MAN VS. MACHINE

We don’t write books to pay for someone’s rocket fuel…

It’s time to speak out and stand up against the world’s biggest online book retailer.

Writing a novel is lengthy and laborious but it is done with the greatest of intentions; to bring pleasure to the reader. To create characters and plots requires attention to detail and thoughtful consideration, so is it fair that corporate greed takes so much from the end product?

The average price of an ebook is £3.99. It may shock you to know that the monolith takes the first £1.20 of that as its own, and then proceeds to take another 49p to distribute the book digitally. Meaning for the £3.99 purchase price you paid, the author receives £2.30.

For a paperback, the numbers are even more depressing. For a paperback priced at £7.99, the author gets paid the paltry sum of 17p (2% of the price you paid). At £8.99 this increases to 89p (10%), but after that, you actually price your book out of the market.

What then makes things even worse (if it could be any worse) is that you need to pay the monolith to advertise your book on its platform, which of course eats into your profit margin further. That’s expected, I hear you say, and we all agree, until you find out the platform expects immediate payment for those adverts each month, but pays the author’s royalties 60 days after the end of the month in which the book was purchased.

The platform for selling books independently was, is, and forever will be, designed purely to increase one man’s net worth. I am all for anybody making a profit, as that’s capitalism, but corporate greed, no, that just isn’t fair.

This is why Harlan and the Satan’s Security MC© novels will ALWAYS be cheaper on our website than theirs. First, with the eBooks and then, when we’re able to do so, the paperbacks. The Harlan Action Thriller Series has been written to be enjoyed by as many as possible, as cheaply as possible. It’s time to stop feeding the machine. It’s time to do the right thing.

Support your favourite authors so we can continue to support you. Buy direct.

Cheers, H.