WSJ Claims Amazon’s “Publishing Business” is NEW…But It’s Over a Decade Old and They Are STILL Having Problems!

WSJ Claims Amazon’s “Publishing Business” is NEW…But It’s Over a Decade Old and They Are STILL Having Problems!

I received the following email last week:

Angela,

Longtime subscriber. Hope to finally get my book finished this year. Yesterday, the Wall street Journal ran a front page story about Amazon publishing. Can you comment on this based on your experience? Thanks.


I replied:

That article you referenced was written by the same reporter who covered our anti-trust lawsuit against Amazon in 2008. So, it’s odd that he’s calling their publishing program “new.” In fact, the same reporter wrote an article titled “Amazon Struggles to Crack Publishing” back in 2012.

Amazon’s publishing business is anything but “new.” They have tried traditional publishing and offering self-publishing services. The self-publishing division was originally BookSurge back in 2008. Under that name, Amazon contacted publishers, threatening to remove their books’ “buy buttons” if they didn’t start paying Amazon to print their books. Kind of sounds like something Walmart would try to pull over on suppliers, huh?

Amazon stopped their threatening actions after we filed our lawsuit and they settled with us later, paying our attorneys $300K.

There were numerous complaints online about BookSurge at that time. Amazon later switched the name to CreateSpace. Again, lots of complaints started popping up. See detailed complaints from CreateSpace authors RIGHT HERE.

Under the name CreateSpace, Amazon stopped offering many of the services they were offering authors. That didn’t stop the complaints, however.

And, now (once again), another name change. And, the complaints are starting to pile up again.

You can read a price comparison of other firms offering distribution through Amazon (and numerous other outlets) RIGHT HERE.

Just because a company is bigger definitely does not mean they are better.

RELATED

“I tried to publish my book through Amazon’s KDP Print (previously CreateSpace) but that has been a disaster. Can you publish it instead?”

10 THINGS YOU MUST KNOW about CreateSpace’s Death / “Merger” with KDP Print, and Why Some Authors are FURIOUS!

SELF-PUBLISHING IN 2019? – How Many Book Sales Needed to Recoup Your Investment?

Complaints About Amazon’s CreateSpace (now named KDP Print) – Part V

Are Money Launderers Using CreateSpace to Victimize Authors? And, is CreateSpace to Blame for Not Vetting Books?



Got questions about Print On Demand and Self-publishing? Ask Angela Hoy.

About The Author

AngelaPortrait72dpismall_400x400

Angela Hoy is the publisher of WritersWeekly.com, the author of 19 books, and the co-owner of BookLocker.com (one of the original POD publishers that still gets books to market in less than a month), PubPreppers.com (print and ebook design for authors who truly want to self-publish), and Abuzz Press (the publishing co-op that charges no setup fees).

Angela has lived and traveled across the U.S. with her kids in an RV, settled in a river-side home in Bradenton, FL, and lived on a 52 ft Irwin sailboat. Angela now resides on a mountaintop in Northwest Georgia, where she plans to spend the rest of her days bird watching, gardening, hiking, and taking in all of the amazing sunrises.

WritersWeekly.com - the free marketing ezine for writers, which features new paying markets and freelance job listings every Wednesday.

BookLocker.com - According to attorney Mark Levine, author of The Fine Print, BookLocker is: "As close to perfection as you're going to find in the world of ebook and POD publishing. The ebook royalties are the highest I've ever seen, and the print royalties are better than average. BookLocker understands what new authors experience, and have put together a package that is the best in the business. You can't go wrong here. Plus, they're selective and won't publish any manuscript just because it's accompanied by a check. Also, the web site is well trafficked. If you can find a POD or epublisher with as much integrity and dedication to selling authors' books, but with lower POD publishing fees, please let me know."

Abuzz Press offers FAST and FREE book publication, but only accepts a small percentage of submissions, and only works with U.S. authors.

PubPreppers.com - "We Prep, You Publish!" Print and ebook design for authors who truly want to self-publish. Offers formatting and design services only, and then provides simple instructions for authors on where to sign up to have the print and ebook editions printed/listed/sold. Cut out the middle man. Keep 100% of what bookstores pay for your book!

Angela's POD Secrets Revealed Series can be found HERE.

Have a POD Book with another publisher? See if BookLocker can give you a better deal. (BookLocker offers "disgruntled author discounts" to those who want to move from other POD services.)


See BookLocker's publishing packages HERE.


ANGELA ON TWITTER https://twitter.com/AngelaHoy


BOOKLOCKER ON FACEBOOK - Provides links to free excerpts!
https://www.facebook.com/booklockerbooks


ANGELA ON FACEBOOK
https://www.facebook.com/angela.hoy.750


ANGELA ON LINKEDIN
https://www.linkedin.com/pub/angela-hoy/78/719/390


Angela is the creator of the Original 24-Hour Short Story Contest!
https://24hourshortstorycontest.com/



Read More Of Angela's Articles HERE

How Many Copies Of Your Book Would You Have To Sell In Order To Break Even?




 

One Response to "WSJ Claims Amazon’s “Publishing Business” is NEW…But It’s Over a Decade Old and They Are STILL Having Problems!"
https://writersweekly.com/angela-desk/wsj-amazon-publishing-createspace-kdp-print
writersweekly.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2021-43
94659
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:DJNXAZXOC6GRHEKGTD36I6JBSF7DWY7F
<urn:uuid:f3545a84-271f-4cf7-b096-490589bef62d>
2021-10-21T18:27:19Z
216.252.192.159
text/html
sha1:2ZA3574BWPXUZ5WV5RHTRCUD6LAZVFWL
<urn:uuid:40b94bb7-ffcf-4319-8799-22a856151791>
https://writersweekly.com/angela-desk/wsj-amazon-publishing-createspace-kdp-print
response
<urn:uuid:5641e057-604d-4e8e-a748-4e54790be849>
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2021-43
publisher: Common Crawl
description: Wide crawl of the web for October 2021
operator: Common Crawl Admin (info@commoncrawl.org)
hostname: ip-10-67-67-135
software: Apache Nutch 1.18 (modified, https://github.com/commoncrawl/nutch/)
robots: checked via crawler-commons 1.2-SNAPSHOT (https://github.com/crawler-commons/crawler-commons)
format: WARC File Format 1.1
conformsTo: https://iipc.github.io/warc-specifications/specifications/warc-format/warc-1.1/