Pounds of Flesh, Etc.

I had some of my own books on consignment in a bookstore. It was not worth it. I had paid half the cover price for my own stock of books. The bookstore bumped the price up by $1.00 (using a sticker) and gave me 40 percent of what they got for it. I was losing money with every book purchased!

I think of this because a friend with a first novel coming out in April says his publisher will not stock his book on Amazon.com. Barnes & Noble and so on will have it available online, but not Amazon. com. Publisher said Amazon takes too big of a percentage. Guess what? Everybody takes too big of a percentage. Amazon takes, I believe, 50 percent -- if they're working through a publisher. I'm not. I'm selling my books as one of those used-book, also-ran, independent type of dealers. The important thing is that my books can be found on Amazon, because that's where everyone looks first for a book.

I told the author his book HAD to be on Amazon and if the publisher would not put it there he would have to. Whether that's fair, right, monopolistic, sickening, highway robbery, etc. -- we writers allowed others to put us up against the wall like this, and we are the only ones who can fight our way out. In my book contract I had it put in that the publisher MUST make it available through Amazon.com.