Wow, the print on demand arrangement still being pondered, as I wonder why they would claim on my splash page on Amazon that there are only 3 copies left, and to order soon, they throw fuel on the fire with yet another jaw dropper. The book is now for sale, not at the 24.95 I set the price at months ago, but for 17.96.
This is well below their wholesale cost on the entire book, and though I get it, would have been nice to have received an email from the publisher, Books4free.com, but I’m sure he’s too busy golfing, fishing or dating bipoloar women to keep me posted… He swears he received nothing, but who knows.
The point is that Amazon owns his ass and they can set the price wherever they like, whenever they like, and do not have any need to keep him or the author informed. Fortunately books4free.com assures us that it’s actually a good thing for our customers, that the price is down, and though it eats into Amazon costs, we will receive the same pay out per book even though its below cost.
That is where I call bullshit. What lightning source should tell have told us is that most likely Amazon has bought a bulk of the book, since it’s selling well, and hence, gotten that bulk for a cheaper cost, probably saving something like 7 or 8 bucks per book. Which basically means Lightning Source is overcharging books4free.com and myself, something in the neighborhood of 10 bucks a book as there has only been about 20 or so sold, and I bet that’s the cut off for Amazon to actually stock some books. I bet at 100 there is another bulk pricing break.
It would really be nice to be privy to all this information going in, but alas, we are not, and learning these ropes as we go along.
In the meantime, I guess we should just be grateful that the cost is done to 17.96 per book, 7 dollars cheaper than the list price we set, and go ahead and advertise on Facebook and wherever that it’s on sale! Better than a 7 dollar increase I suppose.
Now if said publisher would just stop dating crazy women, maybe he would have the time to get me on some radio and television shows like a proper publisher! Some habits die harder than others I suppose.
-Jared Bryan Smith
JB Smiths Blog - Author @ books4free.com 