# My Book is "Not Currently Available for Purchase" and I Don't Know Why



## Nigel Mitchell (Jan 21, 2013)

Last night, I got a message from a reader that one of my books was unavailable for purchase. I thought the customer just had the wrong link, but I confirmed that when I go to the book's page, it says "this title is not currently available for purchase" instead of the price. In researching this, most people who report the problem have just uploaded their book and are told to wait. In this case, the book has been available in the Kinde store since August and I've been selling copies all the way up until yesterday evening. I checked in the Dashboard and it still lists the book as live, even though the actual store says it's unavailable.

It seems like Amazon has pulled the book from purchase, but not deleted it. It's under a pseudonym so I won't list the title here (anyone curious can send me a PM for the link), but it's not erotica or anything dodgy so I don't understand what's going on. I'm wondering what could be happening. Does Amazon make titles unavailable for some reason? Is this a precursor to the book being banned or deleted? I haven't gotten an email from Amazon about it, and sent emails to Amazon this morning, but haven't gotten a response yet. Any insight would be appreciated.

Edit: This is what it looks like right now...


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## T S Paul (Jan 6, 2016)

did they send you a Kindle Quality notice that it had errors in the book? They generally give you 5 days to fix it and then take the book down.


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## Guest (Oct 25, 2018)

That's normal if you are looking at the US store but you don't normally shop there, it's Amazon's way of re-directing you to another country store.


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## Nigel Mitchell (Jan 21, 2013)

T S Paul said:


> did they send you a Kindle Quality notice that it had errors in the book? They generally give you 5 days to fix it and then take the book down.


Nope, I've looked through my email going back to September. Nothing.


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## Nigel Mitchell (Jan 21, 2013)

Tilly said:


> That's normal if you are looking at the US store but you don't normally shop there, it's Amazon's way of re-directing you to another country store.


I'm in the US and I'm looking at the US store. And it's not just me saying the book isn't available, so it's not just my location. It's not the browser either. I've looked on several different devices and computers, and also checked SalesRankExpress where it's no longer listed. I checked the UK and the AU store and it's available there, but not in the US Kindle store.

Edit: Also, like I said, this isn't like it's a new book I've never looked at in the US store. It's been there and I've been looking at it and getting sales from it since August. This literally just changed last night. At six o'clock, I looked and it was available. A few hours later, it's marked as unavailable. And if that's not enough, I have been selling around 5-10 copies a day on average since its release. I've sold zero today, so no one is able to buy it right now. It's also the third in a four book series, and the other three books are still available. It's not me, it's not my store, it's not a misunderstanding. My book that was available is now unavailable to me or the readers.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

Did you check your spam mailbox? Sometimes, Amazon emails go there depending on your mail provider. I had that happen to me that an Amazon notice went to my spam mailbox and I missed it for days.

Can you go to your KDP dashboard and check on the book's status in your bookshelf? It may explain what is going on.


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## Amanda M. Lee (Jun 3, 2014)

This is happening to a number of people. Publish the book again. It seems to fix it.


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## Carol (was Dara) (Feb 19, 2011)

What Amanda said. Two of my books are getting the same "not currently available for purchase" message. I'm repubbing them and, if that doesn't fix it, I'll send off an email to KDP.

ETA: Repubbing does correct it. Only took about ten minutes to correct mine.


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## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

Carol (was Dara) said:


> What Amanda said. Two of my books are getting the same "not currently available for purchase" message. I'm repubbing them and, if that doesn't fix it, I'll send off an email to KDP.
> 
> ETA: Repubbing does correct it. Only took about ten minutes to correct mine.


How does one republish?


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## Carol (was Dara) (Feb 19, 2011)

Philip Gibson said:


> How does one republish?


Go to Edit eBook Pricing, scroll to the bottom of that page, and click Publish Your Kindle eBook. You don't need to actually update anything - at least, I didn't. Just hitting the publish button did it for me.


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## Desmond X. Torres (Mar 16, 2013)

Yeah... we got a title w/ the same prob. Changed the cover yesterday, and now today it's not showing on Michelle's author page, and doing a search via Sales Rank Express shows no results. Did an incognito search using a clean browser (ie no cookies accepted) and via a VPN shows the book as not being avail for purchase.

We've already sent an email this am as soon as we saw something funny and will keep you guys posted. 
I really don't need this crap- it's less than 2 weeks to our very first BB ad.


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## Desmond X. Torres (Mar 16, 2013)

Update (Kinda)
While Zon has yet to reply to the email, I found that the book IS available in other markets. So there's some prob w/ the US store.


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## HarperWhitmore (Nov 19, 2013)

I've had the same problem and have contacted support three times with no reply. Links to the series page of other books has also disappeared.


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## Desmond X. Torres (Mar 16, 2013)

Just got a notice from Zon that the book's now live. All is well!  
But this small episode leads me to think about just how deeply my living is rooted in my relationship w/ them.


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## notjohn (Sep 9, 2016)

There are deep problems with KDP, whether because of the Great Migration from CreateSpace, such problematic additions as Kindle Create, or perhaps overload from too many illiterate and hopeless self-publishers. (I see a lot of this on the KDP Community forums.)

My most recent experience: I published a KDP Print book for the first time on October 12. It stayed in Publishing all weekend, but on Monday I checked the store and it was available for sale and linked to the ebook published a few days earlier. However, there was no product image, no Look Inside sample, and no reviews. (There were two reviews from an earlier edition of the book, published by Doubleday.)

On the 24th I checked again -- 12 days after I had hit the Publish button! It was still No Image, no Look Inside, no reviews. So I ordered a copy and emailed Support. Got back a reply saying that my problem was that I had selected no markets, so it wasn't available, and all I had to go was go back and selected Worldwide or whatever countries I wanted, and all would be well. I replied that I had ordered the book and been charged for it. In reply, I was promised an update by October 30.

The book arrived yesterday. So here's another alarming feature: it was ordered and paid for three days ago, but the sale is still not recorded on the month-to-date paperback report. (Those reports, perhaps not coincidentally, are running about one-third of what I sold through CreateSpace in September.)

And about the physical book: it's okay, but my default 0.5 inch outside margins have somehow shrunk to 0.25 inch, and my default 0.9 inch inside margin has likewise almost vanished, so that the book must be pressed open in order to read it comfortably. Each line of text is 4.5 inches, whereas a line of text in a book published through CreateSpace in May shows as a hair under 4 inches. Both books are 5.5 inches wide, and both were uploaded as an OpenOffice or LibreOffice PDF properly sized. It's almost as if KDP Print has resized my PDF for a 6x9 inch book instead of 5.5x8.5 inches.

Which makes me wonder: what if the same is true of the 5.5x8.5 inch books migrated over from CreateSpace?

The IngramSpark publishers must be having a bit of schadenfreude right about now....


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## felicity (Nov 28, 2012)

notjohn said:


> And about the physical book: it's okay, but my default 0.5 inch outside margins have somehow shrunk to 0.25 inch, and my default 0.9 inch inside margin has likewise almost vanished, so that the book must be pressed open in order to read it comfortably. Each line of text is 4.5 inches, whereas a line of text in a book published through CreateSpace in May shows as a hair under 4 inches. Both books are 5.5 inches wide, and both were uploaded as an OpenOffice or LibreOffice PDF properly sized. It's almost as if KDP Print has resized my PDF for a 6x9 inch book instead of 5.5x8.5 inches.


I don't understand this. Margin size is an absolute value in inches right? So it will be the same irrespective of the trim size? So yes, it seems like there is a printing error but how do you come to the conclusion that they are resizing the pdf?


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## notjohn (Sep 9, 2016)

>how do you come to the conclusion that they are resizing the pdf?

What else could it be? The text has been enlarged while the trim size remains the same. 

Two possible impacts:

1) I have mostly used OpenOffice Writer to finish up the book begun in Word 2007. (I do the trim size and margins in Word, but all the tweaking of chapter headings, hyphens, and widows&orphans in the simpler word processor.) The most recent book however was done in LibreOffice Writer.

2) To eliminate page numbers in the front matter, I open the OOW/LOW pdf in an old version of Acrobat (4, I think it is) that enables me to white-out things I don't want. However, many of my previous books got the same treatment. Using Styles to do this is a tedious chore in Word, OpenOffice, and LibreOffice.


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## HarperWhitmore (Nov 19, 2013)

Don't wait to contact support if it's happening to you because republishing doesn't always fix it. 
There is a problem and their tech staff are looking into it so let them know if you have a problem asap.


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## 9 Diamonds (Oct 4, 2016)

We're having the same problem with two of our titles. I've written to Amazon twice now and republished the titles. They are unavailable only on the US store, where they've also dropped out of KU. All other territories are unchanged.


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## wearywanderer64 (Jan 27, 2013)

My ebook just disappeard yesterday. What's happening?


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## Erin Zarro (Apr 30, 2011)

So far, mine are all live. Scary that they can just disappear books like that for no reason.


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## 9 Diamonds (Oct 4, 2016)

Amazon responded and all seems fixed now. However, there's still a glitch with our two titles in question: the Look Inside feature isn't working for them.

This is the response to my initial concern:

_Please be informed that we experienced a technical problem where few books are not buyable for some time. This is the reason why you experiences the buyability issue for the below two books:This is a known issue and please know the issue has been fixed now. Rest assured that the above books are currently Live and available for sale on our website and the also there no issues with the Kindle Unlimited enrollment for the above two books._


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## Desmond X. Torres (Mar 16, 2013)

wearywanderer64 said:


> My ebook just disappeard yesterday. What's happening?


Are yours live now? If not, send an email. We never got a response, but the book did pop back up as normal w/in 36 hrs of sending the email.


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## Ashmor (Jun 13, 2018)

Desmond X. Torres said:


> Are yours live now? If not, send an email. We never got a response, but the book did pop back up as normal w/in 36 hrs of sending the email.


Could you tell me what's Amazon's support email address, please?


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## 9 Diamonds (Oct 4, 2016)

Ashmor said:


> Could you tell me what's Amazon's support email address, please?


Go to Amazon's community page, here:
https://www.kdpcommunity.com/s/?language=en

At the very bottom you will find a small link that says Contact Us. Go there and find the topic you need to contact them about. I wrote to them there under the Bookshelf section.


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## Ashmor (Jun 13, 2018)

9 Diamonds said:


> Go to Amazon's community page, here:
> https://www.kdpcommunity.com/s/?language=en
> 
> At the very bottom you will find a small link that says Contact Us. Go there and find the topic you need to contact them about. I wrote to them there under the Bookshelf section.


Thank you!


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## Aderyn Wood (Feb 2, 2013)

I am having this issue with four of my books. Two of them are in the middle of a five day free promotion. I am seeing the "unavailable for purchase" sign on the book pages, but they are still registering downloads on my dashboard, which makes me wonder if the are available for purchase for people actually in the US, but not elsewhere (I'm in Australia).

Would love it if someone in the US could check for me to see if these books are available for purchase:
The two currently free:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B018OU23X4
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KKZUF5A

Not free, but not available for purchase (for me at least):
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00C37ZPZI

This one was published on the weekend, and is showing 'not available for purchase':
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07KCYLJQX

And they're also all missing from my Amazon Author page.

I've contacted Amazon, and over 24 hours later, am still awaiting a reply.


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## ID Johnson (Apr 27, 2017)

Aderyn Wood said:


> I am having this issue with four of my books. Two of them are in the middle of a five day free promotion. I am seeing the "unavailable for purchase" sign on the book pages, but they are still registering downloads on my dashboard, which makes me wonder if the are available for purchase for people actually in the US, but not elsewhere (I'm in Australia).
> 
> Would love it if someone in the US could check for me to see if these books are available for purchase:
> The two currently free:
> ...


I'm in the US and I checked all the links. They're all working for me. There's another thread about similar issues with visibility in other countries.


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## Aderyn Wood (Feb 2, 2013)

ID Johnson said:


> I'm in the US and I checked all the links. They're all working for me. There's another thread about similar issues with visibility in other countries.


Thanks so much for checking. That explains the continuing downloads for the free books. I'll check that other thread too. It weird because my other three books are all appearing as available for purchase as normal.


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## Edward Lake (Mar 11, 2012)

Carol (was Dara) said:


> Go to Edit eBook Pricing, scroll to the bottom of that page, and click Publish Your Kindle eBook. You don't need to actually update anything - at least, I didn't. Just hitting the publish button did it for me.


I'm going to try this myself. Seems like my book is stuck, too.


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## Aderyn Wood (Feb 2, 2013)

Edward Lake said:


> I'm going to try this myself. Seems like my book is stuck, too.


It didn't work for me. I tried it a couple of times with all my 'stuck' books and they're still showing 'not available for purchase' and not appearing on my author page. And still no word from Amazon.


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## LFGabel (Nov 28, 2015)

I call "deep-rooted database issues".

Found this article interesting. http://fortune.com/2018/10/22/oracle-larry-ellison-amazon-cloud-security/


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## Edward Lake (Mar 11, 2012)

Aderyn Wood said:


> It didn't work for me. I tried it a couple of times with all my 'stuck' books and they're still showing 'not available for purchase' and not appearing on my author page. And still no word from Amazon.


Sorry to hear this. It worked for me. But it seems like a lot of things are not working in KDP these days. I can't get my descriptions to update. The paperback version of my book still isn't linked to the ebook. Ugh! The frustration.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

Aderyn Wood said:


> It didn't work for me. I tried it a couple of times with all my 'stuck' books and they're still showing 'not available for purchase' and not appearing on my author page. And still no word from Amazon.


It's not just our books. Pretty much every book on the 100 Bestselling books in the Kindle store are not available for sale when I view them in the US store (I'm in Canada).

Thing is, I can't view my own book price in the US store from my KDP bookshelf links. This is very screwy.


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## batmansero (Oct 10, 2014)

I wonder if it's something in the regional settings (the ones set in KDP) that is screwy. That might explain why those outside of the US but viewing the US site is having issues with availability?


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## BaileyKelly (Oct 9, 2020)

what a cool thread, thanks to everyone for the advice!


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## fredberri (10 mo ago)

T S Paul said:


> did they send you a Kindle Quality notice that it had errors in the book? They generally give you 5 days to fix it and then take the book down.
> I am having the same issue with my latest book published. I have a dozen books listed. They change the price and do whatever they want. Understandable, they own the site as their business. Amazon is so difficult to deal with and unfair in many instances. Ie: you can't leave a review unless you have purchased a minimum of $50 throughout the year. They wield so much power and yet Barnes & Noble have it listed to purchase. fredberri dot com


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## fredberri (10 mo ago)

There is nothing wrong with interior of book. Barnes & Noble has it listed correctly.


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