Just found out that Amazon will be charging an annual fee of $29.95 for selling through their Advatange Program – which is how “The Bet” is selling.

Please note the annual fee for continuied (sic) participation in the Amazon.com Advantage program will be deducted from your July sales payment. The annual fee is $29.95. The deduction will be indicated as a line item on your July payment. However, if you have not yet sold enough to cover the fee it will be deducted automatically from future monthly payments up until the fee has been paid in full.

Keep in mind, the film lists for $12.99, of which, we only get $5.85 – Amazon pockets the rest. And now they want to charge an annual fee on top of the 55% they keep from each sale. Since Februrary, we’ve only sold 5 copies through Amazon, instead pushing to keep the sales at Film Baby (where we get $8.99 from each sale). I’m wondering if maybe I should cancel the Amazon deal (since the 5 copies that have sold, still won’t even cover the annual fee). Thing is, those are sales that we never really pushed for, as far as I know. It’s great to have the films available through Amazon (and it’s partners, like Target.com and a slew of independent places), but I just can’t see giving them 55% of each sale AND paying an annual fee for what amounts to the “handling” part of shipping and handling. They are high profile, which is the only reason it’s tough to end the relationship (despite all the other issues we’ve had with them regarding shipping, notifications, etc.).

I’ll have to mull this one over. But it’s not looking good.

After looking over how to cancel the program, they will sell the remaining inventory and pay out as usual. They currently have 6 DVDs of “The Bet” in stock. So, pretty much those sales will cover the annual fee they are charging (if they all sell by the end of the year).

Pissed.