ADVENTURE ON AMAZON
Mood:  a-ok

Let me say up front that I was apparently going about it the wrong way when I tried to check my Kindle sales, but I didn’t know any better and I couldn’t find any other way to get results. My adventure with Amazon Kindle began when I noticed that not only did I have a ranking for my Kindle edition of Mindbender, but it fluctuated over a few weeks. I hadn’t checked the thing for maybe six months so I was quite excited. I wanted to know how many I’d sold. I went into the Kindle digital platform and clicking on help took me to their so-called help forums. I trolled around for a while but couldn’t find an answer there, and no way to contact the actual Kindle department.

            So I clicked on seller help on my seller account page and on my progress report (I said I didn’t know what I was doing, didn’t I) and that gave me nada. I then sent a message to seller help asking where I could find my Kindle sales. After a week and no reply, I sent another message. Again no reply. So I phoned seller live help and they promptly called back. The first lady I spoke to didn’t seem to know what I was talking about. Our conversation went something like: Her: “You don’t have a seller account.” Me: “Yes. I do." “No, you don’t” “Yes I do, it’s on the screen in front of me.” After several minutes of this I asked if I could just tell her what I needed. Thereupon, she said, “Oh, you need the Kindle department. I’ll transfer you.”

            The next lady didn’t get it either. She transferred me to someone else. The third lady said, “I can’t help you. That’s outside my expertise.” “But aren’t you seller help?’ “Yes, but not for Kindle. You can only contact them by sending a message,” and she proceeded to tell me, in detail, how to do WHAT I’D ALREADY DONE! TWICE! By now I was getting frustrated. She suggested I take a look in the Kindle forums.

            I eventually found my answer in the Amazon Services Seller Forums under Seller Discussion Boards, those created by hapless beings like myself who can’t get help from Kindle so ask others of their kind when they encounter a problem. I was able to locate my sales report, and see how many editions I’d sold. All well and good.

            THEN, I got an email from Amazon which had the nerve to ask me if their seller help had answered my questions.

            Ooh!

            I promise I was polite. I did say that they could have replied to my messages even if it was to say they couldn't help and point me in another direction. I did mention something about the amount of money Amazon must be spending on their current marketing program for their new Kindle, and possibly spending some of it to help their authors, the people who made that money for them. How about an easier way to get help, such as a telephone hotline for Kindle? How about some one-on-one service? After they got my reply email, I received an email from them within the hour. It included an apology and an email address in case I needed to contact them again.

            I was holding off on publishing more of my books on Kindle until I’d sorted that out but now I feel confident about Kindle sales, so look out for Kindle editions of Along Came a Demon and the Demon Hunters, coming in the near future.