As gift-giving season draws closer, publishers look to retailers to stock up for the holidays, but this season, one of the largest retailers, Amazon, decided to drastically cut book orders to publishers. The cuts are due to space issues in Amazon’s warehouses as they make room for “bigger-ticket items for Black Friday and Cyber Monday,” Publisher’s Weekly suggests. This choice to cut orders has a significant impact on publishers, resulting in lower sales during a season when publishers count on high buy-ins. Amazon’s decision is especially hurtful to indie publishers who rely heavily or completely on Amazon for sales. The decision “will affect publishers’ bottom lines for months to come,” Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) states. Despite the fact that Amazon began as an online bookstore in 1994, its ever-increasing dominance and power creates a dependency that ultimately hurts the book industry. Amazon has no devotion or concern for the book industry, and its decision to cut book orders demonstrates just how important it is for book lovers to avoid Amazon for book purchases. The head of one company suggested moving more sales to retailers like Walmart and Barnes & Noble, but the best thing book buyers can do to support the industry is to make purchases from local independent bookstores. Purchasing from indie bookstores supports jobs, authors, and the local economy in a way that large retailers like Amazon simply cannot. Despite its convenience, Amazon is ultimately a harm to the book industry. This season, support your local community…

Pre-order. You might be surprised to learn that pre-ordering a book is critical to the launch of a book. Publishers may make decisions about how much marketing support to provide a new release based on the volume of pre-orders. Some even determine the size of a first print run using those numbers. If a book has strong pre-order sales, reviewers are more likely to review it, the media is more likely to hype it up, and retailers are more likely to carry it in stock and give it premium placement. If you know an author has a book coming out, please pre-order it. Write a review on Amazon and/or Goodreads. It doesn’t need to be very long or a deep literary analysis. The number of reviews a book receives affects the algorithms for getting found online. If you don’t like the book, don’t leave a review. As my mother used to say, “If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” Spread the word. Let your friends and family know how much you enjoyed a book. Share this on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or wherever you do social media. Take a book-selfie. Post a picture of the book, your cat lying across the couch with a paw on the cover, you falling asleep on the couch with the book. Follow. Many authors have Facebook Pages you can like and follow. On Twitter, many authors have accounts and you can follow them and retweet to amplify their voices. Follow authors on…

What do you do when a review of your book appears on Amazon that is fake or abusive? Or when you find copies of your book being sold on Amazon that infringe on your copyright? Worried someone has pirated your book? Have a problem with your product listing? Third-party sellers set as the default setting to buy your book? You discover someone selling Advance Review Copies of your book as new? You can communicate with Amazon directly, of course. And you should. Infringement of your copyright or trademarks should be reported to your publisher, too. But many authors have found Amazon to be unresponsive or unsatisfying in their response to their concerns. The Authors Guild now offers to help resolve authors’ complaints with Amazon. They have opened a direct dialogue with Amazon and have been reporting these types of incidents to them on an informal basis for more than a year. They have learned which issues represent legitimate use cases and which do not, and they have been able to get some of these issues resolved. By collecting and amplifying authors’ complaints, the Authors Guild is able to work on these issues on behalf of authors everywhere. When Authors Guild members believe they are being harmed as authors (not customers) by Amazon practices and policies, or online communication has not yielded a timely response, the Guild is your advocate. Authors Guild members may now file complaints with Amazon directly with the Guild. While you should report your complaints to Amazon, members…