August 8, 2012

Dear Amazon

At 4:45PM on August 7, 2012, I uploaded the manuscript for my new eBook Accidentally Yours through Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) with the same publication date.  I was very happy to receive an email notification from Amazon at 11:35PM saying my eBook was now ready for purchase.  I clicked on the link...

And was brought to a page with an error message saying this product did not exist.

I promptly filed an inquiry with KDP and was told it would take 24 hours for a response.  Not understanding why they would send me such a message with a broken link in the first place (building me up for a huge letdown), I decided to simply re-upload the book rather than wait 24 hours to find out what was wrong.  The email informing me that the second upload was successful came at 4:55AM on August 8th.  This time the link worked.

When I clicked through, I noticed that the publication date, which I had put in as August 7th, appeared as August 6th.  There is not much difference between the two dates; however, I found it troubling that the date had been altered from what I entered.  I sent another inquiry asking why this had been done; for there was no indication that the date would be anything other than what I requested it to be.  I stated that it made me a little uneasy...if you were going in and changing my publication dates, what else were you fiddling around with?

I was away from the computer for a few hours, and when I returned I went to see if I had a ranking.  By now I'd sold a total of 10 copies--4 more than in the morning--and had a ranking of 18,000.  But then I noticed something curious...at the top of the page, where the price should be, it now showed "No price information available."  I guess that answered my question about what else you folks were fiddling around with...by claiming there is no price available, you have effectively removed my eBook from being sold and put the kibosh on my income.  And I have to wait at least 24 hours to get this resolved...more lost income.

I have been uploading books to KDP for three years now, and I have never had such a hassle doing so.  I'm not sure what your objective is.  Do you not want me to sell my products through your service?  Just say so.  Don't make dealing with your process such a frustrating, blood-pressure-raising experience that I won't want to use your channel anymore.  And please, please stop asking me to enroll in KDP Select.  If there's anything this experience has taught me, it is never to give anyone an exclusive to my work, because they can remove it from sale and put a halt to my income whenever the urge hits them. At least I can upload to Smashwords so my readership can get this eBook without having to wait as long as it will take for Amazon to straighten this out.

Bettye Griffin Underwood