Amazon Smacks the Small Sellers- What Else is New?

I just got a notice from Amazon:

If we determine that there is insufficient customer demand for your product, we may choose to no longer carry it. In such cases, we will attempt to return all Products to you.

Please be sure to update your return address so that we can properly process returns to your organization. This address should be a valid US street address rather than a PO Box. You can update your address by going to Settings->Return Address. If we have an outdated or incorrect address for you, or if we cannot charge to your freight account, we may liquidate the Products and keep the proceeds, destroy the Products, or ship the Products to you and deduct the charges from any payments due to you through Advantage.

We apologize for any inconvenience but at this time we cannot provide you with any item level return information prior to the return being processed.

So what they are saying is that if not enough of your books sell through Amazon that they may or may not return any to you that they have, and they aren't going to tell you how few sales is too few. In other words, they can just cut you off without any warning.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Amazon is terrible for small-volume sales. A publisher barely covers the cost of the book by the time all the discounts and fees are applied. Now, in addition to preventing you from making any money, they may even prevent you from presenting your book to the public at large through a company which at least provides credibility.

I wonder if my sales will be enough to keep me in Amazon. I sell about four a year there, and they only keep one in stock.

If you are a small seller, just be sure that your return address in your Advantage Central file is up to date!

End of the Line with Partners Distributing

I have to say that my experiences with distributors hasn't been very good. North Country Cache has been listed with two of them. However, I got a certified letter from Partners today that it is "in our best interest to terminate our agreement with your company." I have to say that the feeling is mutual. Here's the story.

Ever since I've been peddling NCC around to bookstores, I am often asked what distributors I work with, and if the store was in the upper Midwest they usually asked about Partners. I kept dragging my feet, because it was just one more pile of paperwork, and I appreciated the independent stores that would deal with me directly.

Finally, summer of 2009, I got things going with Partners. They took four cases of books! I was pretty psyched about that.

Well, in November of 2010, a big box of books came back to me that had been returned to them from bookstores. They were all too damaged for me to sell. I called and complained.

Just a couple of weeks ago another 1 1/2 cases came back. Thankfully, one case was unopened, ever, so those are fine. The rest are, again, too damaged for me to sell.

I called and had a long conversation with their service rep. She said that they have to take returns from stores, and admitted that stores aren't careful with the books. The current status of my books was that they have about one case still out in stores, and one more on hand. So far, I've received $152, and she estimated that I have another $88 coming. This is not very much money for all of that shuffling around of heavy books. (read shipping costs).

So... should I have kept a low profile, and not complained? Would that have kept me under the radar so that I'd still be listed in their distribution? Who knows. I do know that having over 1/4 of the stock returned too damaged to sell is too high of a rate for me to live with.

I was also not happy with their monthly reports, which were impossible to understand, so I never really knew if they were selling books or not.

Perhaps it's for the best. North Country Cache sells best at programs I give and through personal contacts, anyway.

NCC reached a nice milestone for a self-published books in 2010. I have now sold over 1000 copies!