Let me be up front about something: I like Amazon. I’ve been an Amazon customer for years, and have done my share to help boost their profits.
But Amazon’s Digital Text Platform (or DTP), which is the mechanism for independent and small press publishers to get their books into the Amazon Kindle Store, has become an example of everything that the rest of Amazon isn’t. The only thing that truly amazes me is that it hasn’t gotten a lot more in the way of bad press and a class action lawsuit.
I’ve been using DTP for nearly a year now, having first published my novel In Her Name there early last year (2008). It was – and still is – beta software, meaning that it is full-featured but isn’t entirely stable, and beta users are generally expected to put up with bugs and help the developers refine the software into a stable, fully operational release.
I have no problem with that part – I’m used to dealing with buggy software (I’ll refrain from any comments on Microsoft Windows!). But what I do have a problem with is the near-total lack of technical support from the DTP staff. There are only two ways of – supposedly – contacting the developers and admins: one is on the DTP forums, the other is by email to dtp-feedback@amazon.com. If the staff routinely visited the forums or actually answered their emails, there wouldn’t be an issue. But they don’t.
To give you an example of how bad the situation is, as I write this it’s 4 February 2009. The last post on the forums by the DTP admins was on 8 January. Nearly a month. I thought things were bad last year when they only came through the forums answering questions once every week; then they at least answered nearly all the questions that had been posted on the forums. Now, on the increasingly rare occasions when they show up, they only answer a handful of questions, then disappear again.
And email? Good luck. If you browse through the DTP threads, you’ll come across plenty of posts by people who have waited weeks, and in some cases months, for the admins to respond to emails.
The problems authors and publishers face can sometimes be solved by others who have gone before them. I and a number of other users spend a lot of time on the forums trying to help others. Heck, I even wrote a book on publishing on the Kindle to try and help out other folks. But when a title gets hung up in publishing (locking the author out of it), or the metadata is wrong, the cover image is incorrect or missing, or – worst of all – royalty statements are missing or incorrect (and/or the author isn’t paid), only the admins can help. But they’re missing in action.
That’s where the story gets really sad in light of Amazon’s otherwise stellar customer service: there is NO other way to reach these guys! People have tried calling Kindle customer service and working through the regular Amazon customer service reps, but we all get the same answer: “Post a message on the forums and contact dtp-feedback@amazon.com.”
That, I think, is what makes me angry about this whole thing. We can’t seem to get the message through to Amazon management that they need someone to help the users!
I would like to see DTP succeed. I think it has great potential, and I think Amazon could make a lot more money than they are now (they’re pulling in 65% of the sales proceeds from all titles published through DTP, minus any discount they apply) by offering value-added services like formatting, cover design, and so on. Sort of a Kindle version of BookSurge.
But more and more, I’ve been recommending to folks on the DTP forums (my user ID is kreelanwarrior – surprise, surprise!) that they publish their titles through Mobipocket using their free Mobipocket Creator software. Mobipocket distributes by default to the Kindle Store, and while it has its disadvantages, they at least provide a reasonable level of customer support and the software is pretty easy to use. DTP could be a killer app, but only if the admins come out of hiding and start talking to the users.
Jeff Bezos, good buddy, are you listening?
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Question: Does Amazon actually pay anybody?
Elaine – oddly enough, they do! I’ve received royalty payments from Amazon for sales of my books in the Kindle Store, although the money was hung up for a while because my bank account info in DTP had been zapped during an “upgrade” to the system. The main trick is that your royalties have to top $10, and they don’t pay anything until a full two months have passed after the month the sales were made. But I do actually have a contact in their accounting department – he can’t help with DTP issues, but he may be able to tell if you’ve got royalties coming…
they pay me, not much, but they do pay me
On my first book sale Amazon credited my account 0.35 cents. The book sold for $9.99 and my contracts states that I receive 35% of the sale price less taxes. I can’t believe that the taxes were $3.15. Why don’t they pay?
Ralph – Here’s the trick: your royalty has nothing to do with the price Amazon actually sells the book at. You get 35% of whatever price you set in the DTP interface. If you got $0.35, I’m assuming you set the price for your book at $1.00, and Amazon decided to charge $9.99. They can do that by the terms and conditions. By the same token, they can also sell your book for less than the price you specify, but you’ll still get 35% of your set price, and Amazon takes the difference out of their cut.
My recommendation? If they don’t drop the price to something you like in a week or so, I’d go into DTP and up the price that you set to whatever Amazon is selling it for. You can’t control what they charge, but if they’re going to charge more than you want, at least that way you can make an appropriate profit on any sales!