You’re right, it’s not perfect control. But you may never be able to control how Kobo discounts books. You can at least control that Amazon won’t delist it by pricing the book effectively. I see your book’s $2.99 on Amazon – isn’t it better to have the book priced higher somewhere? That’s how I look [...]

The point is though you do have control over this. If you set your Smashwords price at $5 and your Kindle price at $3 (for example), you won’t have a problem. Better to be distributed as many places as possible.

I think that’s a little drastic – because Amazon’s probably not going to change their policy. So setting your price on Smashwords a couple dollars above whatever you charge on Amazon will protect you against this policy. HOWEVER, opting in for Kindle distribution on Smashwords means that the Kindle price and the Kobo price would [...]

? – but maybe there’s an amateur designer who is very talented but doesn’t have the means of creating his/her designs. Nobody’s saying that this model will replace mainstream manufacturing but that it’s a useful alternative.

And I didn’t think “jackass” was all that sober.

It is overwhelming but it is also my passion. I waited so long for my book to be published that I am in it for the long haul and actually enjoy all the marketing stuff. Fortunately I only work part-time (I’m underemployed) and I’m not on all the sites a lot of the time. I [...]

Retailers removing a product if they can’t sell it is a much different process than removing an ebook from inventory – which takes up no space. And the retailer removing it due to poor sales is a different process than removing it automatically because another retailer sells it cheaper. That retailer will at least set [...]

I don’t understand the last point. What’s draconian is removing the buy button. Amazon’s free to try and compete by offering lower prices than competitors. That’s the nature of capitalism. But retail chains don’t normally remove a product from their shelves if the price is cheaper somewhere else. I would rather they offered my book [...]

More here: http://www.selfpublishingreview.com/blog/2010/09/03/mark-coker-responds-to-amazons-delisting-policy/

No one’s arguing that these discounts shouldn’t exist – only about the effect these discounts have on other retailers. If there’s a discount on an item at K-Mart that’s cheaper than the discount at Wal-Mart, it’s not like Wal-Mart will remove the item entirely. This is an entirely different business model. The problem is that [...]

Yeah, the moral here is that you need to set your book on Smashwords in the $4.00 range to ensure that any discount does not dip below the $2.99 threshold on Amazon to get the 70% royalty.

Fifteen years ago, working as an industrial designer and therefore familiar with AutoCAD, pen plotters, etc, I predicted to my wife, as she struggled on the living room floor with a dress pattern, that in the near future she’d be able to go to the fabric store, find a pattern she liked, input her dimensions, [...]

I’m not totally opposed to this – but people have been opposed to the idea of any money changing hands for reviews, as it has the whiff of this program. I’m not as much of a stickler. Reviewers should be paid something – everything can’t be free. The trouble wouldn’t be finding authors willing to pay [...]

Guessing not. Like other newspapers/magazines, the cost of getting reviewed for publishers is the cost of sending out a book. Advertising is another issue, but this is mixing together advertising and reviewing.