Nuts and Bolts

I am on the way to catching up with all those pesky chores that go along with the real fun of writing fiction. I had never even looked at Amazon’s Author Central when they started it and my author page remained the old original one. I have to tell you that I now have caught up.

As one might expect, there were things that had turned into troubles because of my inattention. All of my novels and the one novella are properly represented on Kindle, but there are three of my paperbacks from the earlier publishers listed as available when they are not.

This is where other authors might freak out, screaming Piracy. I am inclined not to get so excited. My two e-book publishers were the people who arranged and paid for the POD set-ups. If those copies are still hanging around, or if the Amazon removal instructions had missed…and nobody at the publishers noticed I would rather drop them a note myself than have a posse from Amazon land on their doorstep.

I did contact Amazon about them, to ask what should be done, but I didn’t ask them to deal with the matter. If someone is selling a book or two that I am not being paid for I doubt I am losing much. If they get as much as I was getting as royalties we will both go bankrupt together. In any case, these books on offer might be used books from the customers who originally bought the copies. Under Amazon’s rules, they are allowed to sell them on the site.

As long as no one is selling copies of my new Roberta Stephenson Trilogy novels I will keep breathing normally and regard the World as operating as it should. I have very little I needed to do with them as my publisher Tyche Books put them on Amazon. There was a small problem that only I and not Tyche could deal with…the cover image of Spies and Subterfuge was missing on my Author Central pages and I was the only one who could re-send it.

Later…. One of my two previous publishers replied to my emails about their paperbacks. I think other writers may find this interesting.

Quote

I dealt with this before with Ingram. According to my rep… Amazon purchases something like 3 books at a time for there warehouse when a book first comes out. So when I cancel the book at the source, which is Ingram, while the books are no longer being printed and sold at the source. The retailer, in this case Amazon, can still sell what they have purchased until their stock is all sold. Watch, once they sell that 1 book, they won’t be able to get more and it will go off sale. It will probably still be listed, but the only books selling will be “used”. A paperback can be bought and sold forever, but the publisher and printer only make money once…at the source. It kind of sucks but that’s the nature of the paperbook market. There is nothing either of us can do because Amazon has the right to sell whatever they bought. Just means they can’t get any new ones from Ingram.

End quote.

So perhaps that is as far as I can go…without going onto war footing. I must put up with some of my novels being listed with the old clunky covers. But it shows that there are still flaws in the online marketing worlds that no one wants to address.

But I must end this on a brighter note. My new release from Tyche Books, “Spies and Subterfuge” was published on the last day of November last. Unfortunately, due to public holidays, I had to wait well into December before I had copies to sell, but at least I am ready for the Spring when the book reading public come out of hibernation. This year I will focus more on the community to the west of me instead of the one to the east. I feel they must be ripe for copies of my Roberta Stephenson Trilogy.