Books not listed
Hello all, I have been selling books on Amazon since 2005 and like everyone else did well to start with but times change and now its pretty much a waste of time. I have reduced my stock from 8,000 ten years ago and now list about 750.
I realised a couple of weeks ago that I hadn’t sold a book for ages so I put one of my titles in the general search box and nothing showed up - none of them did under my name. Everything is fine on the open listings page I can delete a book or alter its price etc but nothing will appear when Johnny Punter looks in the Amazon catalogue.
Any ideas as to why this would be or how/who I would contact to find out?
Thanks,
Mick
(Ned Ludd)
Books not listed
Hello all, I have been selling books on Amazon since 2005 and like everyone else did well to start with but times change and now its pretty much a waste of time. I have reduced my stock from 8,000 ten years ago and now list about 750.
I realised a couple of weeks ago that I hadn’t sold a book for ages so I put one of my titles in the general search box and nothing showed up - none of them did under my name. Everything is fine on the open listings page I can delete a book or alter its price etc but nothing will appear when Johnny Punter looks in the Amazon catalogue.
Any ideas as to why this would be or how/who I would contact to find out?
Thanks,
Mick
(Ned Ludd)
28 replies
Seller_f5cnodyVjLD4S
Hi Mick
Unfortunately it sounds like your books have been hidden by the “little grey triangles” I shall show you what I mean.
If we take a popular classic Jane Eyre, ISBN 9780241321652 you will see the 2019 edition for sale and all older copies with the same ISBN are now hidden. This is how Amazon hides older editions of books.
Click on the little grey triangle (arrow) where it says see all 1480 formats and editions!
Then on paperback…eh Voila!!
Seller_vxqAmBbT4xHlT
Not sure what that means. I have a book that I wrote called “The Historic Inns of Frome” listed at £10 there was only ever one edition and the only copy on there now is some cowboy at £300 odd but no lead to any other listings. I am gradually dumping Amazon and selling off the remainder of my stock on eBay but even so its a bit galling if they have dumped me first!
Is there an email contact that I can moan at?
Thanks for your reply,
Mick
Seller_mxez2L8QjE6WW
Have a check to make certain that your books are not ‘on holiday’. A week or so back orders dried up & listings were not showing up, so I contacted Amazon who told me that I had put the books on holiday, which I certainly had not. They later admitted that it had been a glitch at their end.
Seller_vxqAmBbT4xHlT
A Ha! I think I might have solved it. My fault as usual. It seems like there was a tiny little message at the top of the screen requesting further verification. I didn’t see this and of course they didn’t say that that they had closed my listings. So now I have provided what they asked for and we shall see.
Still moving on to eBay though… followed by donating to charity shops,
Thanks for your help folks,
Mick
Seller_LKjg1QRrO36Yq
I see it too now (using Firefox). As I say, it was inconsistent.
It wasn’t my example but I have seen ‘currently available’ on many other titles where offerings are available when you click on the link. Most buyers will probably just assume there are no available copies and will walk on by…
Possibly it’s a glitch that has since been fixed but it would take a bit of research to check.
Seller_LKjg1QRrO36Yq
Here’s a random example I just came across:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tono-bungay/dp/B0000DUNV1
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tono-Bungay/dp/0141186747
These two ASINs are the 3rd and 4th results in a search for ‘Tono-Bungay’ (2nd is a dubious ‘createspace’ knock-off).
Both show as ‘unavailable’, neither are anything like the standard editions.
Meanwhile, there are many dozens of ‘proper’ editions hidden behind the little expansion buttons.
I’m used to Amazon ‘hiding’ older, alternative editions, but why promote ‘unavailable’ ones at their expense?
It makes no sense.
