Wednesday 13 July 2011

Slightly overpriced





Last night I was surprised to find two listings on Amazon.com for two of my printed books. A company called Origin were selling The Great Rock N Roll Doomsday Tour and The Sci Fi Freak's Guide To The Televisual Galaxy in hardback and paperback form for over $100 each! This is something of a retail markup since these are currently only available from lulu.com in these formats at not even a third of this price.
Now I happen to think that my work is pretty good. I very much enjoy writing it and reading it afterwards, but even I'm not going to suggest that it's worth a whopping $130.
I did complain to Amazon customer services who said that Origin are well within their rights to buy and sell my book at whatever price they wish on the Marketplace and therefore that's the end of it as far as they are concerned.
I also emailed Origin directly asking where they had bought the books that they were planning to sell at this ridiculous markup and they have not, as yet, responded.
Interestingly enough, however,  the listing for The Sci Fi Freak's Guide To The Televisual Galaxy has since disappeared as mysteriously as it appeared.
I don't have problems with people reselling my books and making money off them if they buy them legally in the first place and Origin do appear to have a very good feedback history, but the listing is really rubbish with no image, no description and this stupid price and I would hate to think that I was being linked to it through being the author.
I will give it another couple of days and then I might leave a review saying that I think it's wonderful, but people should look elsewhere on price.