The Amazon listing is wrong… my book remains available

One of the frustrations of working with a publishing-on-demand (POD) company such as Lulu.com is that — contrary to what you might suppose — authors don’t always have much control over the distribution and promotion of our work. As much as I appreciate the fact that Lulu chose to make my book available for sale on Amazon as well as via its own channels, Lulu’s so-called “Amazon Marketplace program” continues to have some glitches that are completely unpredictable and mysterious to those of us who are fortunate enough to participate in that program.

This afternoon, for no apparent reason, my book is listed on Amazon as being “Currently unavailable.” That happened before in July (also for no apparent reason). It’s not true that the book is unavailable; in fact, the very idea of unavailability runs counter to the entire POD concept. POD means, in essence, that when you order a book, the printing companies that work with Lulu make a copy for you. (If you order five copies, the printing companies make five copies for you.) Of course, there can be delays in printing and/or in shipping, but orders always will be fulfilled sooner or later.

Because Lulu fulfills orders placed on Amazon as well as orders placed on the book’s Lulu page, the “Currently unavailable” designation makes no sense.

I will contact both Lulu and Amazon to try to find out what is going on. In the meantime, if you are unable to purchase a copy of the book through Amazon (the “Add to Cart” button vanishes when Amazon sets a book’s properties as “Currently unavailable”), try ordering directly from Lulu. The link to the book’s Lulu page can be found by clicking here.

Of course, I would prefer that you have the option of buying through Amazon, which usually offers better shipping rates than Lulu.

I’ll see what I can do… Thank you for being patient! (And thanks to all of you who have bought the book. I very much appreciate your patronage and support.)

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On a completely different note, I will be adding a couple of substantive posts soon. I’ve fallen behind as a result of a very hectic schedule the past week or so.