Content Pricing on Amazon, difficulties having a free ebook

[Hellmark]

So, a years ago I made an ebook of a public domain story that I hadn't seen available, and I threw things up in most of the normal places. Because it was public domain, I set things to be free. The problem is, on Amazon the book is no longer listed as free, and I cannot figure out how to change it back to be free. Any time I set the price back to 0, it complains and wants it to be at least 99 cents USD, plus in the help I am seeing "Note: You can't set your book's list price as free."

Is there any way to have this as free on Amazon again? I really hate that it somehow is no longer free, as I don't feel that it is right that it is being sold. I did my part to help preserve it, and to help give back to the community.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Hellmark

So, a years ago I made an ebook of a public domain story that I hadn't seen available, and I threw things up in most of the normal places. Because it was public domain, I set things to be free. The problem is, on Amazon the book is no longer listed as free, and I cannot figure out how to change it back to be free. Any time I set the price back to 0, it complains and wants it to be at least 99 cents USD, plus in the help I am seeing "Note: You can't set your book's list price as free."

Is there any way to have this as free on Amazon again? I really hate that it somehow is no longer free, as I don't feel that it is right that it is being sold. I did my part to help preserve it, and to help give back to the community.

Amazon do not allow a book's price to be set as Free. But if they find that is is available for free elsewhere, they will mark its price as free themselves. You could try reporting it as found free elsewhere from the book's Amazon page, assuming it is still available elsewhere as free.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Amazon do not allow a book's price to be set as Free. But if they find that is is available for free elsewhere, they will mark its price as free themselves. You could try reporting it as found free elsewhere from the book's Amazon page, assuming it is still available elsewhere as free.

They now seem to ignore price reports and randomly price 99c as free or 99c by marketplace when free elsewhere.

You can set free on Google Playstore Playbooks and Smashwords/Draft2Digital, who distribute to Kobo, Apple, Barnes&Noble and others at "free".

You also now see a different price depending on if you are logged in and which Marketplace the Kindle is registered. Many marketplaces now no longer show me any Kindle price when Logged in.

There is also the separate issue that really you should be setting price to retailer and the retailer then should pay that no matter what price they charge. The way MS store, Apple store and Google Playstore and KDP (Amazon ebooks or paper) works is illegal in many countries for "bricks and mortar" stores/retailers.

At under $100 p.a. you can have a good domain name and decent hosting with SSL (for HTTPS) and offer free ebooks like Global Grey and Standard ebooks do.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Hellmark

Is there any way to have this as free on Amazon again? I really hate that it somehow is no longer free, as I don't feel that it is right that it is being sold. I did my part to help preserve it, and to help give back to the community.

No, there is no sensible way to have it definitely free on Amazon.

We've been thinking of putting free (our copyright) and PD ebooks we've formatted on https://www.corvidspress.com/ but we do have them on Apple, Barnes&Noble, Kobo (via Smashwords) and Google Playstore (via Playbooks). We use the same epub for Amazon, Smashwords and Google and additionally use a Calibre "Dual Mobi" which seems to work fine on Mobi only Kindles as well as all later kindles that do AZW3, or AZW3 and KFX.

You could host free PD ebooks on your own site at under $100 pa, or maybe we should start doing it?

We did long ago operate shopping sites for ebooks and electronics components using Paypal, but it's too much hassle and security issues doing retail.

PM me if you want to discuss PD publishing further. We have maybe 100+ Celtic and Norse PD texts we have cleaned up that we want to offer free, and it's not feasible on Amazon.

There is also a PD library here. https://www.mobileread.com/forums/fo...play.php?f=132

Unfortunately Project Gutenberg (the world's biggest PD library) has their own Lowest Common Denominator concept of Formatting, the opposite to https://standardebooks.org/ebooks so they are unsuitable except for plain proofed text that don't aready have.
See https://www.gutenberg.org/help/publi...ubmission.html
They do have some sort of system for contemporary works offered free
https://www.gutenberg.org/help/submi..._own_work.html
Why they want plain text for PD and PDF for free self-published is a bit mad. There is a logic to plain text, but none to PDF. PDF is a end-format for print and useless as source or for ereaders.

[Hellmark]

I have it on smashwords, and via them, a bunch of other sites for free.

It isn't on the library here yet because it isn't life+70 yet. I did verify that the copyright was fully lapsed under the old system in the country of origin and the US but it has about 5 years yet before it hits 70 (131 year old book that was out of print since the 1890s, but the author wrote it when he was young).

When did Amazon change to not allow free books anymore? Looking at stats on this book on Amazon, it looks like it happened in maybe 2019 or 2020, because it went from having hundreds of downloads, to next to none. I just don't remember seeing anything about it. I've never been a big kindle person, preferring ePub, and avoid DRM when I can, so really been out of the loop (plus last few years have been crazy personally)

[Quoth]

Amazon do have free books and bigger publishers can set them free. You just can't select "free" on basic Amazon KDP, and been that way for years.

If it's a series of more than 10 books at a sensible price, and you set the 1st to US$0.99 everywhere and it's free everywhere else, then Amazon may set it to free unilaterally without communication, and might later reset it, or put it to the $US 0.99 equivalent elsewhere later.

Also on KDP you can't differentiate Ireland (€ and EU) and UK (£ and not EU), though Irish Kindles can only use USA OR UK store, but in reality it's the UK price and availability now converted to US$. Also this year (approximately) the non-KDP publishers can make a book available in UK or USA and not Ireland, or set a separate UK £ / US$ price for Irish Customers.

Kobo does have an Irish store and mostly the the US$ or UK£ price as Euros, but occasionally higher or unavailable even on UK titles, which is very odd.

This is strange, because since 1922, UK rights have included Ireland for books, magazines and music and mostly the same as UK price plus currency hedge since currency split (before euro). Even UK TV rights (except sometimes sport) have included Ireland (no Local TV till 1962, but many received UK), but not vice versa due to 20x bigger market.

I'm not even sure of the legality of Amazon forcing Irish Kindle users to use a non-EU site. We can use Amazon Germany for many items and even with shipping Germany-Ireland it can be cheaper than Amazon UK with "free" shipping. Germany same currency, no customs and Amazon DE has English as well as German. It's also used by Austria, Switzerland and others.

[modismos]

Originally Posted by Hellmark

Spoiler:

So, a years ago I made an ebook of a public domain story that I hadn't seen available, and I threw things up in most of the normal places. Because it was public domain, I set things to be free. The problem is, on Amazon the book is no longer listed as free, and I cannot figure out how to change it back to be free. Any time Idioms set the price back to 0, it complains and wants it to be at least 99 cents USD, plus in the help I am seeing "Note: You can't set your book's list price as free."

Is there any way to have this as free on Amazon again? I really hate that it somehow is no longer free, as I don't feel that it is right that it is being sold. I did my part to help preserve it, and to help give back to the community.

It can be frustrating dealing with Amazon's pricing policies, especially with public domain works.

I think, Amazon generally doesn't allow self-published authors to set their books to be permanently free. However, you might consider enrolling the book in Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) Select, which allows for limited-time free promotions.

Alternatively, you could direct readers to other platforms where the ebook is free.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by modismos

IHowever, you might consider enrolling the book in Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) Select, which allows for limited-time free promotions.

No, because that gives Amazon exclusivity and "free" only long term to subscribers.
Terrible advice. Cementing a monopoly for someone that already has over 90% of English Language Ebook sales, maybe even 95% now.

Originally Posted by modismos

Alternatively, you could direct readers to other platforms where the ebook is free.

Yes, but how? Amazon naturally forbid that on the book's web page. It is free on other platforms.