Blogflux directoryDifficulties at Amazon.com
Posted by Alyce Barry at 1/20/2008 9:25 AM 
Categories: Publishing, Book orders, Marketing, Feedback on Practically Shameless
Categories: Publishing, Book orders, Marketing, Feedback on Practically Shameless
This morning I received a second order for books from Amazon.com and felt so pleased and proud -- a second order within three weeks!
Then I looked at the book's page at Amazon to see if any more customer reviews had been posted. As of yesterday there were 10, which was wonderful. When the book went on sale at Amazon ten days ago, I emailed everyone who'd purchased the book from me to ask them to post a brief review, and so far 10 had responded with a review. Quite a few more told me they hadn't finished reading Practically Shameless yet or would post a review later when they had more time.
But this morning all the customer reviews are gone, and the book is described as "not yet released." I wrote to Amazon about it and hope to hear from them quickly. In the meantime I heard from a colleague that she went to the page to post a review and found the feature unavailable. Argh!!
I'd heard some frustrations with Amazon from fellow writers, so I didn't expect this process to be trouble-free, but I really didn't expect them to yank the reviews off the page, how frustrating for me and for everyone who already posted one.
Prior to this, the difficulty was with the "Search Inside This Book" feature. The way it's supposed to work is that you upload a PDF file containing your book's text, and the computers at Amazon begin to index it so that someone can search on a particular term. After the book had been on the site for 6 weeks, a search for my name still got "no results," as did a search for Cliff's name and for words in the first few pages.
I happened to search a few days ago on the name of my colleague Ginny Drewes, who published a book this year as well. I was looking for her book's page to post a review of my own. When I searched on her name, my book came up in the results, which means that the indexing has begun. Ginny gave me a testimonial which appears inside the front cover. When I tried searching the book's text for her name, it told me her name didn't appear in the book, yet my book appeared in search results for her name -- I don't understand it, but it seems like progress.
Then I looked at the book's page at Amazon to see if any more customer reviews had been posted. As of yesterday there were 10, which was wonderful. When the book went on sale at Amazon ten days ago, I emailed everyone who'd purchased the book from me to ask them to post a brief review, and so far 10 had responded with a review. Quite a few more told me they hadn't finished reading Practically Shameless yet or would post a review later when they had more time.
But this morning all the customer reviews are gone, and the book is described as "not yet released." I wrote to Amazon about it and hope to hear from them quickly. In the meantime I heard from a colleague that she went to the page to post a review and found the feature unavailable. Argh!!
I'd heard some frustrations with Amazon from fellow writers, so I didn't expect this process to be trouble-free, but I really didn't expect them to yank the reviews off the page, how frustrating for me and for everyone who already posted one.
Prior to this, the difficulty was with the "Search Inside This Book" feature. The way it's supposed to work is that you upload a PDF file containing your book's text, and the computers at Amazon begin to index it so that someone can search on a particular term. After the book had been on the site for 6 weeks, a search for my name still got "no results," as did a search for Cliff's name and for words in the first few pages.
I happened to search a few days ago on the name of my colleague Ginny Drewes, who published a book this year as well. I was looking for her book's page to post a review of my own. When I searched on her name, my book came up in the results, which means that the indexing has begun. Ginny gave me a testimonial which appears inside the front cover. When I tried searching the book's text for her name, it told me her name didn't appear in the book, yet my book appeared in search results for her name -- I don't understand it, but it seems like progress.
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