Part Two: Scenes From My Supplicant Relationship with Amazon
In our first install of A Book in You, we considered the lengths obscure authors should go to cuddle-up with the planet’s pre-eminent publishing platform. Not far is the short answer. We then offered some humbling arrangements for squeezing your post publication juices out of the bewildering, impersonal, and ultimately casino-like interior of an Amazon landing page.
In Part One, we rolled the dice across the craps table of self-publishing: Oh the heights we can scale and the walls we can crash in the act of merchandising our better manuscripts!
We considered the potentials for reaching that vast untethered legion of kindred communities. We talked about how this aspiration is the author’s to carry, not the platform’s. Only the writer can plant and nurture the relationship between their creative works and their audience of engaged readers, as tempting as it may be to pair one’s literary gifts with their digital marketing plans.
In this install, we break down my unprofessional relationship with Amazon into three acts:
(1) a fantasy dialog between the two of us as I dip my toes into the Amazon rapids.
(2) a real-life transaction of me insisting on a refund from a no-returns policy of a non-existent product.
(3) a fictionalized best face on what Amazon could be if it got out of its own way to refactor the needs of its content providers and customers.
Act One
A Fantasy Comment Box is Closed for Repairs
Time to go off-script. Here’s my imaginary groveling with the casino operator side, Dr. Amazon:
Me: I’ve got a storehouse of lessons to share. They draw from 35+ years of interrogating databases and teaching search technologies how to interpret human desires for knowledge. Not vases, body wash, screen protectors, or even a case of hand sanitizer. I’m here to sell know-how about K-N-O-W-L-E-D-G-E. I’m here to suggest ways to improve what you do whenever you’re conscious of the time and effort required to take a concerted set of actions, a.k.a. R-E-S-E-A-R-C-H.
Dr. Amazon: How you going to pour this intangible product you describe into a package?
Me: I taught aspiring private investigators how to find the bad guys. But also how to apply their own passionate embrace for research-based problem-solving to catch the bad guys.
Dr. Amazon: Isn’t this just a pulp fiction embellishment for running a credit score against a criminal record?
Me: You reduce everything to a transaction. You’re leaving out the off-screen non-automated calculations like skepticism, intuition, and even the rule-making machine in more highly evolved human thinking before the algorithms ever fire. Sort of like which pattern am I trying to match?
Dr. Amazon: Who you decide to trust is your own consumer prerogative. We’re here to give you the least resistance at the point of sale. That’s the trust business we run here at Amazon.
Me: I’m here to nurture the take no one’s word until we test it our in our own kitchens of research. A healthy skepticism is our best defense against a cynical blanket condemnation of all claims on truth.
Dr. Amazon: But that doesn’t mean you get to cherry-pick the truths about your book.
Me: The review part of my customers’ review copy is naturally, optional. I ask for their feedback in a public setting based on the same credo we explored for unpacking the limitations of mutual interest: One cannot confer credibility unto themselves!
Dr. Amazon: That’s why we quality check our book reviews against quid pro quos and other likely review inflation arrangements.
Me: But then again, why is there a market for everything you touch? That includes the black market that exists for peddling fake reviews?
Dr. Amazon: That’s one of the occupational hazards of being a transaction engine. And being a tech company that shovels cruise ships full of content to waiting shipyards of newsfeeds. Did we mention we’re not in the content business? We’re a tech company.
Me: And you are also a public company. In public life today, power is measured by degrees of being public. I’m not on your board of anything. But not all influence is for sale. Not all trust systems need to run on faith alone. Reporters who do their searching out loud can trust in their own evidence-gathering, not on any one evidence provider. No matter how loudly they announce themselves
Dr. Amazon: At least our customers know where they’ll end up, along with their packages.
Me: That’s another place we part ways. The declarative act of Searching Out Loud means using the information we get over the web to resolve questions that require independence free of predetermined conclusions. The less we know about where our investigations may lead, the more we need to search out loud.
Act Two
An Actual Exchange: This Chat May Be Recorded for Quality Assurance
Speaking of phone calls, here’s a verbatim transcript of a chat session between myself and a support professional reached through the “Contact Us” section in the “Need More Help” link of the “Browse Topics” tucked under Terms and Conditions buried in the page footer.
That’s…
Contact Us > Need More Help > Terms and Conditions > Browse Topics > Chat Option
… if you’re scoring at home.
As we pick up the action I’m trying to recover some money for an e-book I tried to gift to a former student in Nigeria who was unable to access the link provided here.
- 9:20 PM
Mirthuna | Customer Service
Marc, In order to download the book , the recipient need to update a US address in her account
- 9:20 PM
She doesn’t live in the U.S.
- 9:20 PM
Mirthuna | Customer Service
I understand that however in order to download the book she need to update a US address in her account for a moment to download the book
- 9:22 PM
She is not going to commit fraud in order to download an e-book. Please refund me the cost of this order.
- 9:23 PM
Mirthuna | Customer Service
Please give me a chance so that I can help you with the issue
Could you please help me with the address as well the zip code?
And so on. Thirty interactions over thirty-two minutes. Passed between three customer service reps. Yes, I was finally granted a $9.99 refund for a product that can never be used.
So what did we learn? There is a non-anglicized person in reserve should actual exchanges spill over the menu options and into the realm of human complexity.
The above exchange happened last week when it took over 30 interactions over thirty-two minutes for me to be passed between three such customer care reps before I was granted my narrow micro-victory: a refund for a book that can never be read. There is the e-book and the paperback. But there is no Nigerian version and the student has no physical US-based address.
Did you know none of your non-U.S.-based friends and contacts can be gifted books from Amazon.us.com? Hopefully I just spared you 32 minutes.
Act Three
A Fictionalized Win-Win: The Professional Advantages of Dignifying Amazon Customers
In this future setting I’m about to hit the payment button when the shipping costs give me pause. In this scenario the customer support chat is built into the checkout page:
Me: I’m buying multiple copies of my own book and paying the full retail price. Is there a reason I’m being charged $5.99 a pop on the shipping for each book? The total cost of the order puts me well above the free shipping threshold.
Sensible Post Corona Amazon: Yes, that’s true. However, your book is being sent to many addressees in your contacts list.
Me: It’s also true that I’m paying full price and that the shipment accounts for over 50% of the cost of each order.
Sensible Post Corona Amazon: Let me ask you a few questions: (1) Do you need to recoup the royalties on your shipment? (2) Do your contacts expect our reliable two day express shipping for their orders?
Me: Great questions, Amazon. What would I say by saying no to both questions?
Sensible Post Corona Amazon: You could slice the cost of each shipment by close to half.
Me: Well, being that you hold onto my royalty payments for months at a time, I’m in no great hurry to receive my __% cut if it lowers my upfront costs. Also, there are no holiday deadlines or birthdays involved here so timely shipments are not a factor.
Sensible Post Corona Amazon: We can waive those.
Me: Nice!
Sensible Post Corona Amazon: Also, we can offer you discounts of up to 10% on bulk orders of 100 or more books.
Me: Sounds like the right marketing strategy for getting this book out of its landing page and into the mail-boxes of the people who don’t know the author but will recognize the value of the resource.
Sensible Post Corona Amazon: Glad to help amplify the volume of trust-based transactions.
That’s truly what will spell the difference between a future where an Amazon package is a welcome arrival or an unsolicited distraction, i.e. the rest of the recycle pile from today’s mail.