[Warren Williams]

After raising the price on my Kindle book Fraidy Hole, I received notice from Amazon that I was not in compliance with their pricing requirements under the Terms and Conditions of the agreement.

Specifically, Barnes and Noble had a lower price. I assume that price was set by Smashwords since I uploaded to them as well as Amazon. I have now readjusted the price at Smashwords but wonder how long it will take them to pass the change on to Barnes & Noble.

Amazon gives me five days to make things right, threatening to remove my account for repeat violations. My question is, will Smashwords handle the changes or is further action required on my part?

Thanks.

 

[Amanda Brice]

Smashwords will handle it, but it might not get resolved before the end of the 5 days (and you're lucky you got 5 days -- most people I hear only get 48 hours), so you'll need to lower your Amazon price at the end of those 5 days if it still isn't fixed at B&N on time.

 

[TexasGirl]

It's important not to change Amazon's price back until ALL the other retailers are showing the higher price. They will nail you.

Lower that price until they all go through.

 

[Mathew Reuther]

It's important not to change Amazon's price back until ALL the other retailers are showing the higher price. They will nail you.

Lower that price until they all go through.

And really, you might want to wait until a couple of days go by just to avoid the cached links.

 

[TexasGirl]

I still have the cached links problem two weeks out, so nowadays, if they price match when the sites clearly show the new price, I email KDP immediately.

When you've done BookBub or some other promo and your bump isn't going to last, two days can be huge in royalties.

 

[Cherise]

In other words (And I agree) :

Change your Amazon price back to the lower price this instant.
Change to the price you want on Smashwords.
Wait until every last one of the Smashwords distributed vendors has the price you want.
Wait another week.
Change to the price you want on Amazon.

 

[Mathew Reuther]

Wait another week.
Change to the price you want on Amazon.

Well, it certainly can't hurt to email KDP once you've confirmed that all other outlets are showing the higher price and ask them to make the change manually.

They either do it, or you wait a little while to set it yourself.

 

[Warren Williams]

Thanks to all for the advice. Hopefully, the Mighty Amazon is happy now.

 

[Guest]

I really wish Amazon would allow people to set "normal" sale prices without having to do gymnastics with the retail price. The retail price should really be a constant across all vendors. Running a sale would be so much more effective if you could actually position it as a "sale" and not just a price change. The psychological impact on a customer of seeing...

Retail price: $5.99
Sale price: .99

...is so much more substantial than just lowing the price to 99 cents and conditioning people who see it to think that is the normal price. Particularly with people who rule out lower priced books for an assortment of reasons (assumptions of book being poorly edited, assuming book is cheap, etc).

 

[Judi Coltman]

I really wish Amazon would allow people to set "normal" sale prices without having to do gymnastics with the retail price. The retail price should really be a constant across all vendors. Running a sale would be so much more effective if you could actually position it as a "sale" and not just a price change. The psychological impact on a customer of seeing...

Retail price: $5.99
Sale price: .99

...is so much more substantial than just lowing the price to 99 cents and conditioning people who see it to think that is the normal price. Particularly with people who rule out lower priced books for an assortment of reasons (assumptions of book being poorly edited, assuming book is cheap, etc).

That would be ideal. And it would eliminate so much wasted time on pricing gymnastics.