Greetings! First, let me apologise for going radio silent for the last few months. I didn’t want to start promoting the book properly until it was available in print on Amazon (UK), however, a major spanner was thrown into the works that held things up. I’ll attempt to keep the story short… (Okay, sorry, it didn’t end up short!)

As many of you will know, you need an ISBN number to sell a paperback or hardback (optional for e-books), and you need to register them with Neilsen, the official body for the UK and Ireland, that handles ISBN numbers.

You can buy ISBN numbers in batches, ready to use on your books when you’re ready. When you are, you go and register an ISBN with the book you’re publishing. Information such as the book title, size, word count, blurb, genre, etc.

“…you don’t have control over it.”

It turns out that when you register those ISBN details with Neilsen, they automatically forward them to Amazon, who in turn automatically create a listing. This immediately creates a problem. You and/or your resellers have not created this listing, which therefore means you don’t have control over it. If you’re lucky, you may at least be able to sell on that listing as a reseller, but you won’t have access to update the listing or similar.

I think you can see where this is going…

My printers offer a service whereby they sell and distribute books via Amazon, on behalf of authors. They keep a certain level of stock available and take care of packaging, dispatching, etc. This option is far more straight forward for me, than having to jump through the hoops of becoming a seller on Amazon. I arranged to do this, and that’s when we hit the first snag.

My mistake? I registered my books with Neilsen! “But surely that’s the correct thing to do?” you ask. Yes, yes it is, but it triggers the situation outlined above, whereby you suddenly end up with a book listing that you cannot sell on. “Surely you can contact Amazon and sort this out?” may be your second question. Well, let’s dive in…

What made this process all the more frustrating, is that it was not initially clear what had happened. Where had these paperback listings come from? Who made them? Unless you are aware that Neilsen forward the details straight to Amazon, and that Amazon automatically create a listing, you are left wondering what has happened.

So began the cycle. Initially my printers thought I had created the listings, by using KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing), who, along with publishing the e-books, have a print-on-demand paperback service. I assured them I had not, and that I had only published the e-books through Amazon. Then we thought perhaps KDP had messed up somewhere, and the listing had been added by accident after I created the e-books. After talking to KDP (a task in itself), they confirmed the listings were nothing to do with KDP, and were standard product listings. Their advice was to talk to regular customer services.

“Yes, my blood pressure was rising…”

So, I spoke to Customer Services. After repeatedly trying to explain the issue, their advice was to talk to KDP. I explained that KDP had told me to talk to them. I was then told to contact the publishers, to which I responded that I was the publisher. The book was not published through KDP, and the listings had somehow been put on Amazon automatically. I explained that my printers could not sell the book, because neither I nor them had created the listing. I asked if there was any way the listing could either be a) removed so that they could add a fresh/new listing, or b) give my printers access to modify the listing, acting on my behalf. I was then told that if I wanted to sell the paperback I should contact KDP. And so it went in a loop, explaining it wasn’t through KDP, then being told to contact the publishers, and explaining I was the publisher, then being told to contact the printers, and having to explain the situation that my printers couldn’t list the book for sale because of the existing listing. Yes, my blood pressure was rising. Eventually, I was told to contact Amazon Author Central to help sort the problem.

I contacted Amazon Author Central and, after a similar conversation, was informed that they couldn’t help and I should contact either KDP or Customer Services…

“You’d think this would tell someone something!”

I even spoke to Neilsen at one point, to determine if they had put the listing up. This is when I discovered they send the details to Amazon, and that’s their part done. What was amazing was that I was informed that they are often contacted by authors with the same issue. You’d think this would tell someone something!

We’ve all heard the quote (often incorrectly attributed to Albert Einstein, but origin unknown), that goes along the lines: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Yes, that’s how it felt. I was even advised (on two occasions) by someone at Amazon to file a copyright claim for an incorrect listing. That certainly wasn’t a preferred option. The way things had been going, I’d end up sueing myself before I even got anywhere!

With this back-and-forth, I tried KDP, Amazon Author Central and Customer Services several times, with the best result being that I needed to talk to another department, or publish-on-demand through them! Needless to say, my patience was wearing rather thin. Once or twice I even reached someone who appeared to understood the problem after explanation (a ray of hope!), who then promised to forward my issue to an appropriate individual or department, with promises that they would be in touch by e-mail. The result? An email with a link to either KDP, Amazon Author Central or Customer Services.

Meanwhile, my printers appeared to be going through a similar loop, with the added bonus of having to try and prove they were acting on my behalf. Eventually, they were able to sort things through Amazon and get the situation resolved, but it has taken months.

It’s been a long and frustrating road, that has stalled advertising and sales, but hopefully now I can get back on track. So, what’s the moral of the story? If you are self-publishing DO NOT, and I repeat DO NOT register your Neilsen ISBN details until you or your printer or publisher has created the Amazon listing. Technically, yes, you should register the Neilsen details straight away, as I did, but you’re inviting a world of pain…

Now, back to Christopher Tyson!