
How Amazon did everything wrong (but I still got to #1) - surfingdino
http://artymiak.com/how-amazon-did-everything-wrong-but-i-still-got-to-1/
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Terretta
The whole process described here sounds like a series of book promotion and
sales hacks, some of which Amazon missed, and others of which they caught on
to.

I think this article is also part of that.

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sirclueless
I think Amazon got to #1 by giving a crap about exactly one thing alone:
customer experience. Getting an email about a non-critical update to a random
purchase I made 2 months ago? Not a good customer experience.

I feel for you, artymiak, for being treated like a disposable piece of
rubbish. Fact is, Amazon has their priorities straight, and helping every
snubbed author feel better about their life's work isn't really part of it.

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ChuckMcM
I got the strangest feeling reading this, it _reads_ like the author is trying
to hack a 'freemium' model into the Kindle experience and Amazon is thwarting
his efforts. Is that what is going on here?

The punchline at the end is you can buy the PDF for $20? His counter example
'porn for housewives' is $10.

And there is the complaint about not being able to publish in Polish (ok so
its a strange restriction I agree but ...)

Is it that hard to sell an epub version of the book from a web site for Kindle
and others? O'reilly seems to do that successfully.

Left with more questions than answers.

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evanjacobs
For me, this is the most important takeaway: "But how do you let over 24,000+
readers know there is an update available? Amazon does not give publishers
access to the customers’ email addresses so you cannot get in touch with them
directly."

Amazon may have disintermediated publishers in the author -> publisher ->
retailer -> reader chain but there is still opportunity to remove the retailer
and have a direct author -> reader relationship.

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jlarocco
To be honest, I don't care that there's an update available. I'm not
interested in getting spam from authors of the books I buy. I buy a lot of
books for Kindle, but the day Amazon lets authors spam me is the day I stop
buying at Amazon.

I understand that an author's book is important to them, but most of their
readers just aren't that interested. If I was really interested in new
editions of the Vim tips book, I'd already be following the author online.

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sirclueless
Seconded. Like most customers, I'd like my book purchase to be a simple one-
off transaction. I load it on my kindle and then I read it and then I don't
want to be bugged about it. Unless it is a reference book (which to be fair
this book might be for some readers) I don't really give a hoot that there's
another version.

The most I would be OK with Amazon doing is sticking a "There is an update
available" link in my menu while reading. More than that is too intrusive, no
matter how much the author thinks he deserves warm fuzzies for performing a
good service.

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surfingdino
Yes, that's what I'd like to see too. A simple notification that an update is
available would be all that's needed.

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matthewowen
I can't see any point in this where Amazon didn't take the right steps.

Your readers are not eagerly awaiting the advertisement for your new book that
you want to send to them.

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Semaphor
Disclaimer: This is all assuming the entry is factually correct. Considering
the authors mindset I'm not too sure about that.

a) When they told readers they are working with the publisher while they don't
b) They are asking the author of a book if he has the copyright required for
the updated version? What? c) They should at the very least tell reviewers
that there is an update when the review is below 5 stars.

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tvelwe
I still think Amazon is doing the right thing. a) THey put out a note and then
contacted the publisher eventually after a day. Given their scale, I would
assume it would be necessary to validate the customer complaints before
handing off to the publishers. b) Again, they are just being extra careful
about copyrights to the book contents. c) Do it right and give the best
reading experience the first time, otherwise customer are right to complain. I
kind of don't like the publish quickly, update frequently model that the
author is trying to do. It breaks the book reading experience.

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zrail
I'm working on a platform that can make things like this easier to deal with.
Docverter[1] is an online document conversion system, and one of the things
that I plan on offering is sending a converted document to an email address,
which very well could be a kindle address. It's in active beta right now, if
you'd like an invite send me an email (in my profile).

[1]: <http://www.docverter.com>

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tomfrompoland
Hi,

Maybe try to publish with <http://leanpub.com> platform?

Maybe this is a solution for your problem.

All the best Tom

