Kindle Direct Publishing lets new, unproven writers self-publish and earn royalties. That is, when it doesn't accidentally give away your work. Author James Crawford learned the hard way that Amazon can be just as cruel as any book critic after it mistakenly listed his new book "Bloodsoaked & Contagious" as free, then refused to pay him royalties for the blunder.
Crawford explained the entire ordeal at his blog, pointing out that monitoring his book's sales likely prevented the blunder from being even worse.
"I checked my KDP dashboard in the morning to see if anything had sold over night, and the same 6 sales were there as appeared on Thursday. Okay. No big thing," he said. "I checked again later Friday afternoon, and 610 copies had sold."
Shocked at the considerable jump and seeing no discernible cause for it, Crawford discovered Amazon had mistakenly price-matched a free sample of the book posted to Barnes & Noble's Nook store. Instead of listing the same three-chapter teaser content, Amazon offered readers the whole thing. So it was more of a price mismatch; the full version sells for $5.99.
Following much poking and prodding, Crawford received a response from the company - albeit not the one he was hoping for:
Hello James, I'm writing to follow up with you regarding your title, "Blood Soaked and Contagious." We've taken necessary action to update the price of your title on our website. I see that you've currently unpublished your title from our website. We request your to republish your title, so it can be available for sale on our website with in 24-48 hours. Please be assured, when your book goes live on our website, correct price will be updated. We're sorry, we're unable to pay royalties for your sales when your title was listed at $0 on our website. As per our KDP Terms and Conditions, we retain discretion over the retail price of a Kindle book.
Surprisingly, the price was unchanged even after receiving that unapologetic message. By the time the issue was resolved, Crawford estimated just over 5,000 copies of his book were downloaded by Kindle owners. Last week, he updated that figure to 6,100.
Despite his frustration, Crawford is looking at the bright side.
"This experience has, as many people have pointed out, given me a level of exposure I wouldn't have achieved otherwise," said Crawford. "I am grateful for it, more than a little taken aback by it, and am determined to make the best of it."
Giving away free books has worked before. Earlier this year, pirated copies of Adam Mansbach's illustrated children's story "Go the F*ck to Sleep" helped it blow up and top Amazon's pre-sale charts.
That success story is likely at the back of Crawford's mind, right next to what he could have done with the estimated $10,694 the KDP's 35 percent royalty program would have paid him for those thousands of downloaded copies. (via TechDirt)
