Is Amazon's ebook return policy ruining authors' careers?

A petition is gaining popularity demanding that Amazon changes its policy on ebook returns.

The current return policy on Kindle ebooks is that a customer can receive a full refund within 14 days of purchase. The policy applies regardless of how much of the book has been read.

Critics worry that people are reading entire books and returning them regardless of enjoyment.

Author Reah Foxx started a petition on Change.org that has already garnered over 20,000 signatories.

“There has been a huge upswing in author’s ebooks being returned to Amazon AFTER they have been read,” she writes in the petition.

“When you have read the book, you CONSUMED the product. Returning a book after reading 10-20% is one thing. But when the book has been read in its entirety it should not be allowed to be returned. End of discussion.”

She goes on to explain that authors are charged a download fee for customer purchases which isn’t reimbursed when readers return the book. This can lead to authors making overall losses when too many people return their purchases.

“In other words, the AUTHOR paid for that person to read their book!” she writes.

Sue Bordley is a teacher and author who has self-published multiple books through Amazon under her name and a pseudonym, Jess Molyneux. Forgoing the gatekeepers in publishing houses, Bordley has found Amazon incredibly useful in forging her literary career.

“Publishers are giving celebrities book deals to write novels because there’s a ready-made fanbase instead of taking a chance on an unknown author,” she says. “But if you can make use of self-publishing and social media, you can get noticed.”

But Bordley notes that just because Amazon doesn’t have publishing gatekeepers, it doesn’t make the act of writing a book any