Want a Kindle autograph?

Thanks to all the apps and programs out there, there is now the Kindlegraph, a digital page signing program for ebooks. If you have Kindle ebooks and would like an autograph, or a sentiment page, or a momento... You get it *wink*, then hit this link --> http://kindlegraph.com/authors/DianaCastilleja
It'll take you to all my books. It shouldn't take more than 24 hours for a respone. I'm pretty quick to get these out. And I'd love to get one to you!

Diana

Is Amazon allowing cyberstalking?

There's a valid complaint against Deborah MacGillivray regarding reviews posted by Reba Belle being pulled. In previous posts at Dear Author.com regarding Reba Belle and other reviewers, it's stated that this author (I hate being in the same category as this person) has stated clearly she has intentionally garnered Reba's personal information, as much as her address, her phone number, her grandmother's last name etc., etc, with the intent to stop her.

She succeded. Deborah Ann permanently had Reba blacklisted for giving out a fair, concise, well written 3 star review.

Reba Belle has been bullied and threatened, stalked and verbally abused. Why? Because she dared to give that 3 star review.

The petition is still live and will be sent to Amazon through Dear Author. If you are against cyberstalking, review manipulation and for Free Speech, then read and sign.



http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/amazon_change/signatures.html

All's Fair in Love and War

http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2008/04/18/summary-post-of-rebas-amazon-fight/

Remember the Amazon battle between the reviewer and the author? No, it wasn't fictional. It was terribly real, and very terrifying when you read the above post.

I'm posting on behalf of fairness, freedom of speech, and for Amazon to take a stand for ethical treatment and and against illegal terrorizing of its reviewers. Think I'm kidding?

Read the post. There's a petition and a LOT of news organizations to contact. Freedom of speech is not conditional in this country.

TeleRead, Amazon and the Author Guild

http://www.teleread.org/blog/2008/04/07/amazons-pod...-guild/

Glad to know it's not just the authors thinking we're getting screwed here.

Amazon analysis? Who wins in this???

From Angela Hoy's WriterWeekly.com site:

""They rationalize they can ship books faster. Our printer, Lightning Source, ships books to Amazon's customers directly, even using an Amazon.com return address sticker. They rationalize they can ship items together to save money, and that doing this saves transportation costs and fuel. What they don't tell you is that forcing a publisher to pay Amazon to print their book, plus setup fees for new books, plus 48% of each sale could and probably will mean higher list prices on books and, thus, less money in the customers' pockets, less money in the publishers' and authors' pockets...but more money in Amazon's pocket.""


""Notice they left out the setup fees ($50 for new titles), the printing costs, and the 48% they want from each sale. In fact, there's no mention of fees at all in the statement. They also don't mention that the average publishing package for authors at Booksurge is over $1,000.

Also, regarding the Advantage Program, they left out the fact that publishers/authors have to pay $29.95 per year, PLUS shipping costs to get the books to Amazon, PLUS 55% of each sale to Amazon. They don't seem too concerned with shipping and fuel expenses for this part of the statement, probably because the publisher has to pay for those.""

For the full article, please read it here.

What I'd like to know is what company is seeing the benefit of this charging system that will eat into any profit? It looks to me like they're charging the snot out of the Non-BS product. Why would they do that?

Easy. So they don't have to sell their competition on their own site. And that's fine with me, but come out and say it! Come out and say what you mean by this. Don't say it's for the environment, don't say it's to save fuel costs or time or anything but your bottom line.

ETA: This is very informative. Read the comments.

And the Amazon answer...

Don't you just love spin???

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-printondemand


I don't know who they think they're fooling. Removing options for consumers is not going to save anyone time. It's going to have them shopping (or supplying) elsewhere.

Stop Booksurge and Amazon cold

www.ipetitions.com/petition/protectPOD

Not sure who is sponsoring the petition but I caught it this morning on the Writer Beware Blog.

I'm not in print, and I don't have a book on Amazon, so I have no beef, BUT I do not want a corporation ruling how my personal book business is done.

Feel free to pass this on.

Another discussion over the Amazon/BookSurge push

Check out Dear Author's post here:

http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2008/03/30/amazon-flexes-its-market-muscle/#comments

If you're not finding out what you want there, why not try these (although many basically say the same thing, it's a lot of opinions on how Amazon is doing the customer (and authors) wrong:

• A New Amazon Mandate? Say it ain’t so, Jeff by Morris Rosenthal
• Amazon Forcing POD Publishers to Make a Hard Decision, Virtualbookworm
• Amazon Tightens Grip on Printing by Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, Wall Street Journal
• Amazon Tightens Noose on Print-On-Demand Publishers; Insists They Use Company’s Own Service by Rafat Ali, The Washington Post
• Amazon to Force POD Publishers to Use BookSurge by Jim Milliot, Publishers Weekly
• Amazon changes rules for print-on-demand publishers by Linda Rosencrance, Computerworld
• Amazon pulls a Microsoft by Robert L. Mitchell, Computerworld Blogs
• Amazon Puts the Squeeze on Publishers by Betsy Schiffman, Wired Blog Network
• Amazon Gets Demanding with Print-on-Demand Publishers, O’Reilly Radar
• Amazon.com puts the screws to small publishers, Valleywag
• Amazon’s POD monopoly, booktwo.org
• Is Amazon Getting Greedy? , open…
• Oh, REAL nice, Amazon.com, Beatlegirl’s Blog
• Market Report — In Play,MSN Money
• Amazon Muscles Print-On-Demand Services by Duncan Riley, TechCrunch
• Amazon & BookSurge, words count
• Urgent News for Authors, The Holistic Writer
• Monopoly - It’s Not A Game by Jean-Marie Hershey, Print CEO Blog
• Of oil lamps, Print on Demand, and e-book machines: Amazon’s Bezos as a would-be Rockefeller by David Rothman
• Deal Breaker? Amazon - BookSurge - POD - No Choice?, Workboxers
• Amazon.com’s POD land grab, BookFinder.com Journal
• Amazon Changes POD Tactics, Removes Velvet Gloves by Kassia Krozser, Booksquare
• Amazon The Monopoly, PersonaNonData
• Amazon Muscles Print-On-Demand Services, web2bite.com
• Use BookSurge or Die? by Victoria Strauss, Writer Beware
• Amazon/Goliath takes on the little guys by Helen Gallagher, Release Your Writing
• Amazon Bullies POD to Use Booksurge — or Else., Shadowhelm’s Journal
• Amazon Says It Will Only Sell Print-On-Demand Books That It Gets To Print, Techdirt
• Amazon deletes competition, LibraryThing
• What’s Amazon Up To Now? by Tawny Taylor
• Amazon Shaking the POD World Big Time, Juno Books
• A hearty “F$%k you!” to Amazon by Elf M. Sternberg
• A Call to Bloggers: Stop Supporting Amazon, Inhabitatio Dei
• Amazon to Force POD Publishers to Use BookSurge, Media Mensch
• Self Publishers and Amazon, Writerly Stuff
• Amazon Tightens Grip On Printing, booktrade.info
• Amazon to Block Other POD Services from Using Amazon Marketplace, Dear Author
• Amazon trying to screw small presses?, lupabitch
• Amazon’s Blatant Disrespect of Their Best Customers by Kathy Hendershot-Hurd, Beyond Niche Marketing
• Will Amazon Hurt Small Pagan Publishers?, The Wild Hund
• Amazon and us by Gill Polack
• Will Amazon Become the Google of the POD Industry? by Deborah Woehr
• Down with The Zon! by Celia Kyle
• Beyond the POD grab: The IDPF should fight Amazon’s new eBabel, look for anti-trust violations, and reach out to Google by David Rothman, TeleRead
• Amazon blocking books of competitive publishers?, electronista
• We are not amused–veinglory, PODPeople
• Bully on the block?, The Pearlsong Letter
• The monopolists: You need to worry about Amazon too by Eion Purcell
• Amazon owns the marketplace: return of the distributor, Thudfactor
• Is Amazon trying to monopolize the empowering Publish-On-Demand market?, Chris Boese’s Weblog
• 500 pound gorilla, Idle musings of a bookseller
• Bye-Bye “Buy Buttons” for POD Authors?, The Backroom at Dehanna.com
• Amazon Making a Big Mistake by Cheryl Pickett
• Amazon to force POD publishers to use Booksurge, Murder by 4
• Amazon.com’s dirty little deed, pds_lit
• Amazon’s Stupid Anti-Competitive Move, Principled Profit
• Amazon Bullying POD Writers and Publishers Unfairly, A-ha
• A Call to Bloggers: Stop Supporting Amazon, Resurrection Life
• Amazon.com Is On Drugs, Thought Patterns
• Amazon launches their weapon of mass destruction, steps on the long tail of independent authors by Mark Riffey
• Amazon puts the Squeeze on POD Publishers by Easy Author Web Sites
• An Important Lesson from Amazon on How NOT to Treat Your Customers by Virtual Impax

Amazon's lesson on monopolies

This hit the waves on Thursday or so, and it's looking more and more like they are going to go through with it. It's nothing short of strong arming small POD (Print on Demand) companies who service publishers for their author's books into using Amazon's printer to be marketed on their website.

What does that mean?

Amazon regulates who they publish, who they market, and can double charge you for the effort. They can charge you for the print of the book, then again for the sale of the book. No, not the consumer, oh heaven forbid! No, they can charge the AUTHOR. There's a fee to use the printer to supply the book and there's a fee to sell your book to the consumer.

There's thousands of authors at stake and tens of thousands of books. Please review the links, read the blogs, and read the comments. The comments are made by authors, readers and booksellers from around the world. Then tell Amazon if you feel this is fair, or an anti-trust, an anti-trade, demonic attempt to strong-arm the book publishers of the world to kowtow to a corporation.

Amazon.com's mission statement reads - "
“The mission of Amazon.com is to leverage technology and the expertise
of our invaluable employees to provide the best buying experience on
the Internet. Our goal is nothing short of building the world's most
customer-centric Company capable of providing our customers with the
best shopping experience online today, and into the future.”


http://www.writersweekly.com/the_latest...04597_03272008.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...8032800327.html

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120667525724970997.html

http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/...&id=8401149