Recently on BookTok (tiktok for books), someone decided to encourage people to steal books, claiming that everyone wins. Readers get to read, it doesn’t actually hurt authors… guess what? It hurts authors. It doesn’t even hurt Amazon because Amazon still gets some of the money. For basically free. Right out of the author’s pocket. So essentially, the authors are paying Amazon to let Amazon let these petty thieves ‘read for free.’
In short, if you consume a digital product for your entertainment and return it, you are stealing. If you get to 11% and discover the author conned/cheated you and you immediately return the book, I don’t mind that; you realized you were cheated and returned it without finishing the book. (Example: I’ve returned like 3 books in my entire life. Each time, the author had polished the first 10% so the sample looked okay and then didn’t bother with the rest of the book OR the book somehow became unreadable. I didn’t continue reading, I closed the book, returned it, and marked the appropriate box in the return form.)
I have purchased thousands upon thousands of books, and have only returned three.
Authors deserve to be paid.
So, after seeing a bunch of posts online, I decided to check to see how many returns I had this month compared to last month, just to give you an idea of how harmful this practice is.
For the record, on average, the author is charged $0.07-$0.15 per full-length novel. I’ll use $0.08 because that’s a common transfer fee over at Amazon.
February’s Returns: 107.
March’s Returns (Following the BookTok’s release): 283.
Note: there were only 15 returns on Silent Stalker, so it wasn’t the new book release responsible for the increase.
It was BookTok… and selfish, entitled thieves who can’t be bothered to go to the library. We can’t even call them readers at this point, because they don’t care about the books or the authors. They’re just thieves.
Petty thieves.
Look, reading is a wonderful activity. I get it. I love to read. That’s why I actually discount my titles to libraries. Industry standard actually recommends libraries are charged 2-4x as much as the book actually costs. I charge libraries the same exact rate readers are charged–and they get to use the book over and over and over again. (Unless they’re using a cost per checkout system, in which case it’s a set rate no matter what the retail price is.)
Stop stealing. Seriously. If you buy a book and return it after you’ve read it, you’re a petty thief. Sure, I do well enough I’m not going to hugely miss the $22.64 these thieves directly stole from me, but most authors?
That was groceries you took out of their cart because you stole directly from them.
You want to help with the theft problem?
Condemn the book thieves. Call them out. Shun and shame them. Tell them they’re thieves and should know better–tell them they should have been raised better.
Stop giving them your silent approval.
Point them at public libraries and subscription services.
There’s no point in contacting Amazon because the petty thieves are more obnoxious than the ethical readers. And a lot louder.
This new book theft thing is going to make it so I work more at patreon and the other non-Amazon sites. (Guess who is the primary source of book returns… that’s right, Amazon. Because none of the other sites really allow you to return books because they assume you read them.)
Because of the increase of book theft, I’m going to be working more at escaping Amazon. The first experiment with Patreon worked well, so I may change it so that I release books to Patreon exclusively first, and then release on other vendors with Amazon getting the titles last.
I have two patreons at current.
The Novels Patreon is just for those who want to buy books. There are currently four tiers, one for RJ Blain only, one for Bernadette Franklin only, one for Susan Copperfield only, and one for ALL books I’ve written regardless of pen name. Sekrit projekt titles will go under the ALL books one.
The general Patreon has a bunch of other stuff, including Q&As, read alongs by chapter with author commentary, etc, etc, etc. They also receive the books as long as they’re in the $10 per month or higher tiers.
I am debating how best to handle distributing backlist books. Currently, the general plan is to include a backlist book with each post announcing a new release. (So essentially a bogo, except I get to choose the bogo.) It’ll be the same book for everyone because I value my sanity.
That would mitigate the returned book issues because Patreon doesn’t allow returns if it’s obvious that the creator did as promised. (And Patreon is directly linked with the book distributor and has access to everything I send out, so it’s simple to verify the user was given what they were promised.)
It may result in changing how I release books on Patreon, so I need to put some thought into it. Honestly, I really do like the idea of releasing books to Patreon first–even before I load in preorders to Amazon and the other sites. Patreon is currently a safe space. People are there because they want to be there.
Piracy and book theft has been a thing for as long as the internet has existed. I spend over a hundred a month hiring a company to help control the piracy issues. But these predatory booktoks are just hurting the people who write the books.
And it may be they’re the straw that breaks the authors’ backs, especially in the indie community. The trad houses and publishers won’t notice much or care; their readers buy books because they love books–and they don’t usually return them.
I can afford for some petty thieves to take $23 out of my bank account… most authors cannot.
You wouldn’t want someone going into your bank account and pocketing any money, so why do you think it’s okay to do it to others?
Shit like this is why authors stop writing, so not only are these petty thieves hurting the authors, they’re ultimately hurting themselves, as the books they want to read gradually stop being sold, leaving only the chaff behind.
Don’t return books you’ve read. Just because Amazon lets you do something doesn’t mean you should do it.
Theft is theft… and stealing from the mouths of struggling authors just makes you a petty thief, among the lowest of the low.
Use the public library if you don’t want to buy books. That way, the author is still paid, and you can read legally for free.
But stop stealing. Theft is wrong and it has always been wrong. Stop trying to pretend you aren’t stealing… because if you follow this Booktoker’s way, that’s all you are: a petty theft.
And if you don’t want to be thought of as a thief… don’t steal books. It’s really that simple.
Is it OK to share this on FB?
Absolutely.
Thanks
That is what I posted when I saw Montana Ash post about this. WTF!
Yeah, it’s making the rounds, and for good reason.
The only books I have ever returned were ones I mistakenly purchased twice (one I bought like 3 times) before realizing that Amazon does not always tell you if you already own the book
This is me as well. I rarely return an ebook or an audiobook but if I do it is because I did not mean to purchase it or I purchased an abridged audio.
How is this even allowed? Why is this Booktok allowed to exist? I found some indie authors I don’t think I would have ever found walking around B & N. This is horrible.
Amazon sucks up to entitled customers, and it’s no skin off their back because the authors pay for the transfer fees.
Wow. It shouldn’t be possible to return a book after like 50%.
I really don’t understand how thieves can look themselves in the mirror.
No kidding.
Good grief! I cannot believe this is even possible. No true book lover ever gets rid of a book. I still have books from when I was 8. I even love the ones I’ve not made it all the way through, just because they are books. E-books are no different., love them all…and yes, I’m a book addict. This really makes me rethink purchasing from Amazon if they are okay with this…grrr, now I’m angry! I better go read to calm down…lol
That’s BS. I’ve honestly returned a few books, because I’m a bit of an idiot and bought them on the wrong account and it would have been less convenient for me to read them. I then go and buy them on the correct account. It never occurred to me that the author would be charged a transaction fee. Ugh!
Yeah, the transfer fees are a PITA!!!!
Hi! I look forward to signing up for Patreon as soon as I get through my prepaids. I did have one question about getting the books through Patreon. My husband and I share books all the time, including yours (I got him hooked ?) and I wanted to make sure that would still be possible. Thanks so much!
Yep, you use the book the same way you do when purchased at Amazon, etc. You just load it into your ereader manually rather than having the vendor load it onto your device for you.
This should never happen and the people who buy these books at a cheap price should be penalized someway but I guess that’s fairytale thinking my next question I have is I am an otter and RJ Blaine does that also entitle me to get Susan Copperfield books to be honest I’m not exactly sure how it works and what I’m supposed to do and maybe it’s because I’m 73 and don’t know the ins and outs of this Patreon business if you could let me know how so I can get both RJ Blaine and Susan Copperfield books I’d appreciate it and I don’t want just the book once I like to read your sneaky critic also thanks so much love your books.
The scumbags doing this probably think they are being slick. May the Lesser Grebe of Ennui nest in their furnace chimney.
What is happening with people today!?! This is not the world I grew up in. People there were generally honest and could agree to disagree without tearing apart friendships and communities…
I generally don’t even return books I accidentally purchase twice, even expensive limited editions! They make terrific gifts, or I can just drop them in a local tiny library…which reminds me that I have a couple of manga volumes to drop off since my husband was convinced we didn’t have them yet…
So, long story short. I’m an evil person who gives the author a chance until the very end. No matter how bad I feel about their writing. Just in case it’s a great story. What I didn’t realise, is if I try to delete a book I purchased from Amazon because I will never read it again, they take my money back from the author. Thanks for the information. I now have a policy that I wait for 3 months until Amazon allows me to delete a book from my library without taking my money back from the author who worked for the money. Really, I’ve read some doozies that I will never read again and felt a certain satisfaction when I have deleted that book permanently. But, just because I don’t like that authors work. Doesn’t mean they should have to give my money back. I think that is the real flaw with Amazon from a buyer perspective. They are trying to be so buyer friendly that they actually won’t allow me to delete something that I want to delete without asking for a reason and trying to give me my money back.
Oops. That was supposed to be on the main thread.
Uuuuugggghhhhhh. I almost never delete books. I put them in my never the fuck again list/shelf/thingie so when i look through the collections i know the book was garbage. Stops me from trying to buy it again too.
That is a great idea. I never permanently delete a book and did not realize it refunds the book.
This is bizarre on how it is being handled. Kobo if you remove a book it gets archived and you don’t see it anymore in your books. But if you click on it again in the store front it tells you you have the book, but have removed it from your library. You can just click to add it back from the archive into your active library if you want to.
Amazon wants people to buy the books again later so they earn more money. Kobo doesn’t want you wasting your money on a book you didn’t like, so it keeps the registry. When you delete a book from your library in Amazon, you can repurchase it again at current price with no ready evidence you owned the book…
I stopped deleting books on Amazon because of that. I just make a DNF type collection and throw the books I don’t like into it.
I only return books that I have accidentally purchased, because I was clicking too fast and it was the completely wrong book. If I don’t like a book (or can’t finish because it is so bad), I’ll leave a review and leave it at that. I don’t even return it if I purchase it not realizing I already purchased it, because that is on ME. I do wish, however, that Amazon could let you know you already have an earlier copy of a book, when nothing has changed but the asin. When that happens, I get all excited thinking I must have somehow missed a book, when I actually already owned it, and I just didn’t take the time to check my database first.
I’ve been getting very disallusioned with how Amazon treats its authors and have started buying from other sites like Kobo, or direct from the author. I have so many books on my Amazon account that I can’t send to my device directly from Amazon anyway, so I’m not really gaining anything by buying from them instead.
The selfish, entitled assholes strike again. Wonder if they’d like funds to be jacked from their bank accounts, because that’s essentially what’s happening. Money is money. Doesn’t matter if it’s 8 cents, 8 dollars, it’s the principle. Crooks. Selfish Assholes. F*** Tiktok. I have seen nothing enriching or worthwhile come out of that hellhole of a social media platform.
What the hell is wrong with people? What a lovely way to show an author you value their work and the entertainment you’ve enjoyed. Turn around and pick their pockets. I think I’ve maybe returned 2 books out of thousands I have purchased over the years, and I felt guilty doing it! I am also seeking Amazon alternatives. Tired of their BS and the way they treat employees, authors and sellers. So disgusting.
Well, my patreon will let you get all the books in either mobi or epub eventually. Each release I’m handing out backlist books as thanks to those who contribute through patreon / have something to read while waiting for the main event. it’s not like the old books sell many copies for me, so it’s doing better going home with supporting readers. 🙂
First I have never returned a book to Amazon unless I need a refund but I keep all my E books and Audible books in my computer or one of my three readers as a back up so If I need to reread it again which I have done many time I have it. For Amazon I have noticed the books are getting really pricey and being retired I cannot afford to purchase E books or Audibles as I use to and I know it hurts the authors I wish there was better sight to sell on.
I may be confused. Is this referring to Kindle Unlimited? Which if it is, I am a little bit guilty. Of the 15-18 books I have read through Kindle Unlimited, I have turned around and purchased all but about three of them (none of them were yours). I purchased all the RJ Blain books I could find. I don’t know how to get books onto my Kindles except through Amazon, so if you can direct me to some directions for these Mobi? Kobo, and other methods, I will try them. Your comments in the last several posts make me as irritated as Hell with Amazon.
No, it’s not referring to kindle unlimited. It’s referring to books people actually buy. I HOPE Amazon is paying people for t he pages you did read… oof. But unfortunately, there’s no way of knowing; Amazon is not transparent about pages read.
That is just sad. I enjoy the library and if I am leery about a book/author that is where I pick it up. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.
I believe that I have returned several books and a few audiobooks but I wasen’t even at 25% when those occurred.
Sharing everywhere. My sales are much smaller, but I had 1 return in January and February combined, then 5 in March. The small press publisher I use had 4 in February and 29 in March. I was speaking with a KDP help desk, asking where I could find returns data – you can only go back 90 days at this point. I told them to expect many more requests for historical data, and I told them what was going on.