Why?
I've read an article about a women who's account was deleted (with all e-books she bought!) because Amazon found out she is a friend of a guy who was pirating Amazon's e-books. Also, my experience with publishing on Amazon is not satisfying. First, when I uploaded my short story, they send me an e-mail where they informed me that the same content I'm trying to publish on Amazon is also available somewhere on the web (on my blog and on my Smashword page, thank you) and that I need to explain them why and where that content is. And secondly, I priced my short story 0,99 and when I went to Amazon, I saw it was 2,99. When I asked why is that, Amazon replied:
The price is high in your place because of the extra taxes and operating costs implied by the government.When I asked why Kobo and Smashwords didn't put higher prices, they replied:
I'm sorry; we are unable to assist you, regarding, your inquiry about the application of taxes on Smashwords and Kobo, you'll have to contact them for better assistance.Then I asked if my royalties will be higher because the higher price, they replied:
Your royalties will be paid based on the price you've selected for your book and not what the customers have paid.Very interesting.
It seems that big corporation like Amazon can do whatever it wants with his customers, no law protects you. Their way or the highway. And now they bought Goodreads, a social network that was proud of incorruptible and true reviews of books made by their members. Amazon who reluctantly did something to prevent false and malicious reviews on their own pages (here for more details).
That's why I don't like it. Too much power concentrated in one place and main motivation is to make more money. Hope that Jeff Bezos will soon discover that people who use Amazon for buying and selling e-books are not there because they want Amazon to make more and more money but to make this planet better place for people who want to read and for those who want to write.
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