Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Amazon Frustrations

Buy Offer the Demon HERE

by Shiela Stewart
Amazon frustrates me. Am I alone or are there others out there that have had problems with the in dealing with your books? Three years ago one of my publishers sold to another publishing house and most of the authors were either dropped or opted out.  I was one of those that opted out and took my books elsewhere. Since then I have been trying to get all the old publishers books removed from Amazon. Those books are currently published with another house with completely different covers.
I assumed, maybe foolishly, that the old publishing house would remove them. I was wrong. So here were my books, with the old pub house, posted along with the latest release. Not only are they up, but they have them in ebook and print. Now, I know they’re not available and when you go to purchase one it tells you that. Here is my problem. It’s confusing to the buyers. I had buyer contact me to say the book she wanted was no longer available and could she get it elsewhere. I informed her of the latest release of the book and guided her in the right direction.
So I’ve sent numerous emails asking for the books to be taken down. Given detailed information on the books information and I get the runaround. At first they tell me to get the current ISBN numbers so they can take down the old ones. I do that, send them to Amazon and get the reply back that I don’t have authorization to take them down and since the company is no longer operating there is no one to give the okay. They’re my books, but whatever.
Another year goes by and I try again thinking, well maybe I misunderstood them. This time they tell me they will have them removed but six months later they are still up there. I contact them and they tell me they don’t have the authorization to take the books down. UGH!!!!
Another year goes by and I try again, thinking there has to be a way to remedy this. So I tell them my problem, they send me a reply that says if the new publisher has different ISBN numbers for the new releases to let them know then they can have the books removed. Great!!! Yeah…not! I’m elated and give them information and ask how long it will take to have the books removed. Then I get this reply.
I’m sorry for any misunderstanding on our recent correspondences with regard to the request to remove some of your books from Amazon.com.

Kindly allow me to explain this situation to you.

Although we can list the availability message of the book on website to ‘Out of print’ and display it as an unavailable title, we cannot remove the Detail page completely from the website in order to support activities such as sales through Amazon.com Marketplace.

I realize this can be disappointing and I’m sorry for this.

UUUUGGGHHHH!
So okay fine, I’ll have that done. Put the sticker up that says out of print. But still, I think it will be confusing to the buyers as to why some of my books, with the same titles are not available. I’m worried it might discourage buyers from purchasing my books.  I’m not sure why Amazon has a ‘No Take Down’ policy. All I can say is that its frustrating.
On an up note, Offer the Demon, the second book in my Demon series is now available in print. Yeah!!!!!! Here is a little teaser.

Offer the Demon available at Decadent Publishing. 
http://tinyurl.com/c44fnw3

Satan doesn’t take no for an answer but Aurora Starr and Scott Monroe are about to challenge that.

Awaken the Demon book one now available in ebook and print. http://tinyurl.com/c2hhmz5
 

7 comments:

Barbara Elsborg said...

That is just plain crazy. It seems no one will do anything these days in case it comes back to bite them. I withdrew all my money from one bank account, closed it and a year later, they are still sending statements showing a nil balance. I tried calling to tell them - but its all computer generated and they want all sort of security details just to stop wasting THEIR money. It's mad.

Shiela Stewart said...

That’s ridiculous Barbara! A friend of mine moved and disconnected her cable service and went with satellite instead. Five months later she gets a call from the cable company informing her that if she doesn’t pay the bill for the past five months it will go to a collections agency. She fought with them telling them she told them to disconnect her but they still insisted. It wasn't until she mentioned getting a lawyer they backed off.
I don’t know what to do about Amazon and my old books.

Barbara Elsborg said...

I think all you can do is be persistent. Amazon thinks they can do anything and can't be challenged but I had an issue once about my name being used on a forum and linking my name to my pen name when I review. I complained and they told me to get lost. So I complained twice more and quoted their regulations and then the thread was removed. I was very annoyed.

Faith Bicknell said...

And trying to talk to a person let alone fine a phone number that's not automated is next to impossible.

Krista said...

That totally sucks, i definitely don't understand that. Do you still have any communication with the old publisher owner? Maybe they could send an email for you even tho when they closed their doors they didn't take down everything...Hopeyou get it worked out!

Shiela Stewart said...

I tried that Krista and was told its up to me to pull it down. Grrrrr!

Shiela Stewart said...

You are so right, Faith.