Blaming Amazon

I have run into a few people — even friends of mine — who say they are boycotting Amazon because Jeff Bezos pays no taxes. 

On the other hand, I order from Amazon nearly every day, probably more so since the pandemic. I often get packages (I know some of you can relate to this), and I don’t even remember what is in them. If I need something small (and these are things I have actually ordered) — some post-it notes, a wrench — and I need it now, I will look for something that has one-day delivery on Amazon Prime.

However, there are stores I would not buy from. I will never go into a Hobby Lobby or a Chick-Fil-A. I don’t care for their anti-gay, evangelical views. But am I boycotting them? Probably not, since I have never been into these stores anyway. I have never even seen a Hobby Lobby anywhere near where I live. I have thought about boycotting Home Depot, but I go in there occasionally. 

My basic feelings about boycotting? Not a good idea. It doesn’t hurt the rich owners. It hurts the little guy or girl. 

So back to Amazon. I personally get upset when someone tells me they are boycotting Amazon. You aren’t hurting Jeff Bezos. You are hurting me (and others like me). 

I completely understand those of you who want to buy your books in brick-and-mortar bookstores — or online from indie bookstores. I love and support independent bookstores. My local indie bookstore in California (when I lived there), Copperfields, gave me so much support. I launched all of my books there. I spoke and gave workshops there. And when I need to give a gift, a Copperfield’s gift certificate is right on the top of my list. Personally, I don’t have money to spend on books, so I buy them only occasionally. Generally, I get my books from the library. 

But I can tell you my personal story of how, as an author, I depend on Amazon. 

It may not be hyperbole to say that I might be living in a cardboard box on the side of the river if it were not for Amazon. Probably because I write academic books, they sell pretty well — well some of them do — without a lot of marketing. I didn’t plan very well for retirement. I spent ten years raising my children and working as a freelance editor very part time.  I have a small teacher’s pension because I didn’t teach for very long. And because I was a teacher in California, social security cut my payments by at least a third (the famous “windfall” provision). That leaves me way below poverty level. So, believe it or not, these days, my Amazon royalties are sometimes nearly twice as much as my other income sources. Although I have other royalty sources, Amazon is by far the largest one.

Let me explain. I am what they call an author/publisher. I write and publish my own books, but I don’t publish anyone else’s books, so I am not really an independent publisher. Some of you probably already know the process. But in case, you don’t, here goes: I write a book. I hire a cover designer, and I hire someone to lay out the interior of the book. Both of these people know the standards for creating the PDF files I need, one for the cover and one for the interior. My books are POD, print on demand, which means that Amazon (or whoever) has the digital files, and when someone orders a book, they print one. They don’t have shelves full of books, and I don’t have a garage full of books. If a book is selling well, I assume Amazon may print and stock some extra copies. And I can order as many copies as I want at wholesale price to store in my garage. 

I actually upload the files for my print books to Amazon and one other place: Ingram, the world’s largest book wholesaler/distributor. If you don’t get your book from Amazon, it comes from Ingram. In fact, if you upload the files only to Ingram, they still put the book on Amazon, but it sometimes says Out of Stock, or is more difficult to order. The best thing is to upload to both Amazon directly and to Ingram. If a bookstore wants my book, or a school, they will order from Ingram. Ingram also automatically puts the book up on all the online retailers such as Barnes and Noble, Books a Million, Target, etc. It will not put the books in “real stores.” They would have to place an order through Ingram. But you can order a book that is with Ingram from any bookstore. 

I am not even quite sure how much Amazon takes per book. I believe it is about forty percent plus printing costs. I get the rest in royalties. However, Ingram needs about fifty-five percent discount. The bookstores or schools get forty percent of that, and Ingram gets the rest. So I get much less money from books sold anyplace except Amazon. In addition, Ingram allows returns, so a school might order fifty books and return every one of them. Unless the author wants the books back (in whatever condition they might be in, and author has to pay for the return shipping, so most of us don’t want the books back), the books are gone and so is our royalty. Since Ingram pays three months behind, they can deduct the returns from future royalties, but sometimes it works out that we owe them money. I once owed them over $900. 

For e-books, things are similar, but I don’t sell as many e-books as print. People seem to want novels as e-books, but grammar books in print form. And because I am not the type of person who knows exactly what my royalties are — I don’t have money awareness! — i just take what they give me. I pay to have my books put in e-book format and then upload the file to Kindle for Amazon sales. Ingram just started doing e-books, and I don’t upload there, but there are some companies that will distribute to multiple e-readers (Kobo, Nook, Apple books, the library digital books) if you upload your files to them, so I do that. 

Have I had some problems with Amazon? Of course. Do I love Amazon? Yes! Lately, for some reason , they have been doing me a huge favor. For the past few months, they have been selling my best-selling book — which is also my most expensive book  — at about half price. I don’t know why, but I am curious. This means that some of the places that used to get a bunch of books from Ingram, mainly schools, are now buying from Amazon because Ingram can’t beat the price. I can see how my sales have increased and what are likely school purchases. And here’s the thing: No matter how much Amazon discounts your book, you make the same royalty amount as if they were selling it at retail price. So, thank you, Amazon.

If you are planning to boycott a business (like those in Texas, for example), think again. You are hurting the employees, not the CEO. And if you want to get after someone for not paying taxes, well, there are some politicians who don’t pay taxes — and I am not naming any names….