Goodwill at the end
Amazon tightens return rules for e-books – soon no more refunds for bookworms
E-books are great: Thousands of books fit on an e-book reader – but the devices can become a problem for authors.
© Jens Kalaene / Picture Alliance
For years, e-books, also on Amazon, were a very cheap way for fast readers to consume books almost for free. Apparently this will come to an end in the future.
At Amazon you can return almost anything within 14 days – and get the full price back. For years, this also applied to e-books, which could simply be canceled within this period, regardless of “use”. Of course, this was primarily intended in case a supposed bestseller turns out to be an absolute flop – less so in the event that you devoured the book in record time. A change in the guidelines that Amazon is apparently planning shows that returns of read books must have occurred quite often.
From ten percent, Amazon makes a case-by-case decision
The New York Interest Group”The Authors Guild” reports that Amazon will only take back digital books in the future if less than ten percent of the pages have been read when the complaint is made. The digital game shop Steam, for example, is pursuing a similar strategy, which only accepts returns if games are available at the time less than two hours after the cancellation.
The policy change apparently stems from conversations between Amazon and authors, who complained about a lack of revenue, despite the fact that many people had purchased the respective works. The said returns were probably identified as the reason for this.
Social media is partly to blame
In the USA, the new regulation should take effect this year, when Amazon will also introduce the restriction for Germany is still open. Social media, above all Tiktok, are apparently also fueling the trend towards returning books that have been read, reports “The Daily Dot“.
According to this, there was a veritable wave of cancellations under the hashtag “#Booktok” after influential personalities had pointed out that you could read a book for free if you hurried – even if this hint was part of a discussion in many cases as to whether that be okay at all.
You hardly have to ask the salespeople about this, because the clear answer there is: “Of course not”. On the contrary: the author K. Bromberg pointed out Twitter pointed out that in the event of cancellation, authors would not only lose the purchase price, but would even have to pay additional fees. This is how it can happen, writes Bromberg, that you owe money to Amazon despite successful sales at the end of the month. Sharing the same experience Lisa Kessler on Twitter. Both authors felt compelled to point out the obvious fact that Amazon is not a library.