Looks like I’ll be leaving Amazon soon…

Okay, first, go read this article: The International Digital Rights Mess (or Amazon’s Cock Up). If you don’t, here’s the recap: Without my permission, Amazon jacked up the prices of my books, BUT only to everyone outside the US. Why? Amazon is claiming “higher operating costs” and VAT are to blame. That’s bullshit. Why does an electronic store have higher operating costs for sending a digital product to a foreign buyer? And VAT on e-books is not so fucking high that you can justify a price increase from 0.49 cents to $2.43.

Yes, I’m pissed off. I’ve sent an email to Amazon, and they have one week to drop this policy. Otherwise, I will be pulling my books e-books from Amazon AND Mobipocket. If you want to buy my books, you’ll be able to get them at Smashwords, and you can download many titles for free from my site.

I’m pissed not because this is a typical corporate scumbag policy, and not because this kind of policy is way too common for Amazon. No, I’m pissed because my sales at Amazon were fan-fucking-tastic for an indie writer with no marketing budget. All of my e-books have dipped into the top 10,000 of Kindle sales at one time or another, and two cracked the top 100 for Horror sales. None of my books has risen above 35,000 in the sales ranks, indicating steady sales across the board.