Author Topic: New David G blog about missing and unavailable to buy issues.  (Read 3873 times)

TimothyEllis

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New David G blog about missing and unavailable to buy issues.
« on: November 13, 2018, 11:40:34 AM »
New David G blog about missing and unavailable to buy issues.

https://davidgaughran.com/2018/11/12/amazon-kdp-books-unavailable-international-readers/?fbclid=IwAR0wMBzTpQy9msuaZMgOUms-noS5bYEPQ0ZPsscVxxrZDo19hffQvlsbvPM

All I can say to Amazon is, if this is deliberate, I'm not changing to the Aus store until my current us gift certificate is used up, AND the Aus store has everything the US store has. Which means probably never.
Genres: Space Opera/Fantasy/Cyberpunk, with elements of LitRPG and GameLit, with a touch of the Supernatural. Also Spiritual and Games.



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Eric Thomson

Re: New David G blog about missing and unavailable to buy issues.
« Reply #1 on: November 13, 2018, 12:59:16 PM »
Tim, you do understand the Almighty Zon doesn't care about what you want.  It will force you into the AU store kicking and screaming whenever it bloody well wants.
 :cheers
 

TimothyEllis

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Re: New David G blog about missing and unavailable to buy issues.
« Reply #2 on: November 13, 2018, 01:03:51 PM »
It has already tried and backed off once already. Since they wont transfer a gift card, I screamed at them they were stealing my money. A few weeks later, I could transfer back to the us store again.

They sent numerous emails claiming everything on the us store is available on aus, but this is so blatantly false as to be laughable. But because they cant see the other stores, they dont comprehend what you tell them.
Genres: Space Opera/Fantasy/Cyberpunk, with elements of LitRPG and GameLit, with a touch of the Supernatural. Also Spiritual and Games.



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Eric Thomson

Re: New David G blog about missing and unavailable to buy issues.
« Reply #3 on: November 13, 2018, 01:19:36 PM »
they dont comprehend what you tell them.

Truer words have never been uttered about the Zon
 :cheers
 

Tom Wood

Re: New David G blog about missing and unavailable to buy issues.
« Reply #4 on: November 13, 2018, 01:49:41 PM »
Is ALLi and the IBPA aware of the issue, and are they advocating on behalf of their membership?
 

Simon Haynes

Re: New David G blog about missing and unavailable to buy issues.
« Reply #5 on: November 13, 2018, 02:45:13 PM »
I've seen this myself recently - my US author page is missing a bunch of my kindle editions and showing me the paperbacks instead. A few of my kindle books are 'unavailable to buy', while others are just fine.

Since it's hit-and-miss which are there and which aren't, I'm assuming it's a c*ck-up on Amazon's part. After all, they keep losing series pages for my stuff too, on the US and UK sites, and that's not related to my country of origin.
 

CoraBuhlert

Re: New David G blog about missing and unavailable to buy issues.
« Reply #6 on: November 13, 2018, 04:19:51 PM »
Amazon is just a complete and utter mess at the moment. And considering how close we are to the holiday shopping season, this is very worrying.

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Genres: All of them, but mostly science fiction and mystery/crime
 

Simon Haynes

Re: New David G blog about missing and unavailable to buy issues.
« Reply #7 on: November 13, 2018, 04:44:59 PM »
Adding Amazon's corporate HQ address to my Kindle account worked just fine. As David mentions, though, the side-effect is that anyone can now buy US region-locked titles.

Pity that ;-)
 

TimothyEllis

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Re: New David G blog about missing and unavailable to buy issues.
« Reply #8 on: November 13, 2018, 05:09:58 PM »
What is the address?
Genres: Space Opera/Fantasy/Cyberpunk, with elements of LitRPG and GameLit, with a touch of the Supernatural. Also Spiritual and Games.



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Fee

Re: New David G blog about missing and unavailable to buy issues.
« Reply #9 on: November 13, 2018, 09:55:07 PM »
Amazon put a notice up about this a while ago, on the community section of the KDP dashboard.  Seems like they're trying to fix it.  I just wish they would have acknowledged the problem a couple of weeks ago, instead of trying to convince so many writers that there was no problem in the first place.  Maybe they read David's article  Grin  They should probably think about hiring him.


"Temporary Unavailability of eBooks in Some Marketplaces
November 13, 2018
Hello,

We're experiencing an issue that has made some eBooks unavailable in the Kindle store in different marketplaces. Our engineers are working to solve this issue as quickly as possible. We'll update this post to keep the Community informed once this issue has been resolved.

We appreciate your patience and understanding in the meantime.

Regards,

Kindle Direct Publishing Team"
 

WasAnn

Re: New David G blog about missing and unavailable to buy issues.
« Reply #10 on: November 13, 2018, 10:43:10 PM »
The fact that they put this notification out weeks after it happened and after sooooo many authors contacted them (possibly even customers) is not great in any way. It's one more nail in the coffin of the idea that Amazon is flexible and nimble. It's become a giant unmovable beast with poor internal communications and unresponsive protocols to complaints.

There's no question that even a five minute investigation on the first notification of a problem would have shown that the problem exists, yet for weeks they gave the exact same robo-response indicating there was NO problem.

Overall, this trend from Amazon does not bode well.


Science Fiction is my game.
 

Tom Wood

Re: New David G blog about missing and unavailable to buy issues.
« Reply #11 on: November 13, 2018, 11:56:38 PM »
There's speculation that these glitches are related to Amazon's ongoing process of switching away from Oracle, and implementing their own database management programs. Aurora is the one that gets the most mentions. If so, and once done, things better be smooth as silk unless they want a bunch of mouthy writers dissing their flagship database service.
 

Simon Haynes

Re: New David G blog about missing and unavailable to buy issues.
« Reply #12 on: November 14, 2018, 12:04:42 AM »
Address: Amazon Headquarters 410 Terry Ave. N Seattle, WA 98109

You'll need a phone number too - I used a secondary mobile which I never switch on.
 

Fee

Re: New David G blog about missing and unavailable to buy issues.
« Reply #13 on: November 14, 2018, 12:16:20 AM »
Agree with all of this. Someone on another thread about this issue suggested he felt like Amazon were **** him when he told them what was going on with his books, and I've gotta say I felt just the same.  At the moment my books seem to be - slowly - reappearing, so I'm crossing my fingers it gets better.  But like you say, such a delayed response does not bode well.

The fact that they put this notification out weeks after it happened and after sooooo many authors contacted them (possibly even customers) is not great in any way. It's one more nail in the coffin of the idea that Amazon is flexible and nimble. It's become a giant unmovable beast with poor internal communications and unresponsive protocols to complaints.

There's no question that even a five minute investigation on the first notification of a problem would have shown that the problem exists, yet for weeks they gave the exact same robo-response indicating there was NO problem.

Overall, this trend from Amazon does not bode well.
 

Simon Haynes

Re: New David G blog about missing and unavailable to buy issues.
« Reply #14 on: November 14, 2018, 12:58:29 AM »
Well that was a nice bonus. Got today's BB email, and ALL the deals were available to me for once. Thanks, Amazon.

Normally, anything by a big name publisher is region locked and unavailable to Australians.
 

rowanoak

Re: New David G blog about missing and unavailable to buy issues.
« Reply #15 on: November 14, 2018, 05:09:47 AM »
The fact that they put this notification out weeks after it happened and after sooooo many authors contacted them (possibly even customers) is not great in any way. It's one more nail in the coffin of the idea that Amazon is flexible and nimble. It's become a giant unmovable beast with poor internal communications and unresponsive protocols to complaints.

There's no question that even a five minute investigation on the first notification of a problem would have shown that the problem exists, yet for weeks they gave the exact same robo-response indicating there was NO problem.

Overall, this trend from Amazon does not bode well.

I didn't know that anyone ever thought there was a possibility that Amazon was flexible and nimble, at least not when it comes to KDP. It seems to move very slowly on any issue and doesn't seem to care about the program a whole lot. I mean- in general, Amazon can probably be flexible and nimble about programs or priorities that it cares about- but, I don't think KDP or KU is one of those things. I think it is peanuts, if not a loss leader (if speaking specifically about KU), compared to other Amazon programs. So, Amazon doesn't have an incentive to worry about it much.

Of course, my view on Amazon in general is likely a lot more cynical than most. I wasn't allowed to post on The Other Board about my views without my posts being deleted (so I stopped trying or going there much). I think that indie authors are just being used as pawns by Amazon in its goal to be a huge monopoly and control everything. So, they want us to be in KU not only so that the other platforms lack authors and content and eventually fail, but, even more importantly, to create content cheaply for them and to get consumers into the ecosystem with KU, so that while they're there they will buy everything else, from toilet paper to expensive computers.

Also, I think that above all, Amazon cares about collecting and analyzing data and consumer behavior so it can continue its plans to take over pretty much every industry and be a monopoly. So, things like making sure books show up on pages, or making sure series pages are created correctly, etc., are just at the very bottom of Amazon's priority list. Not to mention that it hates to spend money or resources on real human employees to do things, and everything possible is done by computer. Therefore, I never expect Amazon to be quick to move when it comes to KDP, and I'm very surprised when they do.
 

Lysmata Debelius

Re: New David G blog about missing and unavailable to buy issues.
« Reply #16 on: November 22, 2018, 11:08:11 PM »
A couple of people have told me that they got responses from Amazon that this situation was a glitch that they are working to fix. Anyone else know more? Is this still going on?
 

Tom Wood

Re: New David G blog about missing and unavailable to buy issues.
« Reply #17 on: November 22, 2018, 11:19:40 PM »
According to the Recent Announcements notice at the KDP forums, this issue is marked as (RESOLVED) - fourth notice down on the right side of the screen.

https://www.kdpcommunity.com/s/?language=en_US
 
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