Why Are Books Disappearing From The Kindle Store?
I’m really enjoying the Kindle. But since writing my review, I have come across something that’s a bit frustrating: Books seem to be disappearing from the store.
This isn’t another 1984 scenario (at least, not to my knowledge). Purchased books aren’t being remotely deleted from devices at the behest of evil publishers everywhere. But there seems to be something happening with publishers pulling out of the Kindle Store – or at least the Australian store.
The first book I purchased for the Kindle was Raymond Feist’s Krondor: The Betrayal. It’s the first book in a collection of three, all of which were available on the Kindle Store when I first received the device. Instead of buying all three at once though, I opted to pick up the first book, and use the “Save for Later” feature to mark the other two for future purchase.
The problem though, is that when I went back to buy those books after completing the first, they were no longer available. They still sit in my “Save for Later” basket, but searching for them, or the author, on the Kindle Store brings up no results. While the original book still sits on my device, I don’t have any access to purchasing its sequels on the Kindle.
But the situation is even bigger than just my single experience. Yesterday while searching for the books, ensuring it wasn’t my imagination playing tricks on me, I noticed that the Kindle Store boasted it had 285,000 odd books available to purchase. This morning, that number is sitting at 283, 292. Amazon rep Laura Porco said the other day that the number was around 288,000. So what’s going on? Why has the Store stopped selling almost 5000 books in the past week (or 2000 overnight)?
I’ve put the question to Amazon, but they have an Apple-like “no comment” response mechanism, so don’t expect too much in the way of details. Still, in the future it’s worth noting that you should probably buy all the books in a series from the outset to avoid any disappointment that might arise…
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Comments
Nick,
I am 100% with you. Whatever is going on I’d like some explanation. The Kindle for me is about making it more convenient to read books.
It’s already difficult to find new release books on the store from Australia (I tweeted that I’d like to buy the new Matthew Reilly book thats just come out, but won’t because it’s not on Kindle). If they start making it harder by removing books then they’re going to get a surge of disapproval from me and hopefully everyone else who purchased a Kindle in Australia.
What I’ve found as well is there is a very large percentage of those 283,294 books that are now free and public domain via things such as Project Gutenberg (www.gutenberg.org) which can be sourced elsewhere, quite often for free (check http://manybooks.net/ for a great sample).
Amazon better get more vocal before I find the convenience of the Kindle, well, isn’t that convenient.
Regards,
Shane.
I think that the Reilly books aren’t on there because they are worried that people might spend hard earned money on them, then compound the error by wasting precious time reading them.
Nuclear powered plane? Mutant walrus? gaaaaah my eyes!
I get shivers down my spine reading Matthew Reilly’s books.
Good shivers, or “oh my god, what is he doing to the English language, and why does he have to end every sentence with an exclamation point?!” shivers?
I’ve found this as well. 9 out of the 10 books that I’d pre-selected for purchasing were removed from Australian sale by the time my kindle arrived. I should have just bought them all pre-delivery. The book at the top of my list? Heat Wave by Richard Castle. Now I can’t even by books by Michael Crichton, Stephen King or James Patterson.
Someone ought to start a graph. I wonder when the losses will bottom out.
The best option at the moment is to create a fake U.S. billing address and buy books from the U.S. Kindle store.
It’s a joke – the numbers have gone up a whole 83 books today (to 283,375) but those are mostly self help or Gutenberg titles.
What are gone that I’ve notice:
All Raymond E Feist
Heat Wave by Richard Castle (I’m glad I bought this already)
What is missing that should be there:
Peter F Hamilton’s books
Joe Haldeman’s books
Orson Scott Card’s books
Stephen King’s books
Dan Simmons’ books
and the already mentioned James Patterson & Michael Crichton
and much, much more.
If this is the fault of Australian publishers not wanting to play with Amazon then they need to pull their finger out and realise they will lose business. I personally was ready to start buying all of my hardcover & paperback books AGAIN in ebook format – they already have my money and they are missing out on getting it from me again!
Come on!
Regards,
Shane.
Maybe Amazon doesn’t have the right to sell those books here as an Australian publisher has acquired the rights to publish those books (known as parallel importation).
I get that – just that these publishers need to get on the bandwagon – they’re missing out on sales from me because of it.
Regards,
Shane.
The number of ebooks fluctuates all the time; that’s nothing new, even in the US.
But I bet all these disappearing titles will soon reappear. After all, Amazon wants everyone to buy ebooks from them, so it’s obviously the publishers that are causing the problems.
They’ll have to grow brains sooner or later.
And Raymond Feist’s Krondor series is a good pick; too bad about the shaft though.
Also, have you tried Fictionwise? Sometimes you can find ebooks there that will work on a Kindle.
I have just purchased a kindle, and although I am loving using it, I am getting increasingly more frustrated with the lack of big name books available from the Australian kindle store. For example the following 3 authors a very well known
Bryce Courtenay
Bill Bryson
Stephen R Donaldson
and all can be purchased in hard copy format from Amazon, but none can be purchased from the Australian Kindle store. If the books I was looking for were available, I would have parted with my money already.
I am hoping that the lack of these books is just because the Kindle in Australia is a fairly new thing, and that negotiations are still under way. I fear though that the publishing industry can be a bit backwards, and need to be dragged into the 21st century one way or another.
I just bought a Kindle with my bonus for the year and then spent a frustrating two hours searching for books that I have been wanting to read, only to discover that they’re not available for Australian purchaser! Like many of you, I accept that there will be a dearth of Australian writers but I can’t even find the other authors that I wanted to buy. Looks like I will be going and reading a lot of free classics from Project Gutenberg. Sob.
Amazon does need to drag its rear into being global if it wants happy customers.