Fairy FBI Agent and Random Werewolves

Our house continues to be somewhat of a plague house, which means I’m still a little behind on blogging, e-mail, and everything else. I blame Jackie Kessler. I was reading her book about Pestilence, and voila — everyone gets the sick.

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Anyway, today is the release of The Modern Fae’s Guide to Surviving Humanity [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy] edited by Joshua Palmatier and Patricia Bray. It contains my story “Corrupted,” about a fae FBI agent and how far she’ll go to stop her murderous kin.

I read this at ConFusion, and it was strange … the story has a fair amount of action and some humorous bits, like most of my work. But at the end, I actually choked up a little while I was reading. That doesn’t usually happen when I read my own stuff.

I was rather pleased. I mean, I would have been pleased, if not for the fact that it made me stumble while I was trying to be Mister smooth and professional author guy doing a reading…

The book also includes work by Kristine Smith, Seanan McGuire, Jay Lake, Elizabeth Bear, Anton Strout, and more.

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With Libriomancer [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy], I played around with a variety of vampires. I’ve got pre-Stoker vampires, modern urban fantasy vamps, even a few sparklers.

For the sequel, I’ve introduced a pack of Yooper[1. From Michigan’s Upper Peninsula] werewolves. Since I rather enjoy playing with and subverting expectations and tropes, I wanted to open up a chat about werewolves, talking about things like:

  • Do you like them? Hate them? Why?
  • What werewolf cliches have you seen way too often?
  • What’s your favorite werewolf myth or belief?
  • Who do you think writes the best werewolf fiction? What about the best films?
  • What makes werewolves cooler than vampires? (Or vice versa.)

Because what fun is having a blog if you can’t occasionally tap into that big old group brain?

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More Books: Foglio, Broaddus, and Korogodski

I have three books to talk about today, starting with the Girl Genius omnibus from Tor: Agatha Awakens [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy] by Phil and Kaja Foglio.

So here’s the thing. Girl Genius is a Hugo-winning webcomic, and the entire archive is available online. And I’ve tried several times to read it … and was never able to get into it. However, when Tor’s review copy showed up in the mail, I devoured the entire book in a day and a half.

I think the full-color artwork, with all its detail, was just too much for me to read online. But when packaged in such a gorgeous hardcover book, it all works. It’s a fun steampunk adventure with kick-butt men and women, an interesting world, and a pretty fast-moving plot. I could have done without quite as much Agatha-in-her-underwear in the beginning, but it didn’t feel overly gratuitous.

The book starts with the very first strip, presenting Agatha’s origin as a failed student who lacks the “spark” that allows her to invent and create … or does she? (Really obvious spoiler alert: yeah, she’s got the spark, and she soon creates some kick-ass stuff.)

You learn a lot in those packed panels, and the book ends in a good spot: with some closure, but leaving you hungry to find out what comes next. Thank you Tor for shooting this one my way!

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Next up is King Maker [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy] by Maurice Broaddus. The official summary states:

The King Arthur myth gets dramatically retold through the eyes of street hustler King, as he tries to unite the crack dealers, gangbangers and the monsters lurking within them to do the right thing. From the drug gangs of downtown Indianapolis, the one true king will arise. Broaddus’ debut is a stunning, edgy work, genuinely unlike anything you’ve ever read.

I stopped reading this one after chapter four. Not because it was bad, and not because of any problem with the writing — Broaddus is a very good writer — but because it wasn’t the kind of book I wanted to read. There’s a scene where a snitch is tortured and then killed in front of her children. That’s the point where I set the book down and didn’t pick it back up.

There are things I liked about what I read. I liked King James White’s character a lot, and wanted to see him evolve into the Arthur character. Merle and his pet squirrel provide some great humor. But in the end, I couldn’t enjoy what I was reading.

If you’re into a grittier modern-day retelling of the Camelot myth and you’ve got a higher tolerance for violence than I do, I’d recommend checking it out. There’s a sample chapter on the Angry Robot site.

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Finally, I want to talk about Pink Noise [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy] by Leonid Korogodski.

Let me start by saying the physical book is gorgeous. Hardcover with glossy pages, internal black and white illustrations by Guddah, a pink bookmark ribbon, pink dropcaps at the start of each section … a lot of time and care went into designing this book. (This is also reflected in the price: $25 for a 190 page hardcover. However, it’s also available as an e-book for around $5.)

Like King Maker, this is a book that takes me outside of what I usually read. It’s post-singularity science fiction about a posthuman brain doctor named Nathi who’s brought in to save a comatose girl on Mars, which he does by essentially splicing his own mind into her brain. In her, he discovers his own enslavement and a chance at freedom.

Because I’m not well-read in this kind of fiction, I don’t know that I have the vocabulary to really talk about it. And I’m sure there were things I missed.

It took me a few chapters to really get into the story, but once I did, I found it fascinating. Korogodski has done a great deal of research, and he creates a convincing world of virtual beings and warfare. The worldbuilding is incredibly rich, and there were plenty of, “Hey, that’s so cool!” moments, which is one of the things I read SF for.

At the end, there are about 60 pages of Korogodski’s notes and references.

You can read a sample at his website.

Hello there, Friday…

My son has been sick this week, so it’s all been a bit of a blur of schedule-juggling and trying to keep him quiet and resting (because when the medicine kicks in, he feels better, so he promptly runs around … which stirs up the asthma/congestion nastiness). On the upside, I’ve now watched approximately six trillion episodes of the Wild Kratts, and can tell you how an owl’s fringed feathers allow it to swoop down silently, or how the basilisk lizard’s toes are fringed to help it run across water.

Yeah, fringe is in these days.

So anyway, all I’ve got this morning are some links.

Patrick Stewart talks about growing up with an abusive father and the dangers of slashing support to domestic violence shelters and services.

“My mother had no escape route. There were no refuges she could run to; no helplines to call; no advocates to speak out for her. No one came to help, even though everyone knew what was happening behind our closed doors. The small houses in our road were close together, and every Monday morning I walked to school with a bowed head, praying that I wouldn’t run into a neighbour who had heard the weekend’s rows.”

China Mieville on racism and what is and isn’t “censorship.”

“Indeed, an astoundingly small proportion of arguments ‘for free speech’ & ‘against censorship’ or ‘banning’ are, in fact, about free speech, censorship or banning. It is depressing to have to point out, yet again, that there is a distinction between having the legal right to say something & having the moral right not to be held accountable for what you say.”

Finally, a collection of LEGO optical illusions, by Brixe63.

Big Bang Theory

I started watching The Big Bang theory because of Wil Wheaton. When I read that he had a recurring guest spot as Evil Wil Wheaton, I got curious. I think the “Bowling Supervillain” one was my first episode.

There’s a fair amount I like about the show. I enjoy seeing smart characters in central roles, roles that try to go beyond the standard sidekick bit of “Smart, wimpy kid gets bullied and maybe helps the real hero.” I like the SF/F references and guest stars. (I’ll watch just about any show that brings in George Takei.) I like the experiments, like non-Newtonian fluid dancing on plastic wrap over a speaker.

But the more I watch, the more certain things bother me…

The Inhaler – How do you demonstrate that a character’s a nerd? Give them an inhaler! Because as the writers know, asthma is a genetically nerd-linked disorder. Dumbasses. (To quote Leslie Winkle…)

Speech Impairments are Funny! – Another lazy nerd stereotype/cliche. But hey, at least it’s okay to laugh at Kripke’s speech troubles, because he’s not a very nice guy, see? His iPhone 4s doesn’t understand him, LOL! Tune in for the next episode, when someone in a wheelchair is mean, so everyone turns around and says, “Ha ha, you can’t walk!”

The Sexism – Let me make this as clear as I can. Social ineptitude does not equal, justify, or excuse sexual harassment. One of the worst examples, which came up in a discussion with some other authors a while back, would be Howard. Especially in the beginning, he was slime, oozing over every female he saw. Boundaries? What are those, except obstacles to be overcome? When Pennie finally told him off, Howard’s friends came together and made her apologize for hurting the poor creeper’s feelings.

The Fat Jokes – Howard’s mother is fat. Isn’t that hilarious? I wonder how many TV writers would be out of a job if society ever decided it wasn’t okay to treat heavy people like shit.

Racial Issues – I guess you could argue that the show is making a statement about higher education being dominated by white folks, but I think you’d be giving them too much credit. We do get get Raj, who’s Indian … and therefore must joke about the untouchables back home, or have his accent mocked by Howard (the person on the phone can’t tell the difference between Raj and Howard doing a bad Indian accent).

The Hick Jokes – Sheldon’s mom lives in Texas, where everyone’s an ignorant Bible-thumper! Pennie’s from Nebraska, land of dumb farm girls!

Having now seen most of the show’s run, some of these problems were present from the beginning. But I feel like as it progressed, it’s been losing the things I actually enjoyed. We see less and less of … well, of anyone actually being smart. With the exception of the current Howard The Astronaut subplot, we see almost nothing of anyone’s jobs anymore. When was the last time the whiteboard came out, or they bounced a laser off the moon?

It feels like, as the show became more popular, it’s been co-opted. The focus has shifted more toward generic sitcom territory. I can imagine the marketing meetings.

“We need to expand our audience! Cut back on the science jokes and the geek bits, and double the sex stuff.”

“We introduced Amy as a foil to Sheldon, socially cold but brilliant. Since she’s a chick, let’s rewrite her to focus on important things like getting a boyfriend and learning to be popular. Throw in some lesbian innuendo too. Guys love that.”

“You remember Ross and Rachel’s on-again, off-again relationship from Friends? That wasn’t at all like beating a dead horse, resurrecting it as a zombie, then beating the undead horse for another six seasons. We should totally do that!”

No show is perfect, but this one is losing (or has lost) the elements that drew me in, and is pushing things that make me change the channel.

Discussion is welcome. However, if your comment includes the following, please don’t bother:

  • Any variation of the phrase “political correctness.”
  • The words “overreacting” or “oversensitive.”
  • An attempt to argue that other shows are worse, as if this in any way invalidates a critique of this one.

Fame and Fanboy Fails…

MythBusters is coming to East Lansing next month!

When my wife was looking at tickets, she noticed that for an additional dungload of money, you could get into a backstage reception with Adam and Jamie.

My initial reaction was a kind of dignified Kermit flail. Of course I want to meet the MythBusters!!! Then I stopped to ask myself why I wanted to meet them. I mean, it would be nice to be able to say how much I enjoy their show, but why would introverted me want to cram into a room full of strangers, all trying to get a few minutes of Adam and Jamie’s time? What is it I really think is going to happen?

Yeah, probably not.

I bumped into Neil Gaiman at an event five years or so back, and blurted out something like, “Hi, I’m flarglsnuffpumps. Glablestib Neil Gaiman!!! Bububububbb.” I might have also peed myself a little. He gave me a polite nod and promptly fled. I retreated to the nearest room, which I dubbed my Broom Closet of Shame, and didn’t come out until it was time to go home.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t quite that bad, but I suffered a definite verbal and mental derail.

Why? Gaiman is a very successful author, but so what? He’s a guy who writes highly popular books and comics. I’ve met hundreds of other authors. Why was this any different?

Since then, I’ve been on the receiving end a few times. Sometimes it’s online: a Twitter comment like, “OMG, @jimchines answered me!!! BEST DAY EVER!” Once it was a flying hugsquee as I stepped off the elevator and someone saw my nametag. It’s flattering and good for my ego, but each time, I end up feeling a little baffled. I’m just a geeky 37-year-old guy who writes books, cracks the occasional fart joke, and spends too much time online.

I’ve become friends with some pretty well-known authors over the years, including New York Times bestsellers and folks who’ve won pretty much every SF/F award out there. When I see them at conventions, I don’t think, “Yay, I get to hang out with Famous Big Name Author!” They’re just friends, people I haven’t seen in a while who happen to write great books.

That’s the disconnect.

When we think of Famous People, we’re generally not thinking about people. We’re thinking about the idea of those people, our mental constructs of the people who gave us a favorite show, movie, song, book, or whatever. Everything we love about their work gets imbued into this glowing icon of awesomeness.

This can be … problematic. The brain shorts out when trying to reconcile that construct with the real person standing in front of us. I feel bad for Gaiman, and I wish I could apologize for adding an uncomfortable interaction to his weekend.

And then you get people who start to feel a sense of ownership, which can lead to truly vile outpourings when and if their celebrity does something they disapprove of…

I think I’ve got it mostly sorted out in my head. I think about Fandom Fest, where I’ll be a guest of honor alongside folks like Bruce Campbell and James Marsters, and I’m fairly sure I won’t spontaneously wet myself when and if I bump into them. I’m hopeful that I could meet them, shake their hands, and simply tell them how much I’ve enjoyed their work.

We ended up passing on the MythBusters reception tickets. Much as I love and appreciate their show, I’m still an introvert, and I don’t generally like trying to mingle through a room full of strangers. So we’ll just go and see them do some experiments on stage, and that should be a lot of fun.

Fame is weird. It creates bizarrely obsessive and possessive dynamics. It’s a barrier, even as it builds an illusion of familiarity. (If you don’t understand how it’s a barrier, imagine Gaiman at a con, trying to hang out at the bar and chat with other writers…)

There are times that my very low-level “celebrity” as a fantasy author has been a lot of fun. But overall, I’m very happy to not have to deal with rock star levels of fame.

The Princess Curse and Collect All 21

It’s two-for-one bookchat time, starting with The Princess Curse [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy] by Merrie Haskell. Just as I was wrapping up my princess series, Mer came along with her YA retelling of the Twelve Dancing Princesses. I guess it’s a rule now: there must always be one Michigan author writing fairy tale retellings. Makes me wonder who she’ll pass the tiara to when she moves on to something new.

Anyway, the story is set in the fifteenth century in the fictional Romanian kingdom of Sylvania. Reveka is an apprentice herbalist, though thanks to her studies, she’s as skilled and knowledgeable as her master, if not moreso. She’s determined to break the curse on the twelve princesses and use the reward money to gain a position as an herbalist for an entire abbey.

For those unfamiliar with the fairy tale, the twelve princesses disappear every night, returning in the morning exhausted, their shoes worn to tatters. All who try to watch and see where they go fall asleep. In Haskell’s version, it’s a sleep from which they never awake, a coma which eventually leads to death.

This is basically a two-act book. In the first half, we follow Reveka’s investigation into the curse, an investigation which grows more urgent as people she knows and cares for fall into the cursed sleep, and neighboring kingdoms prepare for war upon Sylvania. Act two takes on a more mythological and otherworldly feel … and that’s about all I can say without spoiling things.

The Princess Curse is a fast read. At times, some of the complexities of the warring kingdoms and such felt a bit rushed, and I occasionally lost track of secondary characters (it’s hard to keep track of twelve princesses, let alone everyone else). I suspect this was in part due to its being written for a YA audience.

I like Reveka a lot, and not just because Reveka could totally be a goblin name. She’s smart, determined, impulsive, and very human. Her study of herbalism and the way she applies her knowledge to various problems adds a lot to the story. She is in many ways a scientist in a fantastic world. I approve 🙂

So if anyone here is into fairy tale retellings with smart, independent heroines, I’d suggest heading over to Harper Collins to check out the first three chapters.

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John Booth sent me a copy of his book Collect All 21! Memoirs of a Star Wars Geek [Amazon | B&N] a few weeks back. This is a fairly short book, available both in print and electronic form, which basically talks about Booth’s history with Star Wars: the movies, the toys, the interactions with friends and family, and so on.

I suspect Booth and I are roughly the same age, and his stories stirred some nostalgic memories as I read. I found myself thinking back to the original Star Wars Luke Skywalker figure I owned, with the yellow lightsaber that promptly lost its skinny tip. Then when Empire came out, Luke came with a detachable lightsaber and a gun instead of the lightsaber that slid up into his arm, and that was THE MOST AWESOME THING IN THE WORLD!

I wasn’t as obsessive a collector as Booth, but the book was a nice trip back to childhood, with a few rather touching memories.

The only bit that didn’t work for me was “The Dark Times,” a story that felt more about a dysfunctional romantic relationship than Star Wars.

Overall, a quick, light, but fun read, one that made me wish I still had my Large Size Boba Fett Action Figure. Man, that was the coolest toy ever. And he’d be just the right size to hang out with my Optimus Prime…

Details and an excerpt are available here.

Oatmeal, McGuire, and Entitlement

I like The Oatmeal, and I’ve seen a lot of people pointing to this comic, often with a comment like, “This is why people pirate!”

I see two things in this comic. The first is an excellent point: people want to be able to buy and download things when they come out. More and more people watch and read things online, and it’s incredibly frustrating when that option isn’t available. In this example, I think HBO is probably making a mistake by not selling Game of Thrones to people who want to watch it.

The second thing in this comic, however, feels like pure entitlement. HBO has made a business decision to only offer the show for download to HBO subscribers. I think that’s a bad business decision, but does the fact that the show is not available RIGHT THIS SECOND mean people have the right to say, “Oh well, I tried. Time to go swipe it off a torrent site!”

My next book is going to be released as a hardcover, which means it will cost about $25. I totally understand that not everyone will want to pay $25 for a book, and I’m happy that a year later, you should be able to buy it for $8 as a paperback. But if you want a copy of that book for $8, you have to wait. You don’t get to say, “I want it now!” and just swipe it off a bookstore shelf.

DRM is annoying. Businesses that don’t make their products available to users who want to buy them is frustrating as hell. But the entitlement thing is a problem too.

Case in point: Seanan McGuire’s latest book went on sale early at Amazon … in print format. The e-book edition won’t be available until the on-sale date. As a result, readers and so-called fans have been heaping abuse on her because … well, because they might have to wait a whole two weeks to buy the e-book:

People who have to wait for their electronic books are not being denied anything; they’re doing what was supposed to happen in the first place. This has not stopped the exciting emails from rolling in. They mostly stopped after the first day, but on that first day, I was called…

…a bitch.
…a whore.
…a cunt.
…stupid.
…greedy.
…ungrateful.
…narcissistic.

Because that sense of entitlement, the idea that I WANT IT RIGHT NOW!!!, is so powerful that these people felt justified in attacking and threatening the author, then running out to pirate all of her books. The author who, incidentally, has no control over this situation!

Naturally, since Seanan is female, the abuse is even harsher and significantly sexualized. Because women, like books and TV shows, are possessions, right? And we’re entitled to say or do whatever we like to them.

What the f*** is wrong with people?

I get being frustrated when you really want to watch/read something and you can’t. It frustrates the hell out of me when publishers limit availability or cripple a file’s usability. And I know perfectly well that people will choose to pirate files when they can’t easily buy them.

But for God’s sake, get a spine and own that choice. Don’t pretend the evil publisher made you do it. Take responsibility for the fact that you couldn’t bother to wait two weeks for Seanan’s book to be available legally, or that you didn’t want to subscribe to HBO and didn’t want to wait for them to make the show available through other outlets.

I don’t really get worked up about piracy these days. I have more important (to me) things to care about. And I get that it’s a more complicated issue than a lot of people want to admit.

But the entitlement thing pisses me off, especially when that attitude leads to such vicious attacks on my friends.

Updates: Income and Amazon

First, a follow-up to my 2011 Writing Income post. My 2011 income jumped significantly from last year, which has been lovely. However, it’s important to keep in mind that the numbers I posted were pre-tax.

Having pretty much completed our 2011 taxes, it looks like we’ll be paying roughly $8000 to the state and federal government. This also means paying significantly higher quarterly estimated taxes for 2012.

I’m okay with this. I’ve been setting a fair amount of money aside, because I knew this was coming. And I certainly don’t object to paying my share for the services I and my family use.

That said, it’s still rather gut-wrenching to see that final figure come up in the tax software…

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And now, to Amazon and my mysteriously changing e-book price. As of yesterday, I’ve sent five e-mails to Amazon’s KDP support about this issue. To their credit, Amazon has responded within 2-3 days to each of my messages.

Unfortunately, it’s not the same person responding each time. First it was Dieter, who said they’d change the price back, but didn’t tell me why it had been lowered in the first place. When I wrote back for clarification, I got a response from Aishwarya, who linked me to their terms or service and pointed out that they had price-matched my book to the Kobo price a month ago (but didn’t explain why they had done so again). Then Craig e-mailed and said my price was now $2.99 … ignoring the actual questions I asked.

Next time, I asked if they could escalate me to someone who might answer my questions. I got an e-mail back from one of the KDP Executive Customer Relations people, who again pointed to the lower Kobo price from a month ago.

I’ve written back to ask him to clarify if he’s saying Amazon will price-match to month-old listings even if your book isn’t currently offered for a lower price anywhere.

It’s conceivable that Kobo or someone else briefly dropped the price to $.99 this month and then restored it, and that while I didn’t see this, Amazon did. Especially if they’ve got search spiders automatically checking competitor prices and marking down their own. I find this scenario highly unlikely, but I can’t rule it out.

The lessons I’m taking away thus far:

  • Amazon responds quickly, and if it’s an easy question, they’ll probably take care of you within a day or two.
  • If it’s a question requiring follow-up, things get a lot messier.
  • Amazon has a higher level of customer support; if you’re not getting a satisfactory response, ask them to bump you up the chain.

A few other Amazon-related items have hit the news lately…

As before, I’m not trying to paint Amazon as the kitten-hating, puppy-kicking, Smurf-stomping reincarnation of all things Evil. But as an author, this is the sort of thing I think it’s important to be aware of.

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To end on a completely different note, I just received my first fart question at Ask A Goblin…

More Hugo Stuff

In my Fan Writer and Other Hugo Stuff post, I joked about what the goblins would do with a Hugo rocket. It occurs to me now that while the other goblins were arguing about how to reach the moon, Braf would promptly run off with the trophy to test its nose-picking properties…

Anyway, y’all have until March 11 to get your nominations in. I submitted mine over the weekend, and there were two items I wanted to share.

Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form): Phineas and Ferb: Across the Second Dimension. Seanan McGuire pointed out that the Phineas and Ferb movie totally qualifies for this category. Dimension-hopping kids, a cyborg platypus, lemonade-loving robots … I’m a big fan of the show, and I’d love to see this make the ballot.

Best Editor (Long Form): Betsy Wollheim of DAW. Disclaimer: DAW is my publisher, though Betsy is not my editor. You can read Pat Rothfuss’ tribute to Betsy here (Betsy is Pat’s editor). Betsy puts in a tremendous amount of work, and helps DAW to put out an awful lot of good books.

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And now for some random Hugo-related snark and commentary. (Those of you who follow me on Twitter may have already seen some of these.)

Do the Hugos have a Best Dystopia category? I’d like to nominate certain members of Congress…

Given the issues with certain SF/F trophies (like the World Fantasy Award, which is 1) butt-ugly and 2) based on one disgustingly racist dude), all trophies from this point forward should be made out of LEGO. That way if you don’t like it, you can just make it into something else.

Should we also have a category for Best Review? And another for Best Author Completely Losing His/Her Sh*t Over a Review?

I’m still grumpy that “Invisible Cheezburger!” lost the Best Cat Macro Hugo a few years back.

If I had a time machine, I’d go back and convince Hugo Gernsback’s parents to name him Bob. Because I want to write a Bob-winning book. (For those with gutter-mind (like me), naming him Richard could also be amusing.)

I debated nominating Castle for Best Hugo for Short-Form Drama. Their depiction of the authorial lifestyle qualifies as fantasy, right?

Next year, Neil Gaiman is getting my Hugo nomination for Best Response to a Bigoted A**hole.

If we created a Hugo for Best Panel Moderation, do you think it would encourage more people to actually moderate panels?

New rule: every fantasy author who doesn’t treat horses like tireless hairy motorcycles automatically gets a Hugo.

The Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation That Isn’t a Reboot, Sequel, or Retelling has been removed from this year’s ballot due to the relative lack of eligible entries.

Who Controls Your Amazon E-book Price?

2/27/12 Update: I’ve gotten a final response from KDP Executive Customer Relations, which states that the price on my book was reduced because another retailer (Kobo) was selling it for $.99 at some point, “over the last couple  months.” That would, I assume, be the issue referenced in the 6th paragraph below.

Take from this what you will.

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As most of you know, I’ve self-published a few e-books. The most popular has been Goblin Tales [Amazon | B&N], a collection of five goblin-related short stories. I priced it at $2.99, which seemed fair, and means I receive Amazon’s 70% royalty rate, earning roughly $2/copy sold.

From a strategic standpoint, Amazon’s decision to offer 70% royalties to self-published authors was brilliant. A lot of authors who might not have otherwise self-published started putting both backlist and new titles up for sale. Over the course of several years, Amazon has become (in my opinion) the major player in self-publishing and e-books.

A certain champion of self-publishing recently decried all of the “whiny bitches” complaining about Amazon, and argued how Amazon treats authors so much better than commercial publishers.

While there are certainly advantages to Amazon’s program, anyone who thinks Amazon is in this to help authors is a fool. Amazon, like pretty much any other business, is in this to make money. As for how they treat authors, let me share what I’ve experienced over the past week and a half.

Amazon can and will adjust your price as they see fit.

On Saturday (2/11), I noticed that Amazon had marked Goblin Tales down to $.99. I don’t know why, and I don’t know when exactly this change was made.

This wasn’t the first time I’d had trouble controlling the price of my own e-book. I put Goblin Tales on sale over the holidays, then returned it to $2.99 in early January. Rather, I tried to do so. Only Kobo was slow to raise their price, and since Amazon’s Terms of Service allow them to match any competing price, Goblin Tales stayed at $.99 with its reduced royalty rate for several more weeks, earning me about 1/6 of what I normally made for each sale (35% royalties based on the $.99 price-matched price).

So when I saw that Amazon had dropped the price again, my first step was to check other listings. Everywhere else, the book was on sale for its list price of $2.99. I saw no external reason for Amazon to drop the price.

I also heard from another author that several of their books had also been cut to $.99 without warning or explanation, making me suspect this was either a database glitch or an arbitrary price cut.

I’ll give Amazon credit – the Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) team responded to me fairly quickly, and restored the price to $2.99 by Valentine’s Day. But they also pointed to section 5.3.2 of the current Amazon/KDP Terms and Conditions, which gives them:

…sole and complete discretion to set the retail price at which your Digital Books are sold through the Program.

So what’s the big deal? Don’t retailers put things on sale all the time? Well, sure … which leads me to my second lesson.

Amazon can calculate royalties based on the sale price, not your list price.

With my DAW books, if a bookstore offers a sale, I still get my royalties based on the cover price. Amazon is selling Libriomancer for pre-order at almost half-off, but I’ll get paid my full amount for every copy sold. Not so with self-published titles. Looking at my reports for last week, my royalties were slashed by 2/3 for every copy sold, because Amazon paid me 70% of the $.99 sale price, not my list price.

According to the KDP Pricing Page, royalties should be based on the list price ($2.99) unless the price adjustment was due to a price-matching situation (dropping the price to match a competitor’s price) … but my royalties report still shows a 67% cut.

When I followed up with the DTP team, they responded thusly:

The price at which we sell your book may not be the same as your list price.  This may occur, for example, if we sell your book at a lower price to match a third party’s price for a digital or physical edition of the book… In this case, if you have chosen the 70% option for your book, your 70% royalty will be calculated based on our price for the book (less delivery costs and taxes).

Of course, this wasn’t actually the case, as there was no lower third-party price. I asked them again to show me where their Pricing Page or Terms of Service allow Amazon to arbitrarily cut your book’s offer price and reduce your royalties based on that change. I haven’t heard back from them.

Sometimes going it alone sucks.

If a retailer pulled a stunt like this with one of my commercially published books, DAW/Penguin would stomp them. If DAW tried something funny in my royalty statements, my agent would be all over that crap. Given that my agent represents a number of authors, including folks like Brandon Sanderson, Charlaine Harris, Tanya Huff, etc., he’s got some pull.

But self-publishing puts you in charge of every aspect of your career. Meaning when Amazon messed with one of my books, it was on me to challenge them and get it fixed. They did restore the price, as I said, but what exactly would I do if they said “Deal with it.” Sue them? That’s theoretically an option, sure … but I still remember how much it cost, in time and money and energy, the last time I had to fight a court battle.

I’ve now sent four e-mails to their KDP team, and they have yet to get back to me with a straight answer as to why or how this happened. At this point, I figure getting the price restored is probably the best I’m going to get.

Diversification is a good thing.

Fortunately, in the end, this incident had little real impact on my finances. Goblin Tales sold sixteen copies at the reduced rate, meaning I was underpaid by a whopping $21 or so. Barely even worth a blog post, right? But the impact was minimal because:

  • Most of my titles are not self-published, so if Amazon messes with those titles, the bulk of my income stream is unaffected.
  • I discovered the problem fairly quickly and took steps to get it fixed.

I certainly intend to keep my e-book collections up on Amazon. I’m even planning to publish another one. I’m not telling people not to publish through Amazon; I am telling you to go in with your eyes open, and to understand that despite what the cheerleaders might suggest, Amazon is not pro-author. They’re pro-Amazon.

One final note.

According to Section 2 of their Terms and Conditions, Amazon “reserve[s] the right to change the terms of this Agreement at any time in our sole discretion.” On February 9 — just two days before the Goblin Tales glitch — they added the following:

KDP RELIES ON COMPLEX SYSTEMS AND PROCESSES.  WE STRIVE TO MAKE OUR SYSTEMS AND PROCESSES ERROR-FREE AND EFFICIENT, BUT WE CANNOT GUARANTEE THAT THEY WILL BE, AND WE WILL HAVE NO LIABILITY ARISING FROM SYSTEM OR PROCESS FAILURES, INTERRUPTIONS, INACCURACIES, ERRORS OR LATENCIES.

Bottom line? They make the rules, they can change the rules whenever they feel like it, and they aren’t liable when they break the rules.

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