Amazon unprice matched and now my promotion is in jeopardy

[notthatamanda]

Hello.  Long time lurker from the board that shall not be named, first time poster.
Thank you all for freely sharing all the information it has helped me so much.
I am sharing this because I think it is important, although sympathy is welcome.

I have a promotion scheduled for tomorrow (10/17) for one of my permafrees (first in a series, new adult romance).  I got up today and saw that there was a paid download on it.  On amazon the price still showed as free but it had changed on my dashboard to 2.99.  This happened a couple of weeks ago with my other permafree (first in a series, contemporary romance).   Since it happened a week before a promotion on that book, I was able to get it changed in time.  I don't have much faith that I can get this straightened out today, even if amazon changes it, it may not go through in time for tomorrow's promotion.  Neither of these promotions was bookbub but I'd rather not give more details.

Most disturbing to me is that people are being charged when it says free on the amazon page.  This was one download.  I can only imagine the ramifications if the promotion had gone on and thousands of books had been downloaded.  I don't check the prices on my amazon dashboard often, but I suppose I will have to from now on.

For what my (prawn food) opinion is worth I think amazon is going to keep playing harder and harder ball on the permafrees.  Both to try to force us back into KU and make life harder on the other paid promotion sites.  Once I figure out what is happening with this particular promotion (losing my money is a distinct possibility) I am going to ask the promoter to consider offering vendor specific promos.  I'd be happy to pay for promos on Google, Apple, B&N and Kobo and leave amazon out of it, if it is going to be this stressful.

I hope this information is useful.  One question if anyone can help me.  The next to last emoji up there, what the heck kind of animal is the banana riding? 

[TimothyEllis]

Check where the paid download occurred. It may be 1 single store has the price wrong, and you need to ask for that store to be changed specifically.

Happened to me once, and it turned out the NL store hadn't been updated.

It's a Llama.

[notthatamanda]

I will check, thank you so much.  Did you notice if the price changed on your dashboard or not?  Mine definitely did, both times. 

Edit:  The only royalty on the book showing is for Amazon.com I am referring to the chart under the graph.  Nothing is showing on the month to date count yet. 

[TimothyEllis]

I will check, thank you so much.  Did you notice if the price changed on your dashboard or not?  Mine definitely did, both times.

No, I didn't. And it was early this year.

[notthatamanda]

The only royalty on the book showing is for Amazon.com.  I am referring to the chart under the graph.  Nothing is showing on the month to date count yet.

Thank you again for your help.  If there are green llamas now I hope they come out with purple soon.  That would be cool. 

[Simon Haynes]

Other coutries buying via Amazon.com (e.g. Australians) often see a price instead of free. That's normal.

Check further down, in your bestselling categories, and see whether it says 'free' or 'paid' there. For example, I'm often showed an aussie price on Amazon.com, but in that section it says it's it's #14,000,000 in x.y.z 'free'

[notthatamanda]

Thank you so much for your help. 
I see that the book is $3.99 in the amazon Australia store, but I don't believe the sale came from there.
I set the units ordered graph to just amazon.au and just that book and no books in the past month.
I will check some of the other international stores now.
Last time the amazon rep price matched it right away, with the standard blurb about how free is at their discretion.

[Rickie Blair]

Have you tried phoning KDP? At the very bottom of the dashboard there's a "contact us" link. If you click on that and then click on "pricing details" it should give you the option to "call us". Click on that, select the "call back in 5 minutes" option and they 'll call you back.

[notthatamanda]

I checked all the stores.  The book has a price in Au, NL, FR, ES, IT, IN and Mexico.  Free everywhere else.
I checked each store (even where it was free) and the only downloads for this book showing on the graph for yesterday are for Amazon.com.  One free and one paid.

Thank you guys for trying to help.  I don't know what to think.  I would love to know I am missing something. 

I went back in the data for the other book and the graph shows two paid books on my other permafree in Australia.  One each on 10/5 and 10/6.   There is also one on amazon.com from Sept 28, that is the one that clued me into the problem a week before the promo on 10/4.  Or maybe there is no problem and I am just crazy.   Definite possibility.

For what it's worth, when Amazon price matched the last time they didn't tell me it was already free dummy, but it is possible they didn't bother to look at it that closely.  I just looked at my bookshelf again and my other permafree says $2.99 on it.  I am very confused right now, I can't remember if it said free before, but I have 3 free downloads on it today.  And one on the book for tomorrow's promo.

Again, thank you guys for trying to help.  Amanda

[notthatamanda]

Have you tried phoning KDP? At the very bottom of the dashboard there's a "contact us" link. If you click on that and then click on "pricing details" it should give you the option to "call us". Click on that, select the "call back in 5 minutes" option and they 'll call you back.

Thank you I will try that.

[Simon Haynes]

Thank you so much for your help. 
I see that the book is $3.99 in the amazon Australia store, but I don't believe the sale came from there.

No, Australians (and others) can buy from Amazon.com even if there's a store in their country. I don't use the aussie store at all. Sometimes these purchases are blocked (especially with trade publishers) because they use the regions settings on the KDP page to select the regions they hold the rights for. Indies don't.

Typically you'll see about half the usual royalty on those sales, because Amazon charges an eye-watering delivery fee. (I believe it's tied to the cost of delivering the book over 'foreign' cell phone systems. Even if the buyer is on Wifi, naturally.)

So, it's possible someone bought a copy from amazon.com and amazon charged them the local rate.

Did you check your bestselling categories on the amazon.com product page? I can't see whether you checked and mentioned that, but it's a sure-fire way to see if it's free when all else fails.

[notthatamanda]

Thank you so much for your help. 
I see that the book is $3.99 in the amazon Australia store, but I don't believe the sale came from there.

No, Australians (and others) can buy from Amazon.com even if there's a store in their country. I don't use the aussie store at all. Sometimes these purchases are blocked (especially with trade publishers) because they use the regions settings on the KDP page to select the regions they hold the rights for. Indies don't.

Typically you'll see about half the usual royalty on those sales, because Amazon charges an eye-watering delivery fee. (I believe it's tied to the cost of delivering the book over 'foreign' cell phone systems. Even if the buyer is on Wifi, naturally.)

So, it's possible someone bought a copy from amazon.com and amazon charged them the local rate.

Did you check your bestselling categories on the amazon.com product page? I can't see whether you checked and mentioned that, but it's a sure-fire way to see if it's free when all else fails.

Okay, thank you so much, I totally get what you are saying.   That totally makes sense, the royalty paid was off.

I tried to find the different countries bestselling categories for the product page but that I couldn't figure it out. 

Thank you.  I'm off to try to salvage my promo.  Amanda

[Post-Crisis D]

One question if anyone can help me.  The next to last emoji up there, what the heck kind of animal is the banana riding? 

It's a Llama.

Bunchie.   

[Kathy Dee]

Sorry to hear of your issue. I just wanted to say that I agree that Amazon seems to be getting a bit more difficult with permafree for whatever reason.

What I would like to see Amazon do is:

1. Allow authors to price however they wish, as some majors stores do.

2. Remove the exclusivity requirement from KU, like Kobo do with their subscription option.

Come on Amazon; it's 2018 after all!

[Michelle Louring]

Lately, Amazon constantly seems to be reverting the price-match on my permafree book (that's been permafree for many years) at random. It rarely happens on the American site, but suddenly I will have a paid sale in the UK or in France and then I go to check, the price will have been raised on those sites, but not on others.

The KDP support usually fixes it quickly when I contact them, but then a few months later it will happen again   

[Rinelle]

I often get random sales on my permafree. I usually pay no attention. I might freak out a bit if I had a big promo coming up though!

When you say it's showing as paid on your dashboard, do you mean your KDP dashboard? If so, they always show the price you set, not the price matched price.

[notthatamanda]

I often get random sales on my permafree. I usually pay no attention. I might freak out a bit if I had a big promo coming up though!

When you say it's showing as paid on your dashboard, do you mean your KDP dashboard? If so, they always show the price you set, not the price matched price.

Gosh it's so hard to describe, I'll explain as best as I can.  The bar graph showed the paid sales.  They did show up in the month to date chart, after the usual delay.  All the other units from the (great!) promo, and the piddling number of free units before the promo ran, showed as Free Units-Price match. 

It's so weird that it's only happened right before a promo on both of my permafrees.  Gets my paranoid brain whirling.  But maybe it is just confirmation bias.

Again, thanks Simon for explaining it enough times that I finally got it.