It has been an interesting week. Having just published Ani’s latest collection, ‘Doggerel‘, reissued her ‘Notes from a Small Dog‘ and published a new edition of my fantasy, ‘Swords of Destiny‘, I did something I seldom think to do, I checked my Amazon Author Page…
… to be met with an utterly appalling mess.
Stuart’s page was the same when I checked, and he too had just published another book.
It is not going to inspire confidence in your work if the ‘storefront’ is a mess and the customer can’t find what is supposed to be on offer!
While a few books on the author banner were correctly listed, the rest were either:
- Linked to third party sellers trying to make a fast buck by reselling books at exorbitant prices. One was almost $80! Good luck with that…
- Linked to deleted third-party sellers and thus listed as ‘currently unavailable’ and therefore not for sale at all.
- Listed as only available through third-party sellers, thus putting such meagre royalties as are earned directly in their pockets.
- Linked to either the Kindle or the Paperback, with the ‘buy’ listing showing only one, rather than both editions.
Any and all of which mean that the books cannot or will not be bought… even though they are all available, directly from Amazon, most of them in both Kindle and Paperback… but only if you know where to look. And how many people are going to know they are there, take time to trawl through or check when a book is listed as unavailable?
I rolled up my sleeves, headed to Amazon Author Central and started typing.
To be fair to Amazon, their operatives are always helpful and, once I had managed to make it clear what the problem actually was, the issues were immediately rectified. I did find that I had to do the same for some, though not all, of the problems by contacting both Amazon UK and US though.
If you do not have an Amazon Author Page… you should. It groups all your books together, allows you to add detail and make changes to book listings as well as making it easier for readers to find your work, follow you and be notified of new releases.
Whether you publish your books through Amazon UK or US, you need to set up separate Author Pages for both and can also add Author Pages for other countries too, such as Amazon France and Germany… both of which have English language sections. The most useful one though is undoubtedly Author Central.com, the US site as it has more functionality. Once your account is set up there, you can ‘claim’ your books and add them to your author page, alter details and… crucially… contact Amazon’s staff from each book listing at need.
After several days of emailing, all was orderly at last and correctly linked.
Meanwhile, I took the opportunity of updating book descriptions compressed by Amazon’s display… I miss the white space we once had. I also updated the author bio, that had been neglected for a while and realised you can tailor your bio for each book, to reflect its mood.
Though it would be nice if Amazon left in the spaces you had typed between the words…
Having done all that and sat back finally with a celebratory cuppa, I bethought myself of my Goodreads author page… and that was almost as bad.
It didn’t take long to update what I could and the Goodreads Librarians did the rest in no time at all.
Not a bad bout of housekeeping in the end!
Sue Vincent's Daily Echo 
Reblogged this on France & Vincent.
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Excellent Sue, good advice to everyone, there no good in sitting on your laurels you need to be vigilant. Well done you.💜💜💜
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I couldn’t believe the state of it, Willow… just glad it is sorted now! ❤
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It’s a shame isn’t it you’d of thought they’d keep an eye on it for your ..but no we live in the real world 💜
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Annoyingly, the errors were theirs. They were quickly put right… but not until I’d notoced them. I suppose with over eight million books on Amazon, they have to rely on authors caring enough to check.
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Yes , and it’s lucky you do 💜💜💜
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I spent several weeks this summer trying to sort out our author pages, needing quite a lot of help from Amazon in the process. I don’t understand why it ended up in such a mess either, as I’m sure it wasn’t my doing. I wonder how long it will stay so neat and tidy?
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Amazon took responsibility for mine… But that doesn’t really help with potentially lost sales, does it?
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Amazon seem to be falling down on the job, along with not allowing people who haven’t spent enough money with them to leave reviews… Not good enough, in my opinion…
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They don’t do too badly on the whole… for a company so big it can pretty much do what it wants….
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Doesn’t mean they should!
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I agree.
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Reblogged this on Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog.
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❤
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It’s a good idea to check out the look inside feature. I discovered it was possible to read all of three of my books – yes, right to the last page. Why should anyone buy? More scribbles to Zon. central
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A good reminder, Lucinda. I’ve seen that happen before too.
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A great reminder that this is something I need to do!
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I was horrified at the mess… you expect everything to stay put once it is up there.
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Good for you, Sue and thanks for the wordy nudge. I must do the same… x
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I hope yours is in a better state tan mine was, Joy! xx
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People are reporting that it is hard to get a review approved by Amazon. I wonder how many times someone wanted to leave a review, couldn’t do it, and just moved on?
Posts that I have read during the week show a dismal tale. It appears that publishing companies are declaring war on the Indie market. We’re being squeezed out, and Amazon is gladly taking the advertising $$
Thanks for reminding us to check the Amazon author page and bringing it to our attention. My latest book isn’t listed, and that will soon change.
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I think local networking is probably the way forward ffor Indies. Paid ads don’t seem to work for most people. But reviews do help and it would be nice if people coupld post them with ease.
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Thanks for sharing your experience.
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Great advice
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It certainly needed chacking by the time I got there 🙂
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Oh dear, Sue, I am racing right over to check mine.
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Well worth doing, Robbie!
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Reblogged this on The Light Behind the Story.
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A timely reminder as I haven’t added my new book. I’ll get to it over the weekend. Once when I checked I found lots of books written by a totally different Mary Smith! Amazon was very good and removing them but who knows what I’ll find when I check this weekend. Thanks, Sue. By the way, Ani’s book arrived. All the indie publications arrived much later than the trad published titles – not sure if there’s a message there.
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That’s odd, as I’ve ordered a raft of Indies too and they all came next day.
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Maybe Frank Prem’s held up the order. Anyway, all arrived so all good.
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In this digital age, they have no excuse really 😉
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oh no, what a mess to clear up indeed, Sue. I’m off to check my goodreads page and USA amazon page, thank you for the heads up. xxx
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Hope yours is better than mine was 😉 xx
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With only one book and none on the way, I’ve skipped THAT mess. I was one of the first people to use Amazon’s free press and talk about a MESS! it took so long to get THAT sorted out, I didn’t feel like going there again.
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I can understand that after this week!
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It pops into my mind every now and then, but I quickly distract myself with something else … probably should take this as another timely nudge from Herself. 🙂
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Might be worth a quick check 😉
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Reblogged this on Where Genres Collide Traci Kenworth YA Author & Book Blogger and commented:
Something we should all consider!
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I looked up mine by title, and I was horrified to see that they had published a cover only (with, to my knowledge, which I just have to check once more inside) that was one that they furnished, when my real cover which was put together by the man who checked the technical formatting etc. for my actual pumpkin cookbook. Oh Lordy! And I was going to order author copies and though the actual book (the paperback) sells for $12, they were going to charge me $89+ for 4 copies only. Alternative universe or am I quickly losing what mind I might have had? Wow, I wonder what kind of author royalties I will receive?
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Oh dear…
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I thought mine was looking okay – Ive been checking for the new book and its paperback listing. Maybe I should go back and check again.
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Apparently, it is worth keeping an eye on it.
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Love this post, with INFO, to boot – bookmarked as referral while I go on my own little ‘advice to Independent Business Owners” section at my website, as this kind of thing happens all the time, across many tools – – housekeeping – sigh – if only there were feather dusters for cyberland as quick and easy to do without full roster of 30+ team members to keep ‘an eye’ on – – :). I took a “how to sell your book on Amazon” class, back in 2011 – First item on the list was to set up your author page – so while Amazon and the industry in general, has grown, by leaps and bounds and more confusing, etc., nice reminder to folks who might get bogged down over all the options/set-up things available NOW – 8 years later – – 🙂
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I was most surprised to realise how badly the thing could get messed up… and over a fairly short period of time too.
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Yup – I always liked the explanation of such things from different alternative health providers I’ve known along the way of my journey – who all stated, some version, of “Well – sans trauma – you and your body adjust, daily, here and there – your will & spirit keep on going, sometimes ignoring the messages from the body – until the body gets so tired of being ‘ignored’ it starts screaming at you, in hopes of being heard’ – – :D. That said – stuff wears out over a life time of ‘git ‘er done’ activity – – sigh – as so many of my ancestors and mentors and neighbors like to say, “Growing older – it’s not for wussies” – – LOL. Hoping you get good news and doable plan for staving off disaster (i.e. not able to do the things you love!) in near future – 😀
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LOL…I meant the Amazon page 😉
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Yup – Amazon page – body parts that may impair us doing what we wish – now – potato, potahto – all the same to me – :). And sometimes we tackle/can tackle and sometimes not – :D. At least some ‘housecleaning’ and changes at Amazon netted quick results! That had to feel satisfactory! :D.
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Oh it did 😀
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Thanks for amazing tips Sue. Good reminder to pop by and spot check. On the list and shared around! 🙂 xx
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Thanks, Debby. I didn’t expect that mess, I tell you 🙂 xx
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I wouldn’t think so, but then Amazon sometimes has no rhyme or reason. 🙂 xx
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I’m beginning to realise that 😉 xx
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xx
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