# Thousands of ebooks pulled off Amazon?



## PublisherP (Aug 28, 2018)

Hi

I woke up this morning and two of my ebooks have been pulled for sale from Amazon.com. I checked my competitors as well as ebooks in other categories and they have also been pulled down too. There are ebooks in the top 100 charts that have been pulled too. I checked my KDP account and the ebook status is 'live', but when I click the link to the ebook on Amazon.com, there is no buy box for the Kindle edition -- only for the paperback edition.

Has this happened to you too? What is going on?


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## iforgotmyboots (Nov 9, 2018)

That does sound odd. I checked my ebooks and they are all still available. They are not available as paperbacks.


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## AmesburyArcher (Jan 16, 2017)

I seem to have at least one missing. I believe there has been an ongoing problem over the last week with missing books...


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## AmesburyArcher (Jan 16, 2017)

Just checked. Three kindle editions missing. Annoyed, because one is a good seller. The problem seems to be only in the USA--the books are all accounted  for in both kindle and paperback in  the UK.


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## AmesburyArcher (Jan 16, 2017)

This seems to be massive. Just checked other friends' books and everyone seems to have at least one missing.


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## notjohn (Sep 9, 2016)

I've only checked my better-selling titles, but they're all okay.


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## BlueGen (Jun 14, 2014)

Several of mine missing too.


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## AmesburyArcher (Jan 16, 2017)

At least the 2 I have paid promos for this weekend are still there. For now. Yuk. This is really not great.


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## AmesburyArcher (Jan 16, 2017)

Just did a general search for historical romance, one one page almost half the kindle books were missing.... Wouldn't it be nice if Amazon just gave us some  direction here?


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## wearywanderer64 (Jan 27, 2013)

Mine are missing.


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## qualitypoint (Mar 31, 2013)

My Books are also not showing for me. I tweeted about it, and Amazon Help replied for my tweet.
From their tweet/reply, I understand that it is available in respective local Amazon. For example, if you are checking from India you should use amazon.in instead of amazon.com


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## AmesburyArcher (Jan 16, 2017)

qualitypoint said:


> My Books are also not showing for me. I tweeted about it, and Amazon Help replied for my tweet.
> From their tweet/reply, I understand that it is available in respective local Amazon. For example, if you are checking from India you should use amazon.in instead of amazon.com


They are misunderstanding what you are telling them. It is not the 'not available' message under the buy button that we are seeing today (which is normal when viewing from abroad)--there is no kindle edition at all, it is missing completely, as is the buy button.


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## AnnaMara (May 2, 2014)

I just checked too and 3 of my kindle books are missing. Their paperback and audiobook versions are still up but the kindle versions are all gone. And one of them is my bestseller. What's going on??


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## AnnaMara (May 2, 2014)

What's odd is that I have another 2 books that are strictly ONLY Kindle versions; and those are still up for sale. But the other 3 kindle books that are missing, I also offer in paperback versions. And one of them is offered in audiobook format too. Could this be an Amazon problem with them merging KDP and Createspace? The 3 missing kindle books were made into paperbacks through Createspace.


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## AmesburyArcher (Jan 16, 2017)

I wish they would just let us know. I've found a couple more authors on Twitter with similar problems. This is not a little glitch...it is a huge, serious one.


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## Guest (Nov 10, 2018)

Two of my SF books aren't available in Kindle, but the rest are okay.


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## hloce_olori (Aug 13, 2018)

Mine is gone too


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## A past poster (Oct 23, 2013)

HarperWhitmore said:


> I have 15 books with no buy button now. And I'm advertising them through AMS. This happened a while ago and took about a weeek to get sorted last time.


If your books are unavailable, make sure you take a screen shot of your AMS dashboard that shows your impressions, clicks, etc. and pause your ads until your books are available again. If you don't do this, you will be charged for clicks even though your books aren't available. There is no point in paying for clicks if your book isn't available for sale.

Anyone who uses AMS ads should be taking at least one screen shot everyday.


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## AmesburyArcher (Jan 16, 2017)

OK...here's the latest. A friend of mine, an author in the UK, experienced the same thing...so he used his US proxy server and the kindle book is indeed still there! So the other poster further up may have been told correctly that it is if you are in another country. However, it doesn't explain why you can see some of your books normally displayed with kindle editions and some you can't. Just random and weird.


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## Guest (Nov 10, 2018)

AmesburyArcher said:


> OK...here's the latest. A friend of mine, an author in the UK, experienced the same thing...so he used his US proxy server and the kindle book is indeed still there! So the other poster further up may have been told correctly that it is if you are in another country. However, it doesn't explain why you can see some of your books normally displayed with kindle editions and some you can't. Just random and weird.


I'm using a US VPN and I'm in Greece on a UK account. When I transfer to an EU VPN I get the same issue. Two books missing.


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## AmesburyArcher (Jan 16, 2017)

Vacant_Possession said:


> I'm using a US VPN and I'm in Greece on a UK account. When I transfer to an EU VPN I get the same issue. Two books missing.


Ah...so that would seem to be it!


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## ImaWriter (Aug 12, 2015)

I'm in Canada and can still see my Kindle books on .com. However, I was buying ebooks from .com long before they were available on .ca and despite being prompted, I've never switched. So that might be the cause. I suggest other international authors do some testing.

One thing I have seen in the last few weeks, and did question KDP about. If a book was in KU, the KU logo appeared on the product page, above the price. It's no longer there, and you need to go searching to find out if something is in KU. I asked, and here is the answer: 


> I checked some books of our publishers enrolled in KU and see that the Kindle unlimited buy box is showing and it is working as designed. *It seems like you are browsing from Canada on Amazon.com pages so you are not seeing the option.* If you are searching on Amazon.ca for KU and still not seeing the Kindle unlimited buy box, please send us the screenshot of what you are seeing so we can report it to the appropriate team.


For research, I always have a selection of KU and nonKU books in my genre that I track. Distinguishing them is a bit more of a hassle now. Regardless, Amazon has definitely made at least some changes to what you can see based on your country.


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## Guest (Nov 10, 2018)

I think Amazon is unravelling... Could take a while


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## Vesela (Jan 2, 2013)

Almost all my Kindle editions are missing from the amazon.co.uk, my amazon.com Kindle editions are still there.


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## Dpock (Oct 31, 2016)

Well, how are everyone's sales? Are they down today or normal?


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## AmesburyArcher (Jan 16, 2017)

Vesela said:


> Almost all my Kindle editions are missing from the amazon.co.uk, my amazon.com Kindle editions are still there.


Vesela, I can put your mind at rest...I just checked your books on Amazon uk and they are all there.
It seems to be a viewing problem between countries.


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## Guest (Nov 10, 2018)

My sales are down yesterday and today. Good up to then. I've just gone in and changed the prices slightly to re-publish the books and see if it sorts the issue.


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## anotherpage (Apr 4, 2012)

PublisherP said:


> Hi
> 
> I woke up this morning and two of my ebooks have been pulled for sale from Amazon.com. I checked my competitors as well as ebooks in other categories and they have also been pulled down too. There are ebooks in the top 100 charts that have been pulled too. I checked my KDP account and the ebook status is 'live', but when I click the link to the ebook on Amazon.com, there is no buy box for the Kindle edition -- only for the paperback edition.
> 
> Has this happened to you too? What is going on?


I've seen this with some major names ( traditional world too ) I thought their publisher had pulled them but nope. All their books are there except kindle

I will go check mine now


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## AnnaMara (May 2, 2014)

I'm in Canada. I just used your suggestion and went through a US VPN and sure enough, all of my kindles are showing up for sale on amazon.com. But when I browse amazon.com from Canada, they're not showing up. Thanks for the tip, btw.


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## anotherpage (Apr 4, 2012)

yeah it appears when you view through VPN the books are there on amazon.com But what is weird is that without the VPN ( you can see some but not view others) very odd.


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## AmesburyArcher (Jan 16, 2017)

thevoiceofone said:


> Wow there is about 15 of my books gone. Great. Weird part is if this is IP related and they are still there. Why can i see the others in the series? Its like its showing some and not others?


That's the weird, random bit...however, my friend in the US screen-shot one of my books that I can't see...and everything is normal her end.


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

wearywanderer64 said:


> Mine are missing.


I see both of the books in your signature line for sale.

PS I'm in the US. Must be a US store vs. overseas store display issue.


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## Guest (Nov 10, 2018)

jb1111 said:


> I see both of the books in your signature line for sale.
> 
> PS I'm in the US. Must be a US store vs. overseas store display issue.


Why would it show book 1 & 4 in my series but not show books 2 & 3 illogical to the extreme.


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## Patrick Skelton (Jan 7, 2011)

Wow, this news is very disturbing.  I'm just getting ready to publish a new novel. I hope there aren't any issues.


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## ImaWriter (Aug 12, 2015)

AnnaMara said:


> I'm in Canada. I just used your suggestion and went through a US VPN and sure enough, all of my kindles are showing up for sale on amazon.com. But when I browse amazon.com from Canada, they're not showing up. Thanks for the tip, btw.


Interesting, because I'm in Canada and can see my books are on .com just like I always do. Which lends to the thought that this isn't just tied to your IP address (country). It may have something to do with your account as well.


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## AmesburyArcher (Jan 16, 2017)

Whatever it is, it is affecting thousands of books including the Big Five....


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## I&#039;m a Little Teapot (Apr 10, 2014)

I can see mine all just fine, but a reader sent me a screen shot telling her one of mine is unavailable. Two different people, same country, same store, and one sees it just fine and one not. Crazy.


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

My latest isn't showing up in a search, although as far as I can tell it's still actually there.


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## PublisherP (Aug 28, 2018)

I have published a new book today and I couldn't find it on Amazon.com.

However, I could find it by changing my location to the USA in the 'content and devices' section of my account.

As other users have pointed out, I could also find the book by using a VPN set to a US location.

So, I don't think this is a 'bug'. 

I think it might be an intended change to prevent fraudulent reviews.

As for why this only affects 'some' kindle books and not others, this might be something to do with the 'review' history of the book i.e. have a certain amount of reviews been posted on a book by accounts that have been subsequently banned for review swapping? If yes, then this might prevent the book from being visible out the US as a kind of 'safety mechanism' because this is where the majority of fake reviews come from i.e. Asia.

I could be wrong here, but it is just a theory.

It might just be a 'bug', but I believe it's something more calculated and intended, and possibly a permanent change from here onward.


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## tknite (Feb 18, 2014)

This is not a new "glitch" (and frankly, I'm not entirely sure it IS a glitch, based on my exchanges with the KDP service reps). A few weeks back, there WAS a glitch where random books were showing up as "unavailable" in the US store to US customers. As far as I know, that issue has now been rectified--one of my titles was affected but went back on sale in a couple days--but watching the availability behavior of books over the past couple weeks, I'm becoming more and more convinced that that original glitch was an accident caused by intentional changes to regional book availability that Amazon is currently in the process of making.

When I released my latest book on 11/2, I got emails from multiple non-US readers who frequently purchase books in the US store, telling me that my new release was showing as unavailable to them. Sure enough, when using a proxy server from their countries, the book does indeed show up as "unavailable."

Looking further, I found that if I go to my KDP dashboard, hover over the LIVE indicator, and click through to "See title availability details," my new release (and, in fact, all my books now--because it's SPREADING) are showing up as "Limited Availability" on the US and UK sites. Clicking the dropdown shows that there are numerous countries whose residents cannot purchase my books in those stores, and that includes people from Australia and New Zealand.

Interestingly, the availability of my books in the US store to AU/NZ residents keeps alternating. They were available again the other day, then suddenly switched back to unavailable again today. I have no clue what that's all about, or why the regional unavailability doesn't ever apply to every book in the store, just a seemingly random assortment.

Anyway, after my readers started emailing me, I emailed KDP, and after a bit of back and forth, I got this interesting runaround answer:



> Limited Availability :
> 
> As you can see under "Limited Availability "there are few countries where your eBook is not available for sale.
> 
> ...


I found that last line particularly interesting, because I know for a fact my books WERE available to people in those regions as recently as a few weeks ago, and I also know for a fact that many books still ARE available to residents from those regions in the US store. It's all very...odd.

Now, I'm not going to claim I have any idea what Amazon is plotting behind the scenes, but I'm struggling to figure out how this unavailability issue, which has now persisted for weeks, can actually be some random problem introduced by a glitch in the system. The longer it goes on, and the more answers like the above I received from KDP, the more I'm convinced this is in fact the result of planned, large-scale regional availability changes on Amazon's part (changes that, like all major Amazon updates, have resulted in glitchy and inconsistent behavior in the stores).

That's my two cents, anyway. I may be totally off base, but that's the best I can come up with.


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## Andy_Blinston (Apr 23, 2018)

My book is showing the same thing. It's not on Amazon.com when I view from the UK but appears when viewed from the US. Weird.


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## 9 Diamonds (Oct 4, 2016)

Two of our titles -- one a pre-order -- are also suffering this fate. I've written to Amazon and hope for a resolution soon.


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## Guest (Nov 10, 2018)

ImaWriter said:


> Interesting, because I'm in Canada and can see my books are on .com just like I always do. Which lends to the thought that this isn't just tied to your IP address (country). It may have something to do with your account as well.


I don't think this is it. I have shopped the .com store for years (I'm outside the US, had an Amazon account since 1997) and have found over the last few weeks an increasing number of titles I can't purchase, or even *find* in the store. This morning I checked my author page and found half my titles have vanished and there is no longer a kindle version available. My old (2015) series starter and all my releases for this year have gone and a couple of other older titles. Using a VPN they are still there for US customers looking at the US store but they are gone for readers outside the US who shop the US store


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## AmesburyArcher (Jan 16, 2017)

More of mine are just showing the paperback edition in the US. I have a countdown sale on one and it IS selling, so some people must be able to see it.


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## Jackson Lear (Aug 20, 2014)

I had this issue last week with a book in the UK (I'm in Australia). Amazon support assured me it was available for purchase and sure enough I was soon selling UK ebooks. Last night I noticed the same thing with a new release in the US, yet I sold some US copies today. Ten minutes ago I sold another US copy despite it supposedly being 'unavailable'. I'm keeping an eye on things and I'll be quick to turn off ads but so far it seems like an issue only because I'm on the other side of the planet.


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## ImaWriter (Aug 12, 2015)

Tilly said:


> I don't think this is it. I have shopped the .com store for years (I'm outside the US, had an Amazon account since 1997) and have found over the last few weeks an increasing number of titles I can't purchase, or even *find* in the store. This morning I checked my author page and found half my titles have vanished and there is no longer a kindle version available. My old (2015) series starter and all my releases for this year have gone and a couple of other older titles. Using a VPN they are still there for US customers looking at the US store but they are gone for readers outside the US who shop the US store


I've tried to find it, but can't. I'm sure there was talk a year or so ago of them wanting to force shoppers to use their local stores. I've had my .com account for nearly as long as you've had yours, and despite the constant hounding from them since they opened shop here, I've never moved. Maybe they've hit on a way to off-load people.

So far none of my books say they're unavailable in Canada, but a few are showing not available in Australia and GB. So I guess it's only time.


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## RinG (Mar 12, 2013)

I'm seeing the same thing on one of my ebooks. Every other book is fine, but just one won't show as available to me. It obviously is still available, because it's still selling, very irritating if it's a country thing. (I'm in Australia.)

Interestingly enough yesterday I had a prompt to switch to the .au store. Haven't had one of those in months.


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## Escapee (Jan 31, 2014)

I'm in Australia and I'm having the same problem with one of my books not showing up on the US store. It disappeared a few hours before an ad was supposed to run. I thought it was going to bomb completely and be a total waste of money, but I've had 2700 downloads in the US, so I'm assuming the book is visible there even though I still can't see it. It's a relief that the book isn't gone, but this hasn't been much good for my stress levels


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## Ancient Lawyer (Jul 1, 2013)

My (one) book is missing from amazon.com - the amazon.co.uk kindle version is there. I don't have a VPN - unless using the anonymous browser in Chrome will achieve the same effect...?


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## Hope (Nov 28, 2014)

I spoke to someone in the IT department at Amazon yesterday regarding the missing link for my series. He said there were a large number of author's books missing the link and it was an IT issue on their end. He had it restored for me within a few hours. We've seen a lot of different things going on lately and I really think it may all be due to a widespread IT issue. The initial Amazon customer service reps just don't understand what's going on. I had them telling me all kinds of things as the reason for the missing link, but when I talked to someone in that department, he assured me it was an Amazon issue and had nothing to do with anything I was or wasn't doing. When you email them, make sure you copy and paste all correspondence you've had between you and them so that they can see what the reps are telling you. I really felt like they were embarrassed it went on as long as it did and also by the things the reps had been telling me. Hopefully they will get these issues resolved quickly.

ETA: The guy in IT told me that my series page was there, it just wasn't searchable. That's why I wonder if the missing books have something similar going on.


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

PublisherP said:


> Hi
> 
> I woke up this morning and two of my ebooks have been pulled for sale from Amazon.com. I checked my competitors as well as ebooks in other categories and they have also been pulled down too. There are ebooks in the top 100 charts that have been pulled too. I checked my KDP account and the ebook status is 'live', but when I click the link to the ebook on Amazon.com, there is no buy box for the Kindle edition -- only for the paperback edition.
> 
> Has this happened to you too? What is going on?


Are you looking from a non-US location? I've been having this problem with my latest book since it was published in September. I look at the US site via my bookshelf at the e-book and all I get is the paperback, but a friend in the States looked for me and tells me it shows both versions from there. I know it must be showing, as people in the States are buying it.

I wrote to Amazon about this weeks ago, but I am still waiting for a sensible reply.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

Most of the top 100 bestsellers on Amazon.com are showing not available for sale for me in Canada. Even the biggest sellers so it's stopping me from buying Michelle Obama's book and Harlan Coben's book among others. I usually buy all my digital books on Amazon.com and everything else on Amazon.ca for the delivery options.


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## andreadrew (Dec 11, 2014)

Yep discovered three of mine (kindle versions) are missing from .com suddenly today too. Unpublished but showing as published on kdp dashboard
Just emailed them. 
Dickheads


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## Guest (Nov 11, 2018)

I've just had a chance to check my sales for the last two days. Whilst I did have a blip there doesn't 'seem' to be any drop in the overall pattern. The two missing e-books are still selling. So, they are 'visible' somewhere. I did re-publish my books last night and KDP sent me a confirmation email this morning to tell me they were both published. so, all is well there, presumably. I don't know, perhaps it's just a server problem which still makes it an IT issue, but might not be as serious as we think.


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## Kate Hamilton (Jan 28, 2011)

I've just made my ebook live after a long while of being in draft and find the same thing - all good in other countries but though the photo of the cover and the title are in place there is no price or ability to buy shown from my location in the UK for the USA. Having read the replies it looks like an IT problem. However does this mean we need to get in touch with them individually? If this is the case could someone kindly tell me how to contact/email them as there is nothing I can find to actually do this. Many thanks.

p.s. Hope it's not the Mandela effect


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## notjohn (Sep 9, 2016)

Does it really matter if you can't see your book, if US buyers can? After all, you can't buy it from outside the country, so it's really just a small escalation of the Not Available For Purchase display that has long been there.

As for Canada, I wonder if something else is going on. Many Canadians set up US accounts when Kindle was first introduced, since anyone living near the border could download books through the Whispersynch delivery then used (instead of wi fi). That made everyone happy, except of course Canadian tax authorities. I'm sure that the government of Alberta is just as anxious as the government of New York State to tax Amazon sales as they pass by. Forcing Canadian Kindlers to buy from the CA store would accomplish that, since it brings Amazon/Kindle under local jurisdiction.

_Edited to remove political commentary. PM me if you have any questions. --Betsy/KB Mod_


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

notjohn said:


> Does it really matter if you can't see your book, if US buyers can?


Yes, because it's the only way to see where my book is ranked in the US. That is the important one, after all.


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## Guest (Nov 11, 2018)

Doglover said:


> Yes, because it's the only way to see where my book is ranked in the US. That is the important one, after all.


Your KDP graph shows pretty much all you need there, I think.


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

Vacant_Possession said:


> Your KDP graph shows pretty much all you need there, I think.


How? I can see sales, I can see page reads. I can't see rank.


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## Guest (Nov 11, 2018)

Doglover said:


> How? I can see sales, I can see page reads. I can't see rank.


Your graphs in authorcentral show your ranking every day and changes throughout the day (every hour). It even tells you if you're up or down. If that isn't enough in the book section it gives you ranking as well. I have USA and UK on shortcuts (they consist of my main market) and I can check them as often as needed.


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## AmesburyArcher (Jan 16, 2017)

If you go to your bookshelf and click on the kindle US link for any book, you will see the page and present kindle rank...just not the ebook or US price. Weird.


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## stephenjsweeney (Nov 11, 2018)

I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one suffering from this. I've noticed that all my Kindle books have now disappeared from my author page on Amazon.com.

Perhaps this is Amazon wanting to stop people outside of the US from buying Kindle books on Amazon.com; it appears a little more deliberate and long-running that I would expect if this was just a software update that's gone wrong. Of course, it still could be that someone's messed things up and Amazon are running about like headless chickens.


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## RMGauthier (Apr 22, 2016)

I've had a lot of funny things happening in the last few weeks. First my Author central ranking froze, for 5 days my author rank sat at the same number, finally on the sixth day it started moving again. My kindle books have been going up and down like a yo-yo. I have two series, first one series page disappeared, even when I used my link to get there it would say 'page not found.' It was missing for about 6 days. It returned yesterday, finally. Then, my other series page disappeared. That one was only gone for a day, it's back now. 

Yesterday, I had friends outside of my country (I'm in Canada) check the status of my books. Rhode Island, could see half my books, but not the other half or they said unavailable for purchase. Florida couldn't see any of the kindle books for sale. Ohio could see and buy them all. Australia could only see half.

My conclusion, Amazon is having major issues and are working to solve them. For now, I've shut off all advertising, will get some writing done and hope they fix these issues soon. 

And let's remember... it's a huge site with a lot going on... this too shall pass.


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## ImaWriter (Aug 12, 2015)

RMGauthier said:


> Yesterday, I had friends outside of my country (I'm in Canada) check the status of my books. Rhode Island, could see half my books, but not the other half or they said unavailable for purchase. Florida couldn't see any of the kindle books for sale. Ohio could see and buy them all. Australia could only see half.


That's just...  I have no words.

Does Amazon have some disgruntled employee in IT rubbing their hands together in glee, coming up with mayhem they can let loose every other day?


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## Guest (Nov 11, 2018)

notjohn said:


> Does it really matter if you can't see your book, if US buyers can?


Do you realise that there isn't an Amazon store for every country in the world? Thousands of readers shop the US store because we don't have a regional store. For those of us who shop the US store, thousands of kindles titles are now invisible. But I guess non-US readers and their purchases don't matter to you.


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## AmesburyArcher (Jan 16, 2017)

Tilly said:


> Do you realise that there isn't an Amazon store for every country in the world? Thousands of readers shop the US store because we don't have a regional store. For those of us who shop the US store, thousands of kindles titles are now invisible. But I guess non-US readers and their purchases don't matter to you.


As above. Some of my short stories, which are kindle only, are completely invisible now and not even searchable from outside the USA. Even if people are now being directed to other sites, they cannot see some of my books at all, so they can't go to another site and buy them because they won't know they exist...Lots of people from outside the US use the Amazon.com site...or they used to.


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## Guest (Nov 11, 2018)

AmesburyArcher said:


> As above. Some of my short stories, which are kindle only, are completely invisible now and not even searchable from outside the USA. Even if people are now being directed to other sites, they cannot see some of my books at all, so they can't go to another site and buy them because they won't know they exist...Lots of people from outside the US use the Amazon.com site...or they used to.


It's odd because in most cases it's a few of each author's books. In some cases all, but most selective. If it was pre-meditated i.e. someone mucking with the system, then it would probably be large swathes of books, even genres. however, this is hotchpotch as if there is something else that is the common denominator but don't ask me what, I'm just throwing it out there. There have also been odd goings on over at Google with erotic and thriller titles being mixed in with SF. not necessarily linked, but it's still attacking the e-book market all the same as this issue. The common denominator in both cases is 'searches'.


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## ImaWriter (Aug 12, 2015)

Whatever is going on, it's spreading. 

When I checked yesterday, all my Kindle versions were viewable to me from my Canadian IP address. That's not longer the case. Several have been removed from view now.


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## KateE (Dec 27, 2012)

It's not just a few books for me. As of yesterday it is 28 titles that have the 'not available for purchase' thing on them. Three are my latest releases and one is a pre-order. I haven't checked today, I think I'm too afraid to. I am in Australia and used a VPN to check the US site and I am still seeing the 'not available for purchase' thing even with that. And it is impacting my sales. I don't know when they were so bad for so many days in a row. I am so glad that I am wide and don't rely on Amazon for all of my royalties. I have emailed Amazon several times and as yet have not received a reply. Now today I am going in and changing a few things on each of them to see if I can get the buy button back. We'll see if that works.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

notjohn said:


> Does it really matter if you can't see your book, if US buyers can? After all, you can't buy it from outside the country, so it's really just a small escalation of the Not Available For Purchase display that has long been there.


I need to see my book in the US Kindle store (and the UK, CA, AU, FR, IT, ES, NL, BR, MX, IN and JP stores), so I can put the link on my website and into promo sites. I also need to see the rank.

And for the new release spotlights and round-ups at the Speculative Fiction Showcase and Indie Crime Scene, I need the Amazon.com link to post it and to check the release date (which Amazon DE doesn't list). And since I actually buy from the DE store, I don't want to make my recommendations even worse than they already are by looking up books for my sites that aren't what I'd normally read and buy.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

Tilly said:


> Do you realise that there isn't an Amazon store for every country in the world? Thousands of readers shop the US store because we don't have a regional store. For those of us who shop the US store, thousands of kindles titles are now invisible. But I guess non-US readers and their purchases don't matter to you.


This, too. US buyers/readers aren't the only ones in the world. I occasionally find Swedish books in my also-boughts, which suggests that I have readers in Sweden. And since Sweden doesn't have its own Kindle store, they have to buy via Amazon.com.


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

CoraBuhlert said:


> I need to see my book in the US Kindle store (and the UK, CA, AU, FR, IT, ES, NL, BR, MX, IN and JP stores), so I can put the link on my website and into promo sites. I also need to see the rank.
> 
> And for the new release spotlights and round-ups at the Speculative Fiction Showcase and Indie Crime Scene, I need the Amazon.com link to post it and to check the release date (which Amazon DE doesn't list). And since I actually buy from the DE store, I don't want to make my recommendations even worse than they already are by looking up books for my sites that aren't what I'd normally read and buy.


All my eBooks went missing today on .com when viewed from Brazil.

I agree with you about international sales. I'm an expat and don't want to wade through millions of foreign language books, so I buy via .com. I think think that will be true of many expats, especially when they don't speak the sites language for the territory where they live. If you tick all worldwide rights, they should be available on whatever site you are a customer of as far as I am concerned, which has always been the case.

It doesn't bode well for AMS clicks from expats, and all my books are on AMS.


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## Lorance (Sep 26, 2014)

My testing confirms what other people are seeing. Some missing kindle versions and price changes under the following two conditions...

1) Coming into Amazon from an IP outside the US.
AND
2) Not logged into a US Amazon account.

If I am logged into my US Amazon account, I see everything properly no matter where my IP is located. But logged out, and cookies cleared, I only see books properly displayed when Amazon is accessed via a US IP.

So, people with IPs outside the US should first log into their US Amazon account (if they have one) before looking up a book.

Note: If you live outside the US, you can use a free US proxy to visit Amazon as if you were a US resident...

1) Go to https://hide.me/en/proxy (Click on the "Free Proxy" menu item, then scroll down to the form.)
2) Select the US option from the dropdown menu
3) Enter https://www.amazon.com/ and click "Visit anonymously".


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## A past poster (Oct 23, 2013)

Vacant_Possession said:


> Your graphs in authorcentral show your ranking every day and changes throughout the day (every hour). It even tells you if you're up or down. If that isn't enough in the book section it gives you ranking as well. I have USA and UK on shortcuts (they consist of my main market) and I can check them as often as needed.


My author rank graph in Author Central hasn't changed in days; nor has the sales rank of purchased books changed.


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## hopecartercan (Jun 19, 2015)

I just checked my ebooks & found that several of them are missing on the US Amazon site. Seems the situation at Amazon is getting worse and worse.


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## Guest (Nov 12, 2018)

Lorance said:


> My testing confirms what other people are seeing. Some missing kindle versions and price changes under the following two conditions...
> 
> 1) Coming into Amazon from an IP outside the US.
> AND
> ...


This isn't strictly the case.

I'm using a US proxy AND I'm logged into the .com site yet my books are missing. It makes no difference where I am, those books don't show. Yet the others do.

When I log out and view my books from San Franscisco,(VPN) they all show up as there. When I log out of my VPN and approach from an EU IP, they're all there.

It's when I'm logged in they don't show. When I sign out they all show.

So, we're all getting different results - still!

and why just some of my books?

[edit] Are Amazon split testing a new system?


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## RandomThings (Oct 21, 2016)

Can't see some of my books on the US store, which is fair enough as I am from the UK. However, some of the UK ones are missing too. One in particular, is a book smack in the middle of my best selling series and a quick look at the KDP graphs for the .co.uk site, for that particular book, shows consistent sales and pages reads until 23rd Oct... then, nothing. Dead. 

This is definitely a problem.


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## BowlOfCherries (May 8, 2009)

Could it possibly be partly coming from migration issues or data migration staging as Amazon slowly switches from Oracle to its own database software. Bunch of articles relating to the switchover - here's one of them: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/keep-talkin-larry-amazon-appears-ever-closer-to-dumping-oracle-2018-11-10


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## Guest (Nov 12, 2018)

BowlOfCherries said:


> Could it possibly be partly coming from migration issues or data migration staging as Amazon slowly switches from Oracle to its own database software. Bunch of articles relating to the switchover - here's one of them: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/keep-talkin-larry-amazon-appears-ever-closer-to-dumping-oracle-2018-11-10


Yes, it certainly could. My thoughts on split testing don't truly reflect the issue for everyone, but data transfers could well do it. In which case it's probably going to get worse before it gets better seeing as they aim for an 88% shift to their own software by the end of the year. The upside is that I'm pretty certain Amazon is tracking all the sales, so even if there's a lull it should (hopefully) rectify itself.


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## MajesticMonkey (Sep 3, 2013)

Dang. Some of mine are gone too. 

Can anyone please share the message they wrote to Amazon support? I would be very grateful.


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## Guest (Nov 12, 2018)

Dear Amazing

Your system is f****d Please fix it I'm losing money.

Thanks

'D' Rated Author


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## Sally C (Mar 31, 2011)

seven of my twenty-two titles have vanished too.


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## PhoenixFromTheAshes (Oct 1, 2018)

David Gaughran posted about the issue here:
https://davidgaughran.com/2018/11/12/amazon-kdp-books-unavailable-international-readers/

Even if US indies don't believe this issue affects them because they can see and search for their books, think again.

Also, surprise! A bit off the immediate topic of discoverability and book visibility, but I don't want it to get lost -- Amazon is advocating a *fix* for non-US customers unable to see their titles that scammers have likely been using to scam with for years.

*Please, Amazon:* You continue to enable scammers, inadvertently or not. You refuse to tell people why their specific accounts have been targeted for rank stripping, page stripping, account suspension, and/or account termination on the pretext that revealing the reason(s) could alert scammers to new or better ways to scam.

News flash: The scammers are way ahead of your reactive 'fixes.'

Here's a thought: If you've identified a way to scam, CLOSE IT UP. Don't ignore it for years, and pretend that if you simply don't mention it publicly, the scammers won't be exploiting it.

And please don't wholesale advocate fixes that will lead to even more scamming. FIX THE ISSUE.

Oh, and advocating a *fix* that could additionally violate territorial rights and/or VAT collection: It may be the easiest fix, yeah, but probably not the best legal fix available.

/soapbox


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## Lorance (Sep 26, 2014)

Vacant_Possession said:


> When I log out and view my books from San Franscisco,(VPN) they all show up as there. When I log out of my VPN and approach from an EU IP, they're all there.
> It's when I'm logged in they don't show. When I sign out they all show.


Interesting! I take it you are clearing your cache and cookies between tests? Do you have separate personal and publishing accounts? When you first established your Amazon account, were you on a US or overseas IP?


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## Siruli (Nov 11, 2018)

Hi there, I'm not a writer, but I live in northern Europe and buy my Kindle books from Amazon.com. 

I love going through my wish list on Amazon to see if any prices have dropped. Maybe two or three weeks ago I noticed a lot of books on my list were no longer for sale, dozens of them (mine is a looong list). A few days later they started coming back, not all, but most of them I think, that was around the start of November and the Kindle monthly deals changed at the same time. I was very pleased and very surprised when I noticed several of the monthly deals books were unusually cheap, $0,06 and $0,07, so I bought lots of them. The next day there were several other books for a few cents so I happily spent a total of $0.89 on twelwe books. The prices of the monthly deals and sometimes also daily deals have been going up and down all November, not all of them but enough of them for me to run out of space on my Kindle. The prices seem absurd, even for deals. Maybe everything is as it should be, but it does feel odd. That's how I found this forum, I was googling "Kindle discussion" to see if anyone was talking about the bizarre prices. 

I don't know if this has anything to do with your problem -or even if there really is a problem with the prices-, just thought I'd share in case there's some connection.


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## A Fading Street (Sep 25, 2016)

I know this is a problem for one of my clients who has just published with promotion only to find the books can't be purchased on the .com site. This is not good news for anyone.


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## ImaWriter (Aug 12, 2015)

Siruli said:


> Hi there, I'm not a writer, but I live in northern Europe and buy my Kindle books from Amazon.com.
> 
> I love going through my wish list on Amazon to see if any prices have dropped. Maybe two or three weeks ago I noticed a lot of books on my list were no longer for sale, dozens of them (mine is a looong list). A few days later they started coming back, not all, but most of them I think, that was around the start of November and the Kindle monthly deals changed at the same time. I was very pleased and very surprised when I noticed several of the monthly deals books were unusually cheap, $0,06 and $0,07, so I bought lots of them. The next day there were several other books for a few cents so I happily spent a total of $0.89 on twelwe books. The prices of the monthly deals and sometimes also daily deals have been going up and down all November, not all of them but enough of them for me to run out of space on my Kindle. The prices seem absurd, even for deals. Maybe everything is as it should be, but it does feel odd. That's how I found this forum, I was googling "Kindle discussion" to see if anyone was talking about the bizarre prices.
> 
> I don't know if this has anything to do with your problem -or even if there really is a problem with the prices-, just thought I'd share in case there's some connection.


Thank you for sharing this! The fact that Amazon is/was selling books at $0.06 and $0.07 is crazy.


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## ImaWriter (Aug 12, 2015)

CoraBuhlert said:


> This, too. US buyers/readers aren't the only ones in the world. I occasionally find Swedish books in my also-boughts, which suggests that I have readers in Sweden. And since Sweden doesn't have its own Kindle store, they have to buy via Amazon.com.


When you mentioned Sweden, I checked one of my books that had the blinds pulled down over it. Checking Dashboard >Title >Live >See Title Availability, Sweden was unavailable, so was Norway. I remember those 2 specifically. For that same book, both those countries are now showing Live under the .com store. I've started taking screen shots of the lists to see if anything changes for the better.

So, maybe there is a turnaround here? Or am I being too optimistic?


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## AnnaMara (May 2, 2014)

Hi All... I just received a response from Amazon KDP. They said that their technical team is working on the issue and that it should be resolved in the next 24-48 hours. They also said that my books are indeed still available for sale on Amazon US, even though I can't see them from Canada. This is true because when I use a US VPN, I do see them all still up for sale on the US site.


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## AmesburyArcher (Jan 16, 2017)

ameliag said:


> I checked my books are still up for all countries.
> 
> Maybe it applies to certain authors?


I think the problem is mainly with authors outside the US when they try to find their books on Amazon. com. It has affected every UK author I know, both large and small, traditional and indie.


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## Marti talbott (Apr 19, 2011)

Doglover said:


> Yes, because it's the only way to see where my book is ranked in the US. That is the important one, after all.


Want me to check your books for you?


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## Marti talbott (Apr 19, 2011)

ImaWriter said:


> Thank you for sharing this! The fact that Amazon is/was selling books at $0.06 and $0.07 is crazy.


I just ran a report for the last two weeks, and guess what. $0.06 and $0.07 is what they charge for delivery manufacturing costs, whatever that is.


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## Adrian Howell (Feb 24, 2013)

I'm guessing that the issue may be multifold: Some books really have gone missing, while others merely appear that way when seen from outside the US.

In my case it was the latter, but note that while I was looking at my book from Japan, I was also logged into Amazon.com, as I do have an Amazon US account and fairly frequently shop there. Thus I can confirm that a book can appear to be missing even when logged into the US store so long as you're looking from a non US IP address.

Even more confusingly, this has only happened to ONE of my five books. Why not all of them?! And why my perma-free book 1, which was less than hours away from a Book Barbarian promotion? Thinking my book had actually been pulled, I panicked and sent emails to both KDP asking what was going on and to Book Barbarian asking if they could halt and possibly reschedule the promo. Roughly 18 hours later, I've yet to hear back from KDP, but the rep at Book Barbarian double-checked my book for me and confirmed that it was indeed for sale, so they ran the promo as scheduled, and from the spike in my sales (even when filtered to Amazon.com only) I'm certain the book is perfectly safe.


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## Bookread (Mar 8, 2016)

Yikes. Thanks for letting us know.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

Plenty of mine are missing as well, particularly older titles. This really sucks, because my readership has always been more international than with many other indies. I'm in Germany BTW.


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## 9 Diamonds (Oct 4, 2016)

Have had another four titles affected by this -- they are actually still available but do not show up as being available when the site is viewed from a foreign ISP. AND I just got this response from Amazon to my query of two days ago:

"Hello, I'm sorry for the trouble for unavailability of your eBooks "B07KCTZ75W and B06XBLZGHH". Our technical team is aware of this problem and our engineers are working on a high priority to fix this issue.So, you don't need to worry or take any additional steps further, as your book will be reverted back on Amazon website shortly.We highly appreciate your understanding in this regard. Thanks for being a part of Amazon KDP."


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## stephenjsweeney (Nov 11, 2018)

Hello, all.

I received a response from Amazon last night about the issue and they said they were working to resolve it. I checked this morning and all my books are now visible in the US store once again. Previously, only one title was available:

https://www.amazon.com/Stephen-Sweeney/e/B004G66U6W/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1

I'm in the UK, so I'm not sure why that might affect those in other countries (maybe it's a trickle down effect?).

So, the good news is that Amazon appear to be on top of things. You might need to get in touch with them if you're still experiencing problems, though.


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## 9 Diamonds (Oct 4, 2016)

Success! Our titles are available and visible and can be ordered on the US site from outside the US again! A good outcome -- people, if you are experiencing this issue, do send a message to Amazon. This worked for us.


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## AmesburyArcher (Jan 16, 2017)

Will do...mine still aren't showing.


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## Ross Harrison (May 5, 2012)

Well, thanks to seeing this thread, I double-checked my books and found one missing from the US site. I've emailed them, and no doubt they'll try to tell me it's my fault. They usually do (and they're only right 60% of the time!).


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## notjohn (Sep 9, 2016)

There's an informational post on the KDP community front page today about "some" books being "temporarily" unavailable on "some" sites. I didn't read it, figuring it was the usual self-exculpatory BS.

Good luck! -- NJ

_edited; sorry, self-promotional links not allowed except in the Book Bazaar -- KBoard mod team_


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## anotherpage (Apr 4, 2012)

Here's two updates

One is davids website url https://davidgaughran.com/2018/11/12/amazon-kdp-books-unavailable-international-readers/

And the other is that I emailed Amazon my links to my books and now mine are back. So go figure!


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## Shane Lochlann Black (Mar 3, 2015)

Any possibility this is a GDPR thing?


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## Andy_Blinston (Apr 23, 2018)

Mine have reappeared today and are visible on Amazon.com from the UK


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## jspriggs (Nov 13, 2018)

My book hasn't had an issue, but I haven't broken into any top 100 categories. I have seen messages from a lot of other folks on Twitter saying they are still having this issue on just the .com site, not international. 

Hate to see this happen on there as it never bodes well for any of us, hope they all start to reappear soon.


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## AmesburyArcher (Jan 16, 2017)

Two of mine are back but still missing many others.


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## A Fading Street (Sep 25, 2016)

This is the fulsome Amazon statement
Hello,

We're experiencing an issue that has made some eBooks unavailable in the Kindle store in different marketplaces. Our engineers are working to solve this issue as quickly as possible. We'll update this post to keep the Community informed once this issue has been resolved.

We appreciate your patience and understanding in the meantime.

Regards,

Kindle Direct Publishing Team


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## AmesburyArcher (Jan 16, 2017)

Visibility is being restored fairly quickly now--I am now missing only 2 ebooks for 'full length' novels and a couple of short stories.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

Some of the books that were missing yesterday are back by now, though others are still gone.


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## Guest (Nov 14, 2018)

All my books are normal today.


THANK YOU to all those who sent in emails and ultimately sped up the recovery of the books. We all appreciate it.


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## psychotick (Jan 26, 2012)

Hi,

Well it's been a disastrous month for me. 

My latest was pubbed on the 7th of Oct. A week later it vanished. After two days and a panicked email it returned. A week later it vanished again and this time a plethora of emails and nine days passed before it returned. It stayed with me for another three or four days then disappeared again. And this time it took half a dozen other books with it!!! More emails, more pleas for explanations and more days followed. Yesterday it came back along with one of my other missing books - but there's still four or five missing.

By my calculations my latest book has been unavailable for purchase, unsearchable within Amazon's own search engine, and only able to be found through Google for half of its first month out - and guess what, it's no longer a new release!!! You couldn't ask for a worse start!!!

My advice - don't assume your books are going to stay. Whatever this problem is, it seems to keep hitting you again each time you think its fixed. And it's been getting worse.

Cheers, Greg.


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

I wonder if this explains the drop in UK sales I have noticed over the past several weeks, which is fairly unusual.


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## AmesburyArcher (Jan 16, 2017)

Yesterday Amazon sent me an email 'Your ebooks should all be restored now.' Um, they aren't. I am still missing one from a series, which of course has also messed up the 3-book bundle, and there are two short stories with no paperbacks that are completely awol. Also, a new anthology which I've contributed to is also still invisible.


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## Ross Harrison (May 5, 2012)

I also got an email today telling me my book is back up. It isn't.


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## psychotick (Jan 26, 2012)

Hi,

Good news - mine aren't all back, but Amazon hasn't sent me an email either - so obviously they're right up to date with their lack of progress!!!

Cheers, Greg.


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

I took a look at Amazon.co.uk and my books all seem to be available there.

Looks like this might be a one way glitch? I.e. UK writers and EU writers have issues with their books on the dot.com site?


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## Guest (Nov 17, 2018)

jb1111 said:


> I took a look at Amazon.co.uk and my books all seem to be available there.
> 
> Looks like this might be a one way glitch? I.e. UK writers and EU writers have issues with their books on the dot.com site?


No, I think you might be looking at cached pages. Mine are all okay on the .com site now, whether I'm in UK or USA on my VPN's


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## JR McLeay (Mar 1, 2016)

The problem for me is that my books are not appearing in the US and UK Kindle Stores ONLY in their assigned categories and in keyword searches.  The books are still available/visible when I do a title search and on my author page.  I'm in Canada.  I tried using a VPN and this did NOT correct the problem.  ALL of my books are showing 'Limited Availability' in the US and UK when I click on the Live status indicator in my KDP bookshelf.

I've called KDP about this and they said they are aware of the problem and their engineers are working to fix the problem.  But it's been over a week and still no sign of progress.

Except yesterday, briefly, 2 of my 11 books DID appear in search then just as abruptly disappeared.

Very strange.  In the meantime, my sales are at 40% of what they were previously.


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