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Are you shouting out your #1 status?

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Since Amazon changed its policy to allow third-party sellers to run rampant over author sales pages, I discovered Amazon’s Marketplace has little control over what the sellers charge. The new book price of ten dollars competed with the lower priced used copies of my non-fiction book,”Do You Have a Dream Workbook 5 Keys to Realize Your Dream”.

Who are third-party sellers on an author’s book sale page?

Third party sellers:
1. Resell your free paperback that was in a giveaway on Amazon. You will not receive a royalty.
2. Resell a paperback that someone purchased either through Amazon or directly from you or in a bookstore and now wants to sell back on Amazon. In which case you the author will not receive a royalty.
2. There are book pirates who purchase an ebook then will create a print on demand copy and sell on Amazon. There are a lot of these on Amazon. The author will not receive a royalty. The book pirates are hard to find.
3. People will purchase copies of books from Ingram. You might receive a royalty from Ingram. A very small one.
What is most important is that the “Buy” button where your book is purchased with one click is often the lowest price book which means the sale will defer to the third party seller.
You can contact the third party sellers and request them to pay you a royalty. They won’t, however, you could discourage a number of them of listing your book which could give you leverage to have first place on the “Buy” button.

I would not be paid from the third-party sellers because they had the right to resell my book without regard to copyright according to “First-Sale” doctrine.  Once a copyrighted work has been sold, the original copyright holder no longer holds control over how the purchaser transfers the item. So once someone purchased your book they are free to sell, lend or donate the book as they so choose, as long as the copy itself is not an infringing copy.

Given the circumstances, I contacted each third-party seller and asked if they sold one of my books would they pay me a royalty? I received a few boilerplate replies stating the first-sale doctrine. However, I was surprised to receive two thoughtful responses.

You have received a message from the Amazon Seller – —SuperBookDeals

Dear Ms. Grace

Thank you for the below email regarding the book ISBN: 0998830801.  We want

to apologize; it is not our intent to infringe on publisher/authors rights. We have researched this matter and, although the title was included as an inventory of a trusted and reliable supplier; we would like to reassure you

that we take such matters very seriously and would never list such items intentionally.

We have taken the following steps to correct this infringement:

  1. We have permanently removed this title from our listings and quarantined it from being re-listed.
  2. We have sequestered all copies of this title and will return to the

supplier.

  1. We have forwarded details of this matter onto our supplier so they can also take appropriate action.

If you have other listings that you would like us to remove please provide us with a complete list of ISBN’s or the prefix (1st four digits of the ISBN – identifying the publisher) and we will be happy to remove those from our listings as well.

 

For any questions about your royalties, you should reach out to your publisher.  Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or concerns.

 

You have received a message from the Amazon Seller – Paragon OS Co

Hello,

We received a message indicating that we were listing the products of your

Brand in our inventory and we sincerely apologize for this matter. Our intention was not to infringe your rights.

We have just deleted the concerned listings from our inventory and you can

be assured that we won’t list it anymore.

In case you see reminding articles, please contact us and we will remove it immediately.

Thank you for your kind understanding and cooperation regarding this matter.

Best regards,

Paragon

Sincerely

SuperBookDealsOperations

Bobbi Harris

 

I priced my new book “Do You Have a Dream Workbook 5 Keys to Realize Your Dream” $4.73 and is now ranked #1 on Amazon’s book sales page. Today the resellers I contacted have priced my book to twelve dollars or more. I plan to increase the new book price a few dollars.

I recommend every author contact the resellers on their Amazon book sales page and take charge of your sales ranking and receive your hard earned royalty.

Instructions on how to contact the resellers:

Go to your Amazon page where your book is for sale.

my book sales page as an example https://amzn.to/2JZpvBl

You will notice in blue writing under the “Paperback.” price “8” new from $6.39

Click on the blue copy, on the next page you will find the list of resellers

Then click on each reseller link, and you will find an email address for each reseller.

Here is a copy of the e-mail that I sent to Paragon OS Co. The book sellers listed have the older book price.
————- Begin message ————-
My book is listed in your Amazon bookstore. Will you be paying me a royalty if you sell my book?

Now, if you’re having trouble finding the courage to contact the resellers, then you need to buy my Dream book to help you discover your confidence.

Grace Allison Blair, Author

4408 14 StreetLubbock, Texas 79416

806-543-3308

www.ModernMysticMedia.com

 

Grace Allison
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2 thoughts on “Are you shouting out your #1 status?”

  1. That is just amazing. I assume this applies just to selling the book, not quoting, meaning you still need the citation if they’re quoting from your book. But the sale is bad enough. I’m glad you dug into this, Grace.

    Don’t know how I missed this post. I remember it coming in on my email but for some reason I didn’t click through. Hmm….

  2. My books are selling in many countries for huge amounts yet my publisher
    says I never sold one book. How can that be? What is your experience
    with Authorhouse a publisher? Thanks so much for the above article on
    Third Party Sellers. I posted on my Facebook where I write articles, poetry
    and blog. We have a huge amount of talent here.

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