Recently I updated you on my continuing frustrations in trying to get Amazon to display the cover art of my self-published book, in my post “Does Amazon discriminate against self-published books?”
Well I finally heard back from Amazon, who claims that my distributor, Lightning Source / Ingram Book Co., deleted my cover art from Amazon’s product page. Whether this was an accident or just plain stupidity isn’t clear:
Date: Thu, 08 Dec 2005 22:20:23 -0800
From: “Amazon.com Advantage Member Services”
Subject: Your Amazon.com Advantage Inquiry
X-Originating-IP: [207.171.160.40]
To: steve_delivers@verizon.net
Bounces-to: RealTimeEmail+CS-CUSTOMER_REPLY-yqjeIS9dMB@bounces.amazon.com
X-AMAZON-TRACK: notification
X-AMAZON-MAIL-RELAY-TYPE: notification
Greetings from Amazon.com.
As the page you created was overwritten by the merchant supplying the
book to us. Unfortunately, this is why the image was removed. They
would need to submit an image so that we can insert the image on to
the detail page for the item. …
Best regards,
Brian
Member Services
Amazon.com Advantage
I don’t participate in Amazon Advantage, but hey, who’s quibbling? At least we’ve discovered the problem, and it will be a simple matter to correct things, right?
No, it’s not that simple. See, I was expecting Lightning Source would be able to help me pretty quickly. After all, you’d think a company with the name “Lightning Source” would be pretty quick. But I’ve found out that the name has an ironic meaning, at least when it comes to them working with their real customers, author/publishers.
I forwarded Amazon’s message to my Lightning Source account rep, adding my explanation that the cover image now being displayed for my book is a low-resolution Amazon “customer image” that doesn’t show up in search results.
So, after a few days of waiting, here was the reply from my Lightning Source rep:
“Steve,
I see that the cover is now up on Amazon.
Thanks!
So it’s hard to know whether my Lightning Source rep doesn’t understand the issues, or just isn’t paying attention. In any case, I can’t wait much longer for the first-line employees at Amazon/Lightning Source to pull their heads out of their asses by themselves. I’m trying to sell a book, and can’t afford to be continually cut off at the knees by my “partners.” A nastygram to the management at both companies seems to be in order. I’ll keep you posted.
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5 Comments
Hi
When I searced Amazon 14th of December from Australia your cover was there.
http://www.paulniederer.com
The biggest problem with Amazon is their lack of customer service. It is nearly impossible to figure out how to send them an email. When I have done that in the past the issue often is ignored.
I have had issues as a buyer/customer and with deliveries not being done as promised as per my 'Amazon Prime' membership.
There are also issues when they contract with other companies to sell stuff on their site. It is very hard to tell if the item is being sold to us from Amazon or some third party. The delivery times and dates that these items are shipped out are very slow compared to Amazon's usual book selling service. Also the estimated dates that are given when the item is purchased are not always true. It is very frustrating.
The thing that would make Amazon the BEST company would be if they had more humans doing customer service work and dealing with problems with orders.
I'm also having a problem with no cover image showing for my new title on Amazon.com, although Barnes & Noble has had things up and online for a week without trouble. I am concerned that some of the difficulties between Amazon/Lightning Source may be because Amazon acquired Booksurge as their own POD bookmaker earlier in 2005.
I have been publishing POD books for myself and others as St. Clair Publications, http://stan.stclair.net , since 2008. Most of our books have been printed and distributed by Create Space, a division of Amazon.com. Though the services have changed and distribution varied over the past 3 years, they have improved and service is very fast and reps are helpful. In 2010, I opened an account with Lightening Source so that book stores who dealt with Ingram Book Company, their parent corporation, would be able to order easily and at max discounts. Recently, more than ever, I have experienced difficulties in getting back answers to my questions. The current delimma is the fact that the compensation statements which I receive are unreadable, and in some cases, not accompanied with a file identifying the source (title being paid on). I have been trying for the past 3 days to get an answer, and have not gotten it. I want the advantages of Ingram, but not the problems. They have very limited reps, who apparently stay busy with larger publishers. I have been involved in doing business with the public for 30 plus years, and always was aware that service is imperitive. Has anyone else experienced similar dificulties with LSI?
I’m sorry, but I have to comment on Stan St. Clair’s claim that LSI provides unreadable compensation statements without identifying the titles being paid on.
I have been dealing with Lightning Source ever since I opened Legacy Books Press in 2007. I have never had any difficulties with their compensation statements. Until recently, when they added a new front page, the compensation statement consisted of the following:
- A summary page containing month to date and year to date sales.
- A second page containing a detailed breakdown of sales by ISBN, title, author, list price, discount, wholesale price, quantity, net sales, print charge, setup recovery, and net compensation for both year and month to date.
This information has always been in every compensation statement I have ever received from Lightning Source. And I am not a big publisher – my product line is smaller than St. Clair’s.