Sam will soon be off to the US for a week on business, and he asked me to order him a couple of my ghost stories so that he had something to read on the plane. I logged into his account in that mahoosive online store that we all love to hate, and ordered paperback copies of ‘Finding David‘ and ‘Partners in Time‘. I did this on 23rd June.
As you know, once the paperbacks are delivered then the sales should have been recorded on my KDP paperback dashboard. However, it is now nearly 2 weeks later and only ‘Finding David’ has been recorded even though both books have been delivered.
I have complained many times via chat and phone about the missing book sale on my dashboard, but the sale never gets added to the dashboard. I have wasted hours on the chat facility going around and around various departments that shift me on to someone else and say they will get back within 24 hours and never do. They are now trying to get rid of me by saying they have no details of the sale; yesterday a very convenient ‘glitch’ happened that had to halt the conversation. When I try to ring, I get told that the KDP Department are not contactable by phone and that someone from that department will phone within 24 hours (ha ha).
Can one person fight such a large institution? This makes me wonder whether every sale gets recorded. I only know about this one because I ordered the books myself from Sam’s account.
Has this infuriating situation happened to anybody else? If so, how was the situation resolved?
By the way, my ghostly short story ‘Finding David’ will be FREE from Friday 5th July to Sunday 7th July.
UPDATE
I was surprised beyond belief to receive an email from Executive Customer Relations this morning after I had emailed Jeff Bezos himself out of sheer frustration when noticing online that he reads all of his emails but doesn’t reply to all of them (I hoped at the time that he would reply to mine). This is part of the reply:
Mr. Bezos received your message and I’m responding on his behalf. That particular event didn’t reflect on your royalty reports because we fulfilled this order with existing inventory from an either cancelled or returned order that was already reported as a royalty when the manufacturing event occurred.
Yes, I remember that I’d had a Kindle copy of a different book returned, but this was a paperback bought at a higher price. Oh well, I think I’d best shut up now…
dgkaye said:
I don’t trust Amazon at all. And don’t get me started about when they moved my books and owed royalties from Createspace last September and told me I’d get my royalties in 2 months. Well Christmas came and went, so did my winter vacation, and several emails were shot off. I finally got paid MY money last month, and I’ve been shorted about 80US dollars. I can add what was sitting in my holdback in CS against what they paid me. They are as corrupt as every other corporation these days. And they don’t give a shit because they can.
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Stevie Turner said:
Yes, they’re too big to fight. I was told that of course we don’t get paid royalties if books have been returned – Amazon sell them first and only after that will we see other sales come up on the dashboard.
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dgkaye said:
We’d need to form a very large gathering of authors to protest their unethical ways.
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Stevie Turner said:
Indeed. Would it make any difference though?
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dgkaye said:
I don’t know 😦
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franklparker said:
I’m 2wide” having begun my self-pub journey via Smashwords. I have to say that it is a long time since I earned anything via Smashwords or D2D. But I get only 1 or 2 sales a month via Amazon so don’t take the zeros elsewhere as a reason to avoid them.
On the question of paper backs, I once ordered 75 copies of one of my books from Createspace. I was notified they would be delivered in two batches of 37 and 38. The first batch arrived containing only 8. I complained and they immediately authorised the printing and delivery of a further 30 foc. When the second batch arrived it contained 67, completing the original order. Once again I contacted them suggesting they cancel the order for 30. “Too late” they said and, sure enough, a few days later I got a consignment of 30 books with no charge. So their mistakes don’t always work to their advantage.
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Stevie Turner said:
Ha ha, you had a good deal there, Frank.
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jenanita01 said:
As you say, how would we know? Personally, I am becoming more and more disappointed by all the discrepancies…
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Stevie Turner said:
Have a look at the update I’ve just added…
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jenanita01 said:
I think that’s all right then, although it sounds very convenient…
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robertawrites235681907 said:
I have often wondered whether all the sales get recorded because I am aware of some sales of my books and the numbers don’t always seem to tally up. I haven’t been able to challenge thought because I don’t have proof of the sales.
On another point, Stevie, what constitutes a short story? How many words approximately?
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Stevie Turner said:
I think a short story can be anything up to about 20,000 words? After that it becomes a novella up to about 40,000 words, and then after that a novel.
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jwebster2 said:
You do wonder just what proportion of the mighty zon’s sales actually get logged. Especially where Amazon controls the entire process, as with ebooks.
I suspect that until they hack off somebody with money and a bad attitude who is happy to take them to court we’ll never know
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Stevie Turner said:
The company is too powerful and they have lawyers crawling out of every orifice. However, I’ve updated the blog with a surprising upturn – have a look!
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jwebster2 said:
well at least it’s an explanation, even if not a good one
Are you doing a promo blog for the freebie period?
I can share it across facebook etc if you are
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Stevie Turner said:
Yes, it’s scheduled for Saturday. Thanks in advance for sharing.
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Colleen Chesebro said:
It’s all so frustrating. How about Draft2Digital? I’m thinking of adding my books there. I know you’re in the UK. Does that affect your sales?
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Stevie Turner said:
I have some e-books with D2D which are not in the Kindle Unlimited programme. Sales are modest (a few every month). I’m thinking to try Lulu too.
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Colleen Chesebro said:
I think that is where we are. We have to try different programs to see what works best. ❤
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