He Did It! No, He Did It! A Small Conflict With Amazon.

Thanks to a heads up from a friendly reader I discovered that Amazon Customer Service has been telling readers that I don't offer any free eBooks on their site because I don't want to.

The question put to Amazon Customer Care was: "How come you're charging .99 for Randolph Lalonde's Spinward Fringe Broadcast 0: Origins ebook download when your competitors are giving it for free, and even the author is advertising the first book free?"


To which Amazon.com Customer Care answered: "I understand that you want to know why there is a charge of $0.99 for the Kindle book Randolph Lalonde's Spinward Fringe Broadcast 0: Origins.

The price you pay in the Kindle Store is based on a number of factors, including the initial publisher price. In some cases the publisher, not Amazon, sells the Kindle book or other content. In these cases the price is set by the publisher and you will see "This price was set by the publisher" on the product page.

In the case of Origins (Spinward Fringe), the price you pay has been set by the seller. You can see the price set by the seller on the product page here:

Best regards,

NAME WITHHELD
Amazon.com
Your feedback is helping us build Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company."

Let me tell you my side of things. Amazon does not allow me to offer my book for free. Other indie authors can, and do, and I don't know how they manage it, but I can't. Here's what happens when I try to enter a price of $0.00 on their interface:

I'm not posting this to insult Amazon, they've been very good to me and to most of my readers. I just couldn't let Customer Service tell my readers something that's not entirely true without presenting my side. I hope to continue to have a good relationship with Amazon, and that the millions of Kindle users continue to enjoy their services.

RL

[Please don't sue me or pull my books from distribution, Amazon!]