Quote from: KinkyCat on August 08, 2025, 10:57:14 PM

I'm currently having a frustrating experience with price-matching, as well.  The book is a pre-order, and the bots are trying to use that as an excuse not to change it to $0.00.  They're stating it's always been the policy not to price-match pre-orders, but I just had a price-match to free for a pre-order in May of this year, so yeah, no.

I've never even thought of running a free preorder... you could still run it as a preorder outside of Amazon and then publish it after on Zon at a later publishing date (KU Or wide). Has free preorders helped with sales? I don't understand your marketing strategy. Are you garnering more reviews or getting co-series sales by giving away a future book?

It (was) a great way to have people slide into the second (paid) book in the series because I always have that available for pre-order when the permafree is published.  It definitely helps other series when the upcoming book ranks in the Free store, and I get reviews almost immediately on the permafree once it's live.

This whole thing will blow up that strategy now, so I'll probably have to pay for marketing sites to make up for all those pre-orders I won't have, assuming they'll even let the book go free.

We will keep our collective fingers crossed for you and anyone else in this situation.

It also seems to me that if someone halfway knew what they were doing, whether an upstart or an existing competitor, that someone could really give Amazon some serious competition if they were simply better organized and could maintain a better consistency.

I've often thought this, but it's apparent by now that no one wants to spend the time and effort on it. The big players (Google, Apple, Kobo--which is owned by multinational Rakuten) like Amazon, are doing a whole bunch of things simultaneously, As for Barnes and Noble, finding current information is tough. A supposedly 2025 report cites all kinds of 2019 data. Google's AI (whose conclusions always get thrust in my face) says that BN has 26.6% of the US market, which sounds oddly high--but it also goes on to say that it has 20% of the print and 9% of the digital market. There's really no way to get 26.6% out of print and digital sales like that. Does it include non-book sales? Who knows? But to be fair, this particular estimate is so far off because the data AI is getting is inconsistent.

I think we all had high hopes when BN changed ownership, but I'm not seeing any recent evidence of a big surge. If that's the case, BN may still just be struggling to survive. At one point, their profit margin was resting almost entirely on their management of college bookstores--a lucrative and steady source of income.

Maybe, there's some David that could take on the Amazon Goliath, but it hasn't yet emerged.

It's curious that Amazon places more emphasis on Apple. Poking around on the internet, it appears that Apple may now be the #2 source for ebooks (after Amazon). But finding accurate figures for 2024 or the first part of 2025 is difficult.

That's really weird. For my books, Apple sells the least # this year--I mean super low sales on Apple for me in 2025. I get far more B&N and Kobo sales. Even GooglePlay is landing better sales than Apple these days.

I think Amazon has some sort of corporate connection with Apple over writing things. I know Apple works with Audible on audiobook review and approvals.

RC, did you get the book price matched?

Quote from: Bill Hiatt on August 04, 2025, 11:07:21 PM

It's curious that Amazon places more emphasis on Apple.

Are they?  Or is it a semi-automated response that just picked up on the mention of Apple in R.C.'s eMail?

That's a reasonable question, but one thing inclines me to think that Apple is the preferred price match.

no longer offer price matching with KoBoBooks, Barnes & Noble, or Smashwords

That's a surprisingly clear statement that Amazon doesn't price match with any of those. And if a reference in R. C.'s original query is what trigged the mention of Apple, why wouldn't references to other stores have gotten the same response instead of a diametrically opposed one?

It's also odd that the KDP support information regarding price matches refers only to third-party sites generally. I can't find a specific reference to Apple. Don't the bots usually start off by quoting the generic online information? (Of course, if it is actually Amazon's practice to match Apple only, it would be nice if the guidelines just said that.