Sunday, April 05, 2009

Baffled By Amazon

After reading Cheryl's posts, I've made a couple of trips to amazon.com to see if the 55 reviews I've posted are still there and they are, but then I wasn't savvy enough to even think of naming my book in my signature line. Like Cheryl, I read the guidelines about posting reviews before posting my first one and I honestly don't recall any mention about signature lines or links. If this is an issue for amazon.com, it should have been in the guidelines from the beginning.

But here's what gets me. Why would a company whose main purpose is to sell products want to keep people from advertising products that Amazon sells? Aren't they there to make money? Where's the logic?

And here's another thing that baffles me. A colleague of mine has a book listed on amazon.com and yet amazon.ca refuses to list it. Like Cheryl, my colleague has sent them multiple emails over the past six weeks, to no avail. I had the same issue with Taxed to Death. It's been listed on amazon.com since it came out in 1995, but when I asked amazon.ca if the book could be listed there as well, they said no, but that I could sell it through their marketplace. Fair enough. I did this until I happened to see Taxed to Death listed on amazon.ca a few months later. Why? I don't know, and no, I'm not complaining. My point is one of logic. I just don't understand how this company thinks. They're like the stock market. Unpredictable, frustrating, and probably here to stay whether we do business with them or not.

Good luck, everybody,
Debra
www.debrapurdykong.com

3 comments:

Cheryl Tardif said...

Hey Debra:

Thanks for your thoughts on this Amazon policy. I am still baffled after my experience, and if you read my last post where I quote their emails to me, it's no wonder I'm stunned.

As of today, Amazon's review guidelines still do not include these newly enforced policies.

As per normal, us authors have to stick together. And now we get to do the one thing we always dread--edit (our reviews).

Cheryl

Serena said...

wow, this is just some really odd behavior!

Cheryl Tardif said...

This issue has now been resolved.

Amazon reinstates author's reviews after deleting them - divine intervention?

I am happy with their assistance in dealing with this.

Cheryl