently banned from KDP. Problem was, Amazon failed to specify the violating content. What made it even more of a mystery was that the ebook had already been on sale for over a year without complaint, the paperback version is still Read More …

How Kindle Unlimited is killing off authors — and what you can do to protect yourself

Posted onLeave a comment

Last summer it became public knowledge that scammers were earning big money gaming Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited. The scam arose out of Amazon’s decision to pay Kindle Unlimited publishers by the page instead of by the download: the more “pages” of an ebook the consumer reads, the more the publisher gets paid. Scammers began uploading fake books with a “click here for something awesome” link at the front that linked to an ad or some other such nonsense at the back of the book; the consumer quickly realized the book was Read More …

Amazon close Write On. Will they go after Wattpad?

Posted onLeave a comment

Amazon announced today that, effective 22 March 2017, their online writing community website, Write On by Kindle, will cease operations. Authors are advised to download their work(s), and a warning has been posted on the site’s landing page. Write On was Amazon’s late-to-the-party entry into the online writing community. Earlier, and more successful communities include Scribd, which morphed into a paid subscription service, and Wattpad, with its 45,000,000+ global membership, and which funds itself through advertising (with nothing paid to authors, but that’s another story). The demise of Write On reminds me Read More …

How digital printers are misleading indie authors

Posted on2 Comments

Print on demand (“POD”) is the buzzword of the day, and many commercial printers are losing a chunk of their business to print on demand manufacturers such as CreateSpace and Ingram Spark (Lightning Source International). The result is a plethora of short-run digital printers doing their best to masquerade as true POD printers. A short-run digital printer will often advertise themselves as print on demand, claiming that their system is such because they can print one book or a thousand “on demand,” that is, without having to set up the Read More …

The Point Between available for pre-order and preview

Posted onLeave a comment

Cover of The Point Between by M. A. Demers: A woman, whose head is an open book that says A Metaphysical Mystery, wears a white dress and leans against the gates of the afterlife between the flag of the United States and the flag of Canada. On the gate sits an owl and a sign that reads Dead End, No Beach Access. On the left is a red drape.

eBook available for pre-order on Amazon and Kobo. NetGalley members can review it by clicking here. Print book available November 1st. Goodreads giveaway also starts November 1st. Bestselling mystery novelist Lily Harrington has been found hanging in her home in the tiny, oddball haven of Point Roberts, Washington, and all signs point to suicide. Worried the truth will be buried with her, Lily teams up with Marcus Mantova, the sexy detective of her novels, to influence the investigation and catch her killer. Yet no sooner has Lily come to terms Read More …

CreateSpace expand distribution to Canada – but there’s a catch (naturally)

Posted on6 Comments

On this blog in September 2013 I predicted that Amazon’s CreateSpace were positioning themselves to supply the Canadian market directly. Two days ago, in an email to clients, CreateSpace made it official. Unless the CreateSpace publisher specifically opts out, the following will now apply: Starting October 8, we began making CreateSpace titles enrolled in the Amazon.com sales channel available directly to readers in Canada on Amazon.ca. Your title may already be offered on Amazon.ca through Expanded Distribution or other channels, but now you can earn the same royalty on Amazon.ca Read More …

Changes to Japan tax on Kindle Direct Publishing

Posted onLeave a comment

In The Global Indie Author I warn authors to pay attention to changes to sales tax in Japan due to 2014 legislation that requires all companies to charge and collect sales tax when selling to Japanese residents. Companies were given time to comply, and as of October 15 time is up. Amazon have thus announced to their Kindle Direct Publishing authors that list prices for Japan will now include 8% consumption tax. Amazon are following the same plan as they did with the new VAT laws that were executed in Read More …