Well, this is becoming weird. My book is now available through Amazon (in its various incarnations), but also through bookshops in the United States, Korea, Italy, the Netherlands and England. While this increases the visibility of the book – though not, I note, its sales – I must wonder how it arrived at these far-flung literary corners.
Since it is a self-published book, it is ‘print on demand’. This category has improved greatly since I first saw an example of it, and the fact that I work in graphic arts allowed me to set the book up just the way I wanted it. I am quite pleased with the physical results. The ‘print of demand’ feature means, I assume, that if one of these bookshops receives an order for the book, it then orders it from Amazon, and sells it, at a higher cost than Amazon did, to the customer requesting it.
But why are the bookshops offering it at all? I can guess only that someone on their staff saw it somewhere, thought it looked good – none of the entries include the description of the book’s contents that I wrote for Amazon’s display – and included it in their inventory. It seems rather a long shot that someone will see it and order it. It doesn’t appear worth the effort on the part of the bookshops.
Furthermore, there are two prices, one for ‘new’ copies and one for ‘used’. Used? How on Earth (literally) are these bookshops going to guarantee used copies when they are ordering ‘print on demand’? Is someone in the shop going to read the stories before mailing the book off to the customer?
Still, these are not complaints but observations and questions. If GreatBookPrices, and what appears to be its British affiliate, GreatBookPricesUK, want to market my book, I am pleased. Puzzled, but pleased.
Apparently fame and fortune await you! Is it all done via AI/bots/whatever? I mean is that how self-published books get distributed to other sellers throughout the world? I know nothing....Anyway, it will be great if you do garner sales overseas, fun to find out where and via which seller.
ReplyDeleteNo sales are coming from this, so far as I can tell. Self-published books are distributed only if someone wants to buy a copy. I am hoping to get into a company similar to Amazon (one doesn’t prohibit me from publishing on the other) which, unlike Amazon, offers its published books to a large number of book-sellers. They can then offer it to their customers, either in physical form, which means they would have to purchase some copies (a bit of a risk on their part) or offer it to be ordered, in which case the printer will print as many copies as the customer wants, and it will go from the printer (eg. Amazon’s KDP) to the bookseller to the customer. It has nothing to do with A.I., as far as I know. But the process for this - and the chances of someone seeing my book and buying it on seeing it alone, are so remote as to render what these booksellers are doing pointless. That’s what puzzles me.
DeleteI was baffled by this, too. I did a Google search for GreatBookPrices, and immediately came across a term I had never heard before: "Bookjacking."
Deletehttps://www.zubalbooks.com/article-bookjacking.jsp
Yeah, that's probably what it is. I am a member of a group for writers on Facebook and another member wrote that a similar thing occurred to her. Thanks for digging that information up, Undine.
DeleteNow I have to go see what Undine found.
ReplyDeleteWeird indeed, makes one wonder what the hell is going on
ReplyDeleteI had never heard the term "bookjacking" so I googled it. Basically it' occurs when an unscrupulous seller sells a less popular, less expensive book in place of a more popular, more expensive book, and charges the buyer the increased price. But that said, it looks like your book is finding its way to book stores, and that's great news!
ReplyDeleteI hope you get lots of sales.
ReplyDeleteYeah, what Ellen posted!
ReplyDeleteI'm not surprised your book would find its way to the UK and other areas of Europe since the majority of the stories are set there. I won't be the least bit surprised to see you making sales overseas.
ReplyDelete