Anyone who has taken advantage of Amazon’s liberal return policy on e-books may soon be in for a surprise. That is because after talks with the Authors UnionAmazon has agreed to block automatic returns of digital books that are read by more than 10 percent.
Currently, the problem for authors on Amazon is that customers can return e-books online at any time within seven days of purchase, no matter how much content has been consumed. That means if you can read a book in less than a week, you can simply return it when you’re done for free, resulting in a loss of profit for the author.
However, under the new policy that is scheduled to go into effect sometime before the end of the year, Amazon will start blocking automatic returns of e-books that are more than 10 reads, which will then need to be reviewed by a representative. to ensure that the return is genuine. The Authors Guild says the goal is to deter people who abuse Amazon’s current policy and prevent people from treating Amazon’s e-book marketplace like a ersatz library.
Issues with Amazon’s eBook return policy go back more than a decade, but recently came under fire again after tricks about the company’s guidelines began circulating online. Y according to NPRin some cases, abuse of the company’s return policy even resulted in some authors having negative earnings balances, which typically occurred when customers returned an ebook after Amazon had paid the creator.
Fortunately, after both the Authors Guild and the UK Society of Authors raised concerns earlier this year, it appears that Amazon has finally decided to update its policy, with the Authors Guild releasing a statement thanking the company for ” take action in good faith. against the abuse of returns.
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