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Category: The E-book Industry

Opinions/rumors/news in the world of digital publishing.

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I just read an interesting article in the New York Times entitled:  Writer's Cramp: In the E-Reader Era, A Book A Year Is Slacking.  It says that authors are now pulling the literary equivalent of a double shift, putting out short stories or novellas or even an extra full-length book every year. Best-selling thriller author Lisa Scottoline says that one book a year used to "saturate the market."  She notes that in the e-reader era, "the culture is a great big hungry maw, and you have to feed it."  Ms. Scottoline now turns out 2,000 words a day by starting at 9 am and writing until Colbert. 

Lee Child has increased production too.  The author of the "Jack Reacher" novels now puts out digital only short stories to supplement his one book a year.  For the love of all ducks in the universe - even JOHN GRISHAM has ramped up production, now turning out a YA "Theodore Boone" novel once a year and one of his (usually) amazing legal thrillers once a year.

The once a year system was created by publishers who reasoned that the public would never be "overwhelmed by content" at that rate.  However, in the e-age "today's readers seem incapable of being overwhelmed." 

At least one mega-author makes two books a year seem like really slacking.  Best-selling author James Patterson is his own cottage industry, turning out 12 books last year.  He says he'll do 13 this year.  How?  Did he clone himself?  No - it turns out he has "co-writers" on some of them. 

What does all of this mean to writers like me who are still trying to turn writing into a full time career?  I'm hampered by -- *gasp* -- a day job.  I'm a lawyer, but I'm a "scrivener."  Guess what that means I do all day?  Yep, you got it -- I write.  I'm an associate in an office with a talented trial lawyer and we've found that his gift of gab and my gift of BS make for an excellent legal team.   It's not the writing I want to do.  That I get to do at night and on weekends -- until I manage to produce enough content to sell enough books each month to support my family. 

I adore the growing appetite for books and think that it's proof positive that technology hasn't killed the book - it's speeding the growth of writing by leaps and bounds.  I'd love nothing better than to make a living  feeding the "big hungry maw."  But, there's only one way I'm gonna be able to do it - bionic fingers.

Do they sell those on E-Bay?  How about Craigslist?  Well, all I know is, if they're not out there now, once Walmart and Amazon figure out there's a market - -they'll be clawing each other to be king.  You know, if I could get a percent or two of the new bionic fingers market, I might get my chance to write full time

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This post isn't about me - although I'm approaching the big "50" - and there's no Hawaii involved.  This post is to express my joy that a whole new generation is falling in love with some of the romances that made me fall love with the genre enough to want to write my own stories.  There's been a back list bonanza of late.  I think it's hurt sales of newer authors - like me - but I think it's given a bunch of new readers a chance to find out the truth about "old school" romances.

Back in the earlier days of the genre authors weren't hemmed in by "should" and "shouldn't" and they weren't locked in the prison of propriety that cages us today.  Those  authors understood that a book was the place where rules didn't exist and the impossible became the imperative.  Writers of early romance fearlessly took us into stories where tall, dark, handsome rogues who'd always gotten everything they wanted didn't see a reason why the new damsel should be any different.  And if she didn't want him at first, well, he'd see that she wanted him a lot and very soon.  Maybe he ripped her bodice -- but he didn't pull out whips and chains.  No, the whips and chains in early romance were emotional rather than physical and they were never wielded by the hero - punishment and instruction were masterfully administered by the heroine. 

Earlier writers realized that romance novels were the perfect places to turn dark, forbidden longings into the deep throbbing core of lust that would move the readers as it nourished the story so that it could grow and blossom and evolve.  They knew that readers would watch the heroes' use of force the way we all slow down and gape at the scene of a car crash.  

Readers would be horrified and aghast, but they'd also be engaged and sympathetic to the heroine's journey.  They'd cheer for her as she fascinated the hero with her charm or her wit, they'd adore her as she grew to do more than enjoy the lust - she invited it.  And they'd smile, laugh or even growl as she ground the man beneath a tidal wave of lust seeded with something so new and so foreign that he didn't recognize it.  By the time the hero groveled for the affections of the woman he'd once forced, the readers had more than forgiven him - they adored him to0.

So, to the new generation of romance readers - I encourage you to cast aside your preconceptions and remember that a book is a make believe world where we can enjoy things we'd revile in daily life.  In a book we can find a serial killer fascinating and we can delve deeply into the madness that motivates his mania.  It doesn't mean we don't think real life killers should be locked away.  It surely doesn't mean that when you encounter a serial killer you should invite him in for tea.  When the squawkers squawk, you should keep your wits and your reason about you and remember - books are the safe place to explore many things you don't want to encounter in the hallway of your house. 

And yes, Virginia, that includes force - even without the facade of S&M to make it politically permissible.

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I just read a very interesting piece in PC Magazine written by John C. Dvorak titled:  "What is an Ebook Worth?"

It give a "Cliff's Notes" version of the current DOJ antitrust lawsuit and notes that the good news about the whole controversy is that it establishes that "the ebook is the future and everyone should buy a Kindle and/or an iPad.  There's no stopping this trend.  It's becoming a juggernaut."  (I'd disagree with Mr. Dvorak on 1 thing - that's not good news- it's GREAT news!)  But he notes that it makes the price/value question inevitable. 

Here's part of the author's analysis: 

Let's go back a few years when you could buy a true paperback (the small one) for 25 cents. Gasoline was also 25-cents a gallon. Inflation changed things and the same paperback should now sell for about the same price as a gallon of gasoline. In the interim, the larger format paperback called the trade paperback, which is the same size as the hardcover book only with a paper cover, sold for maybe $3.95 or so. Now, some are $25 or more. In fact, there is very little rhyme or reason to book pricing today with or without an inflation calculator.

It's an interesting point.  A gallon of gas and a book used to cost about the same.  Gas gives you traveling time and a book or an ebook gives your imagination traveling time.  Today, a gallon of gas would cost about $3.99.  You know what?  That's still a pretty fair price for an ebook.  So the gas/ebook price point analogy may be a page from the past that's still true today.  So many of the old truths we learned from our parents and grandparents stand the test of time, and to me - it looks like Dvorak's apt analogy does the same. 

Mr. Dvorak notes that down-pricing is common with high tech.  That holds true as well.  I recall when VHS player/recorders first came out.  They were items only rich folks could afford - at first.  But very soon, the technology went mainstream and the price went down until it leveled out at an affordable level for nearly everyone. 

Ebooks are going mainstream so it's time for the price to go down and level out at an affordable level. The gallon of gas equation makes sense to me as a price point for most books, except perhaps, very new releases. If you wanted to be the first on the block to own a VHS player, you paid for the privilege. I can see $9.99 as being a reasonable price for a new release that would hold for a few months and then fall to perhaps $5.99 or $6.99 for a year or so before leveling out at right around the price for a gallon of gas - presently about $3.99.

Kudos to Mr. Dvorak for employing something so rare that it's nearly a lost art - common sense.

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Today news broke that the Justice Department warned Apple and a number of big publishers of its intent to file suit against them.  The DOJ alleges that Apple and the publishers conspired to increase the price of ebooks.  Publishers affected apparently include the following: 

The five publishers facing possible Justice Department action are Simon & Schuster Inc, a unit of CBS Corp (CBS.N); Lagardere SCA's (LAGA.PA) Hachette Book Group; Pearson Plc's (PSON.L) Penguin Group (USA); Macmillan, a unit of Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH; and HarperCollins Publishers Inc, a unit of News Corp (NWSA.O).  -- Reuters

If DOJ wants confirmation, it might check with consumers, particularly those who owned Kindles and bought them based upon Amazon's promise to try to keep ebook prices below $9.99.  Yes, Virginia the roosters coming home to roost this time arise from the publisher's battle with Amazon over ebook pricing that resulted in publishers and Apple concocting the "agency model" of pricing. What is the agency model?  It's where the publisher decides what its price will be and the retailer is not allowed to change it. 

Think of the agency model like this (and this is only an example, based on nothing more than the odd imagination of a certain duck lady) - imagine that Wrangler is really peeved at Wal Mart for selling its blue jeans for $19.99.  Wrangler has decided it wants it's blue jeans to have an upscale image and a price tag to match.  Wrangler decides that Wal Mart can only sell its jeans if they are priced at the numbers on the tags shipped with the jeans and they start at $49.95 a pair.  If Wal Mart doesn't like it, then they can't sell Wrangler jeans. 

Well, that wouldn't work if just Wrangler did it, now, would it?  Wal Mart would say to Wrangler - screw you and the horse you rode in on.  Where will you sell your jeans with those terms, Wal Mart would ask.  The store that Sam Walton built might reply that it would just sell Levis instead.  But what if 5 or 6 big companies control all the well known jean brands? And what if  all of them say the same thing to the big chain store?  And when the chain store asks, in a much softer voice, well, where will you sell your product, then - who will ever accept those terms?  And the merchants answer - Target.  We've all reached a deal with Target on exactly those terms and Target will keep a set percentage for profit based on the price we set.   Well, Target would be making a chunk of change too, wouldn't it?  And Wal Mart would lose all the customers who wanted to buy big name jeans.  AND, worst of all, the customers would pay a lot more for the product. 

Now,  understand that the big publishers are the blue jean companies and Apple is Target. That's agency pricing and in the long run, the victims are the consumers. 

Federal Antitrust legislation exists to prevent monopolies that destroy competition and damage consumers.  The most famous example of DOJ's heavy hand with Antitrust action was the break up of the old Ma Bell network of AT&T.  Since that time - look at what's happened to telephone service.  Consumers have options at every price point and every service level.  And as much as I dislike the Feds regulating most things, Antitrust legislation has an important and valuable purpose. 

So, DOJ may very well be right on target in breaking up this scheme because prices consumers pay should be set by the merchants from whom consumers buy.  The merchants pay a wholesale price and sometimes they'll sell some items below wholesale in order to promote some other items.  That's what Amazon was doing with ebooks to sell its Kindle devices - and again, that's what publishers were trying to prevent. 

Yes, if agency pricing goes then the whole system will have to adjust.  Indies like me would be hurt because we are little tiny pebbles caught between giant boulders.  Amazon says to indies, you can only sell on our platform if you price you ebooks at your cheapest price.  Oh, and if your price is lower anywhere else - we'll match the low price and base your royalty payment on that figure.  Presently, the agency pricing system gave indies got a benefit of sales platforms mostly selling indie work at the price the indies set. So indies don't get caught in a price reduction whirlwind at Amazon, often the biggest sales source. 

Even though readjusting the system to get it back to a wholesale/retail marketplace would hurt indies, like me, for a while, I expect that pricing would work itself out after a period of some turbulence.  And even if it didn't, and I took a hit along with other indies, well, that's okay.  We'd have to adapt because ultimately, the agency pricing results in readers paying high prices across the board when in a wholesale/retail market, competition would keep prices lower.  READERS SHOULD NEVER BE HURT BY AND OVERCHARGED BECAUSE OF A "SECRET" SYSTEM THAT'S KEEPING PRICES ARTIFICIALLY INFLATED.

It's not something I say often but in this case, I've gotta make an exception - YOU GO, DOJ.  Ma Book should go the way of Ma Bell.

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Alan Jacobs of The Atlantic posted a piece entitled: Digital Self-Publishing: Should Publishers Be Worried? In the article, he says:  "John O'Hara, who long ago wrote the book for the musical Pal Joey, based on his own novel. When the play was making a big run on Broadway, two friends of O'Hara's bumped into him on the streets of New York. "Oh John," they cooed, "We just saw Pal Joey again, and we enjoyed it even more than the first time!" O'Hara snarled, "What the hell was wrong with it the first time?""

Jacobs' piece also quotes Colorado College's librarian Steve Lawson's Piece.  Lawson's article is entitled: Publishers Hate You. You Should Hate Them Back.   Lawson says: 

So library-types, let’s get our story straight. Publishers have contempt for the authors they need to write works, and the readers they need to read works. Publishers are scared that the internet is going to disintermediate their asses into the dustbin of history, and the best response that many of them have come up with is to express their fear through hatred. For all the things that we might need to improve in libraries or apologize for, this isn’t one of them.

Jacobs reply is basically as follows, although you should read the whole piece: 

But one of the illusions most common to writers -- an illusion that may make the long slow slog of writing possible, for many people -- is that an enormous audience is out there waiting for the wisdom and delight that I alone can provide, and that the Publishing System is a giant obstacle to my reaching those people. Thus the dream that digital publishing technologies will indeed "disintermediate" -- will eliminate that obstacle and connect me directly to what Bugs Bunny calls "me Public." (See "Bully for Bugs".) And we have heard just enough unexpected success stories to keep that dream alive.

Well, here's hoping. But a couple of months ago I decided to dip my toes into these waters: I wrote a longish essay called "Reverting to Type" about my own history as a reader -- a kind of personal epilogue to The Pleasures of Reading -- and decided to submit it as a Kindle Single. Amazon wasn't interested, so I decided to publish it myself using Kindle Direct Publishing. I announced its existence to the world: that is, I posted a link on my tumblelog and tweeted about it. A few people downloaded it; some pointed out typos that I had missed, but that a copy editor surely would have caught. I thought about ways to promote it better but haven't been able to come up with anything other than becoming a self-promoting jerk on Twitter. Last time I checked it had sold 98 copies

 MY ANSWER?

I'm an indie author who distributes through Smashwords, KDP, Pubit for B&N and most recently, All Romance eBooks. My books sit on the virtual shelves beside great work published by big companies and indie authors alike. For whatever it's worth, I've sold a lot more than 98 copies of my work - I don't have the number but I've sold thousands. I've (probably - haven't totaled them) sold at least 98 so far this month across the channels and it's only 4 days into March.  And NO, my numbers don't IN ANY WAY even begin to compare to some of the success stories, like Amanda Hocking's for example.  All in all, self publishing is a lot of work, but the rewards are amazing. Some of the reward is monetary - extra money to supplement yet another family struggling in this economy. Much of the reward is simply having my work out there to be loved and hated - and yes, it has received both responses.

When I started self publishing I wrote long blogs about how companies like Smashwords would break through and destroy the walls of the publishing royals castles. I continue to think that self publishing has greatly, greatly enriched the literary world and, more importantly, that it has empowered the reader to decide whether or not the work is worth her money. No longer do the publishing companies' systems and slush piles serve as socially acceptable censors.

Now, however, I'm farther along on my journey and my attitude has changed slightly. Yes, I think self publishing has already destroyed the castle walls so that all writers can get their work to readers. Yes, work from the big companies usually - but not always - sells better, but the market share of those companies will go the way of the castle walls. I think we're headed for greater equality which is always a good thing.

I believe that publishing companies who change the way they do business can adapt, survive and succeed. I believe that they will have to adopt an Amazon approach and partner with writers, showing a willingness to throw out the old models and craft individual deals that recognize writers as important business partners with individual needs and concerns. I don't think publishing will survive in any kind of "one size fits all" way.

In the long run, I hope that publishers do adapt to the digital world. I've read many great published books and hope to read many more. Today, I've come far enough along my journey to wish publishers who adapt and change - and especially the writers who partner with them - great success.

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Someone named Cale McCaskey who "writes a bit" and says that sci-fi is really his thing, has published an amazingly idiotic critique of the best-selling literary genre - ROMANCE.  My guess is that I could write any sort of irate, eloquent defense and make no impression a'tall upon Mr. McCaskey.  Instead of crawling on a soap-box, I've pulled out a parody pen.  LET'S APPLY THE MCCASKEY LOGIC TO HIS FAVORITE GENRE - SCIENCE FICTION. 

Sci-Fi novels sell inexplicably well. The fact that we have an illiteracy rate of almost 50% might be partly to blame for the popularity of science fiction. Many people don't have the ability to read books written at a level any higher than children's books or science fiction novels. Regardless, sci-fi sells so well that there are more and more articles and interviews with science fiction writers where they are put on pedestals and treated as though they belong in the select company of writers of much higher standing - like romance novelists.

What readers need to understand is that science fiction novels - by their very nature - are meant to be inferior. Surely, no ivy league colleges will ever teach science fiction novels as part of the curriculum. No science fiction novel will ever be thought of as a classic alongside Spencer, Dickens, Quinn, Lindsey, Garwood or Woodiwiss. If a science fiction tale were that good, it would simply be known as drama or literary fiction or a classic horror tale. No one would ever call Well's "The Time Machine" or Bradbury's "Farenheit 451" science fiction novels. They would be referred to as classic scientific fiction.

The very thing that separates classic scientific fiction from sci-fi novels is that sci-fi novels must by default be bad, tacky even or they'll no longer be classified as sci-fi and will get placed in a higher category.

It's difficult to respect something deliberately meant to be a lessor work. One should always do great work. If a writer classifies his own book as science fiction, that tells me that even he doesn't think much of it. If that's the case, readers shouldn't think much of it either.

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The logic makes as much sense when applied to science fiction as it does when applied to romance now, doesn't it?  That is to say - it makes less sense than I do at 6 a.m. before my morning coffee.  Truthfully, science fiction is a fine genre with some amazing work and there are writers out there putting out some steller stuff.  Yes, some of it may even be taught in colleges one day - right down the hall from courses on romance.

Wait - courses on romance have been taught in some amazing colleges, haven't they?  And Eloisa James, a graduate of Harvard, Yale and Oxford is a Shakespeare professor at Fordham University.  Oh, yes, and she's written many New York Times bestselling ROMANCE NOVELS.  (But don't tell Mr. McCaskey.  The strain of wrapping his brain around that information would probably be too much for him.)

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Today I noticed that Jayne Anne Krentz's new one - "Copper Beach" is now out and about.  I love her work as Krentz and Amanda Quick, though I've never read any of hers as Jayne Castle.  I'd have snapped up her new one in a heart beat except for one not so itty-bitty thing -- the price. 

Ms. Krentz's "Copper Beach" is priced for ebook at $12.99 and the hardcover is $15.26.  That means that Penguin Publishing is selling Ms. Krentz's ebook for only $2.27 less than the hardcover edition.  Holy toadfrogs, Batman.  I adore the author's work, but that price tag is a big ole' stop sign for me.  Even if I had $12.99 to spend for the book - I wouldn't pay that price.  The cost for this ebook doesn't reflect economic reality in today's market given most consumer's budgets and it doesn't reflect how little ebooks cost to produce as compared to paperbacks - let alone hardcover.

In fact, the $12.99 pricetag is so high it feels like gauging.  That I wouldn't put up with even if I had a bank balance bigger than the combined wealth of Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, every Arab Sheik and the entire Walton family.  In the present economic environment, Penguin Publishing's price scale seems far worse than mere greed - it feels evil.

I also think it's quite short sighted of Penguin to set their ebook prices so high.  Consumers have long, long memories.  In my neighborhood there was a hardware store that had been family owned and in business for many years.  Then during Hurricane Hugo the store decided to profit from the aftermath.  It decided to pad its bank balance at the expense of the people who'd kept the place in business for so long.  In the midst of disaster and destruction, the store charged outrageous prices for supplies, generators, batteries and even water. And the victims of the Hurricane got victimized again.  But the area recovered.  People rebuilt and hardware stores all over the area made a great deal of money - but not that store.  You know what happened to that store?  It went out of business and the victims became the victors. 

If Penguin would reduce prices far below what it could reasonably charge the company and its authors would make more money now and would make far, far more when we FINALLY recover from the present economic disaster.  Penguin could sell all its books for $7.99 or less and stamp each one with a note - something like - "We're all in this together and a link for a website."  At the site, the company could state that it had reduced prices to keep books affordable and that prices would increase when things improved.  You know what? The company that did that would find out that the most valuable business commodity is a loyal customer base. 

Ms. Krentz isn't responsible for what her publisher charges.  Sure, she makes money from each sale but the publisher and the vendor make far more than the author who doesn't get to decide the price.  That's a big advantage of being an indie author - all the choices belong to me.  I surely don't have a fan base of even 1/100th of Ms. Krentz's, but based on my experience I can say that the author would actually make a fortune if she got the rights to her back list and self published.  She could charge $3.99 or $4.99 per book and make more than she'd made on that books original advance, all the payouts and all the royalties - far more. 

Penguin's not the only publisher bilking the public, but it's the one I noticed today.  The mindset that allows a company to feel entitled to price an ebook so high is the same mindset that prompted my local hardware store to go for the gold and disregard the hardship being suffered by their devastated and loyal customers. 

Penguin and any company willing to re-victimize the victims of the current economic catastrophe should suffer the same fate as my local hardware store.  But you know what? We actually had to drive farther to pass the gauging  hardware store to go to another business. In an online world, it will be much easier to teach publishers the consequences of corporate greed and an unconscionable lack of empathy. And we won't even have to go out of our way to do it. 

Clicking "next" is easy and perhaps now would be a good time to put that into practice.

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For Christmas this year all I wanted was a Kindle Fire, accessories for it, and an Amazon Prime subscription. 

By special arrangements with my wonderful hubby, I got exactly what I wanted. And you know what? I have no "Christmas regrets."  I don't have even the itty bittiest twinge of buyer's remorse.  In fact, I have the opposite - I'm filled to the brim with buyer's satisfaction.   So naturally, I had to put fingers to keyboard to tell y'all all about it.

I've been privileged to publish on Amazon via their magical, mystical KDP platform for a couple of years now.  Yet, I'm a newcomer to the Amazon customer universe.  I'm confessing that up front because I don't doubt that some of my adoration for the Kindle Fire is actually adoration for the whole Amazon experience.  Getting a Fire gave me the keys to the ereading kingdom. I now have access to the biggest, the baddest, the best ebook variety on Planet Earth.  Pretty much, if there's an ebook in existence, it's gonna be on Amazon and it's gonna be there for the lowest price. In this economy, that's a big plus for the Amazon experience and for the Fire.

Before I got my Fire, I read the flood of criticism that seemed to pour from every which way. They said that the device is faulty because there is only 1 button.  That button turns the Fire on and off and critics claim it causes  many consumers to accidentally turn the device off while they're using it.  Critics also said that the web browser was way, way too slow and that the App Store was vastly underpopulated.  And they cited big problems with the touch screen features that were sometimes unresponsive.

Of all those major problems that the reviewers cited, the only one I've encountered is that sometimes the touch features don't respond.  When that happens, I'll either try again, touch the home key, or touch that much maligned little on-off switch to restart.  Frankly, it doesn't bother me that much but I understand Amazon is working on the issue.  Through recent personal experience with a bad Tablet purchase (not a Fire - an Android for my eldest son) from an Amazon vendor, I've learned that when Amazon gives its word, Amazon keeps its word.  So when the company says it's working on the touch screen issues, I now believe it completely. 

Even if the little touch screen glitches remain, I've found the Fire to be the ultimate entertainment device experience and if y'all don't have a Fire, you need to pick one up right now.  This minute. 

All of the other criticism - about the on/off switch, the slow browser and the insufficient App store - hasn't cropped up as a problem for me at all. I mean, not even once have I had an issue with those features.  The good peeps at Dear Author have some very informative info up about how to change device settings on the Fire so that you can load Apps from other vendors.  I changed the setting, but I haven't left the Amazon once to get anything from anywhere else. 

I've watched a video through the prime service - Gordon Ramsay's Ultimate Christmas.  It was lots of fun and I look forward to boogling through some of the other offerings.  I'm looking forward to revisiting the 1st episode of the 1st season of "Grey's Anatomy" and re-living the time when the Mer/Der magic was new. (Readers of this blog will know that I've been a Grey's Gal since episode 1.) My youngest son will demand some Fire-time to watch the early seasons of "Dr Who," and my hubby will doubtless want to explore some of the Star Trek offerings.  The Amazon Prime video offerings are already numerous and they're growing every day.  I may even pick up some of the first season of "Ellery Queen" - originally I thought it was free for Prime, but alas, I've discovered it's $1.99 per episode.  Still, I'll likely pick up one or two of 'em because that's classic TV in its best, its most intelligent and excellent form. 

I never had a real yen for an iPad and now I'm glad I never got one.  My Kindle Fire is much more portable and it offers something that neither the iPad nor other Android devices can match - the ability to download video to the device.  Yes, America, you can download movies or TV shows onto your Fire and then watch them on a plane, in a train, or on a long road trip in the car.  Funny that the critics never mention that feature now, isn't it?  The ability to download video means the Fire vanquishes Android Tablets and it even kills the mighty iPad.   But the critics couldn't go around saying that now, could they?  Because their goal seems to be to dampen the Fire before it burns so far it gets out of control.

Kindle Fire brings the tablet to a place where nearly everyone can afford it and it dishes out the tablet experience in a way that even a non-techie like me can do more than "get it" - we can own it. 

Nope, the critics didn't kill my Desire for Fire and I'm mighty glad I didn't listen to them.  They were so loud in their howling cries that I suspected they had an agenda.  I suspect it much more now that my personal experience contradicts their claims.  The critics were ranting that Amazon's everyman tablet experience would die beneath the weight of all the device returns to the company after the holidays.  Wonder how that's working out?  I haven't heard a peep from consumers who returned the Fire nor from Amazon, discussing Fire returns.  The critics would like Amazon to go under but it's folks like you and me that will keep the company floating happily along at the head of the pack.

Instead of a product return, I'm giving a product testimonial - and it goes out with a great big "Thank You" to Jeff Bezos and the entire Amazon Kindle Fire team.  Those critics I was talking about before seem like the kind of folks who believe  "You can't get rich by overestimating the intelligence of the American public."  I've never listened to those people - instead, I listen to the public and my readers - or I try to.  And I believe that Amazon is the company Bezos built on the principal that you CAN get rich by catering to the intelligent population of America - and other countries all around the world. 

Trust me on this one, the Kindle Fire is a tablet you can buy knowing you'll love it and understand it because it was created for you by a company that believes you should want more, you should get more and you deserve more.  So Amazon gave you more - it's created a Fire that puts the world at your fingertips.

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Based on my sales numbers, it looks like B&N is eating Amazon's lunch. 

This is the first month I could make the comparison.  In the early days of November I first uploaded my titles to B&N's "pubit" system to sell directly on B&N.  Previously I was selling on B&N via Smashwords.  This month I have the B&N numbers.  This month, I can ask the question.

Are Amazon's sales eroding ?  Based on my sales figures there this month, it looks like the giant etailer is having serious, grave issues with sales.  During the same period, sales at B&N seem to be growing, growing, growing.  Yet Amazon is still investing in its Kindle platform.  Like B&N, Az is now introducing a tablet. 

Introducing a tablet makes sense at B&N where sales are on the upswing.  It only makes sense at Amazon if sales are on the upswing too.  Yet if they are - then either the reporting system is broken or sales are being underreported for a more sinister reason. 

I've emailed Amazon 2 or 3 times over the last couple of days asking the retailer to check the sales reporting.  So far, I've gotten no response.  Yes, it's a weekend but Az works 24/7 and if it's growing its ebook ventures and investing in a new tablet, then it has people working 24/7 too.  And if those people are worthy of a paycheck they should be capable of running the necessary testing of the system.  But, as noted, I've gotten no response.

From the KDP forum, I see that other authors on Amazon are experiencing the same phenomenon - the numbers show that they are selling more on B&N than on Amazon.  While that could be true, based on sales numbers historically from Amazon - I doubt it.

So my question remains - is B&N Outselling Amazon or is Amazon Underreporting Sales?  These days at Amazon the numbers aren't adding up.  It makes it appear that something's rotten in Denmark - err, Amazon.  And my history with the company leads me to believe that Az has traditionally been very accurate with its reporting. 

If there is a problem with the reporting system, if the push with Kindlefire and getting that platform up and out has strained Az's resources to the point where it will take a while to run the numbers and report them, then Az needs to explain that. 

If Amazon doesn't come clean about it's current problems a lot more people are going to start asking a lot more questions.  That won't be good for business and it will hurt the company's reputation at a time when Amazon wants America to trust the company to be its digital provider.

The etailing giant has a history of being very closemouthed about its business and its numbers.  That doesn't work so well anymore, now that people can compare Kindle with other platforms.  Amazon wants us to trust it with our digital dollars and the company has to earn that faith.

Amazon's got some 'splaining to do.

UPDATE:   This was published early Sunday, 11/13/11.  About an hour after it was published, I got an email reply from Amazon.  It claimed that they had "researched" my inquiry about the sales reporting system. Amazon says "there are no issues with reporting sales."  The conclusion? 

B&N is eating Amazon's lunch.  Either that or no one at Amazon tested the system. Between "researching" my inquiry and actually testing the system lies a gap as wide and as insidiously threatening as infinity.