Amazon’s point of no return
“If you try to spew the absolute c**p that is ‘returning a book after you’ve read it is theft’, I need you to delete your social media account.” Those were the words of TikTok user @readinglikesappho, who posted a frustrated video as another salvo in a war being waged on “BookTok”, the influential corner of TikTok that has become a critical part of the publishing ecosystem.
The controversy erupted after numerous videos drew attention to a little-known fact about Amazon’s ebook policies, which entitle customers to request a refund and get their money back for up to 14 days after purchase.
Unsurprisingly, authors weren’t happy about this trick becoming more widely known, with some claiming to have lost money following the “trick” going viral – both in terms of lost revenue, but also in money that this latter claim, while widely repeated, is “completely inaccurate” and that “the cost of a return offsets exactly what’s paid out for a sale”.)
