No I don’t mean me, but thanks for looking. I’m actually meaning un-gifted. It’s a topic that pisses off a lot of authors and so it should. It’s demeaning, it’s rude, and it’s probably going to cause the whole gifting thing to fall down. You know what I’m talking about, right? Gifts. Authors who ‘gift’ their book to people on Amazon. They buy their own book, pay real money for it, and send the certificate to a ‘winner’ to claim. It’s a happy time. They count as a sale, they get a smidgeon of that money back (EVENTUALLY) and they have a new reader. Right? Wrong.
I have gifted a lot of books, a lot. More than I’ve sold. Why? I don’t know anymore. Seventy five percent of my books that I’ve gifted to people for other authors’ release events, from my own competitions, as donations … seventy five percent … never showed up as sales. What? That’s right, and it’s because instead of redeeming my book, as gifted, they swap it for Amazon credit. Charming. They’ve entered a competition, they know what the prize is, they seem so happy and grateful and say how much they’re looking forward to it – BS. They get the certificate and they exchange it for credit. Ouch.
These people have ruined it for everyone else to the point where petitions are being put to Amazon to prevent the exchanging of gifted books for credit. So they should. There are wonderful people out there, legitimately grateful people who are excited they won something and willing to try a new to them author. We love you. As authors, we love you and we are incredibly grateful that you tried us – regardless of whether you liked the book or left a review or not, you tried us. Thank you for accepting the gifts as they were intended. I’m sorry that the others are ruining this for you. We know who they are though. We know which gifts never showed up as sales, we know the people who do this, and we know we’ve been slighted again.
I personally can’t do it anymore. I’m not gifting my books through Amazon anymore (except to the people who won the Ruthless Beings for life competition way back when, because I know they will claim.)
It’s simple. IF YOU DON’T WANT THE PRIZE, DON’T ENTER THE COMPETITION. But some people can’t do simple, so they tend to ruin it for everyone else. Sorry.
If you legitimately want to read one of my books, and you legitimately can’t afford to, send me a message on Facebook and I’ll see what I can do for you. I’ve done it before.
(That petition is probably still floating around on Change.org if you want to sign it too.)
ruthgjuliano 