INDIE AUTHOR SUPPORT
Amazon’s Price Matching Rule for eBooks Explained…
…And more!
For the third time this year, Amazon suddenly decided to cancel price matching for my free ebook — and charge customers for it.
After emailing KDP support about it and providing links from other retailers, the same canned answer landed in my inbox:
Thanks for the pricing information. While we retain discretion over our retail prices, I’ve passed your feedback on for consideration.
Shortly after price matching was restarted, I received a followup email:
There are multiple factors that determine the price of a book. Amazon price matches with iTunes/GooglePlay/Kobo and Barnes and Noble if your book is free on any of these competitors your book will be free on Amazon.
We are very careful to list books at the price we feel will be the most competitive, and that will ensure the best sales environment for Amazon publishers. In all our marketplaces, we retain discretion over our retail prices.
So, in short, Amazon will price match but only if it wants? Huh?
Tired of canned statements, I opted for the live chat option, which finally led to a clear answer.
So, now you know: Price Matching for free ebooks only lasts for a couple of months. As far as I know, Amazon is the only major retailer that works that way.
My conversation with the Amazon representative did not stop there. Since she was very nice, I decided to discuss the abusive Amazon rule that allows customers to return read ebooks for full refunds. She was not at leisure to disclose much. But what transpired clearly confirms what many of us have known for a long time.
(I thought that I would have access to the entire conversation after we were done chatting, but the window suddenly closed on me. So, unfortunately, I wasn’t able to save more screenshots.)
Anyway, here is how things work. KDP publishes your books / ebooks and pays you. But Amazon Retail makes the rules, which leaves KDP without a say in its parent company’s decisions. While the former can assist you with basic issues, you will have to contact Amazon.com directly if it is something more significant.
Good luck with that! Especially when you get to read that Amazon is very aware of what is going on on social media. The representative told me that the company knows about the #ReadAndReturnChallenge trend on TikTok. From what I was made to understand (and I prodded about it), Amazon has NO intention of doing anything against it, including amending its refund rule to prove that it cares even a smidge about self-published authors.
The lady promised to take my complaints to her supervisors — especially after mentioning my intention to write an article about the issue. But I highly doubt that anything positive will ever come out of it.
The moral of the story? Amazon will not protect self-published authors against malicious readers. We will continue seeing our hard-earned royalties being taken away from us every time a refund is issued.
While I understand the appeal of using Amazon to sell your ebooks, I would urge you to study all your options carefully and go wide. It is my hope that this post will help you understand why.
Thank you for reading!
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