Forum: Author Hangout

As long as Amazon has legally acquired copies in stock, they do not need your authorization to sell them.

True, but they've never bought a copy - which is my problem with them. Mind you, the book I just pulled is an e-pub, not a print copy.

Amazon lists a few of my books as print copies Not Currently Available and one is listed as In Stock which is a bit hard because they list an edition which only sold two copies which I bought. I've never had a print book sold via Amazon.

Do you still have both copies in your physical possession?

Yes. Also, all the print books of my books sold before July this year were sold to myself or people I'm in email contact with and they all bought copies of the print books just to put them on the shelf, so I know they still have them. The one I mentioned with the two copies sold is very distinctive because I changed the colour of the cover artwork and they advertise the one with the old cover and print date which only sold the two I bought for proof reading. Also, they list it as a new book not a used copy.

Even when I sold only PDF e-copies I never sold many print copies, now with the e-pubs I sell a lot more e-copies, but the sale of print books is still very low.

In that case, I'd be curious as to how Amazon even knows it exists. Your problem in that case might be with the printer.

No the printer is print on demand only via contract printers. I do know that at one time Amazon copied all the books advertised on Lulu onto their own website in an effort to get Lulu authors to sell through Amazon and it's obvious part of that because of the print date.

The only way I can see Amazon even knowing it exists is if the printer made extra copies and sold them without telling you.

We've discussed this before, but Amazon has a special arrangement with book sellers (the mainstream presses, plus the PoD people) where they get 'free' copies which aren't counted as 'sold' until someone purchases them. Apple gets this legal right under their ToS with the distributors (i.e. if they don't agree to it, Amazon won't sell any of their books, and no one would agree to refuse in that case.

That's why, even if you haven't sold a single copy of a book, Amazon will typically list a few copies. These are help by Amazon so they can guarantee 'Same Day shipments' instead of ordering copies when someone orders them.

The process helps sell products, but rankles those--like Ernest--who see old copies of their books listed but have never seen any sales.

Ernest, I'll say it again, if Amazon is listing books you've never authorized, they may be bootleg copies, being sold under your name with someone else receiving the funds. However, in your case, I'd suspect the book was listed by dpdotcom, since they also publish books under the authors' names to Amazon, and receive the earnings from them. I'd talk to them first.

I'd suspect the book was listed by dpdotcom

I know dpdotcom did a deal with Amazon at one stage. However, no print copies were involved and it was before I did epubs. Also, the dpdotcom books have a different set of cover artwork, so i can tell which are via them and which aren't.

When dpdotcom listed the PDFs for sale via Amazon about three or four years ago the Amazon people converted them to Kindle and caused a major screw up in the process. Only a few copies were sold and the buyers contacted me direct about how badly they were messed up. I provided the buyers with replacement PDF copies and asked dpdotcom to pull all my stuff from Amazon, which they did - well, they told Amazon to pull them, but I still see some listed as not currently available. Since then nothing of mine has been put on Amazon by dpdotcom.

About 18 months ago I started making significant changes to some of my books in that where I had two novellas I put them together as a combined book and put the short stories into two books (one with sex and one without), and all but the Clan Amir books got new cover art. That makes it easy for me to tell which edition is being advertised where.

This topic used Amazon are.

I actually meant to title it with the word managers in it but after I posted it without the word I just left it be. Anyway, the Amazon corporation is a plural entity with multiple companies and share holders (that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it).

Amazon are bad grammarians!