First of all, before I begin with this week's post, I'd like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas! I didn't get my gifts so I'm going to assume that Santa wrote me in his naughty list this year...
This is the story of when I tried to purchase a short story I found the other day while going through my Twitter feed and I just felt compelled to read the rest of it (the author had provided a free sample on his website) but unfortunately, the short was only available on Amazon at the time.
You know, Amazon? The website that houses the works of almost every writer on the planet? The one which I used to publish my debut novel and a bunch of short stories as well? Well, apparently I live in Narnia, as I couldn't for the life of me purchase a copy (it was only made available through Kindle).
I wasn't all too happy to be honest, and after doing a ton of research, I figured out the reason why Amazon doesn't allow me to purchase Kindle books on the same platform I use to publish my Kindle books, and no you are not imagining... I do have a little bit of attitude, but what would you do were you in my place? Give Amazon a call? Yep you got that right!
I kept my Snapchat(@infrangilis) updated as the story was happening, and living in a small country, getting a call from Amazon is as exciting to some as the um... just imagine something very interesting alright? Thanks.
I stayed on the phone with Amazon for about two to three hours that day, while they checked their records and tried to help me (I feel I must add that they were extremely professional and just awesome), but my beef isn't with the employees, my beef is with the service itself.
Yes, they did inform me that the sole reason why I feel like am living in Narnia right now is simply due to them not having digital distribution rights in my country, but they did assure me that they are constantly expanding their reach and the middle east is definitely an area that they will not miss, but the thing is... I informed them via email and through conversation that I could expedite things over here.
We have an awesome ministry that takes care of the youth and all initiatives and I am almost positive that if I approach them with this, they'll do everything in their power to help bring the magic of Kindle books to our lovely country. Their response? Not much.
You might be thinking that I'm being a bit tough on Amazon even though they provide authors a lot of assistance and services, but seriously... It's a matter of principle, a person can publish their work through Kindle, but his local audience is basically being cut off by default. That's not okay, and I'm not that crazy about that to be honest.
So what's the point of this blog? Nothing, this is simply me steaming off my frustrations while hoping that it makes for a good story. I do not expect this to change anytime in the near future, but I felt like I needed to share this story.
Until next time,
Write on.Labels: amazon, bahrain, Blog, digital, kindle, narnia, rights
