Glitch at Amazon Advantage sends bogus order cancellations

A technical glitch at Amazon's Advantage program yesterday sent an erroneous order cancellations to all the program's participating members. Advantage is Amazon's consignment program for small- and midsized publishers.

The text of the e-mail:

Greetings from Amazon.com Advantage,

Please be advised that the Advantage Operations team is in the process of suspending orders for a number of titles that have either:

1. Been ordered, but not confirmed, or

2. Been ordered and confirmed, but never sent to Amazon.com

If any of these items have become avaiilable (sic), you can reactivate them in your account by clicking on the 'Items' tab and selecting 'Update Item Status' on the green tool bar. Alternately, you may contact Advantage Vendor Services via the 'Contact Us' link (located at the bottom of every page in your account) to re-activate your suspended item(s). Please include the ASIN/ISBN/UPC.

Additional steps that you should take:

1. Review the items in your Advantage account. Notify us via the 'Contact Us' form of any which are no longer available.

2. Take note of those items which are listed in your account under an old ISBN/UPC number. If any of these items is no longer available, please ask us to close them from your account.

3. Add any new titles - ISBNs/UPCs - to your account. You may enroll them individually through the Advantage web interface, or in bulk by Excel spreadsheet - both found under the Items tab of your Advantage account.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

The Amazon.com Advantage Operations Team

Apparently the same message went to all publishers with Advantage accounts, even those without active titles. Amazon has posted the following update:

Earlier this morning we sent out an email in error regarding the suspension of titles in your account. This was supposed to go to only a select few accounts, where the outstanding purchase orders had not been confirmed. Due to a glitch, it was sent, in error, to all advantage members. Don't worry, your account is still fully functional and no titles have been suspended. No action is required on your part.

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Steve Weber is author of Plug Your Book! Online Book Marketing for Authors