Gee, I wonder why my Glass Bridge sales are so anemic. Could it have anything to do with the prices which amazon.com lists for the paperback? Here they are, as posted:
*$1,993.62 (62 cents? eh?)
*2 used from $1,497.71 (what?)
*1 new from $1,993.62
Why is amazon doing this to my book, which never did them any harm? What kind of loon is going to pay those prices? What disturbed mind did those prices come from?
It may be that one of you out there knows why this happens. It can’t be doing my book any good! If you know, please let me in on it. Meanwhile, I’ll see if there’s any way I can get an answer from amazon.
If you offered one for sale as a private seller for $10, these prices would come down to $9.99 or $9.98. It’s a computer thing, private sellers use computers to monitor prices and when few are for sale, the computers start upping the ante. It’s a sick artifact of AI.
I’m part of a self-publishing group on Facebook and they were talking about something like this recently; it definitely has to do with automated pricing and algorithms, and I’ve seen it myself on plenty of books. I doubt anything has been hacked, it’s just a weird thing that happens sometimes.
https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2384102,00.asp
(article about a book that ended up being priced at $23 million)
“Artificial Intelligence” is only artificial stupidity.
I wanted to buy a copy of “The Pink Swastika” for a friend and the paperback listed for $75.00. I didn’t buy it.
My publisher thinks it’s malicious mischief–not the first time that’s happened. It seems somebody doesn’t want anyone to buy my books. Either that, or it’s just some idiot doing it because he can.
Now here’s something weird. I went to Amazon and put in a search for “The Glass Bridge” by title, and the paperback came up as $18.00. Then I did a search for your name as author, and again I got the $18.00 figure. But when I clicked on your name on the book’s own page, where your name appears under the title, this time the book came up at those ridiculous prices. Interestingly, at this point, the Kindle edition was the first price listed, still at $4.99, with the paperback listed as an alternate at the outlandish price. There must be something crazy going on with the link in that one place.
My publisher is not amused. They think someone has hijacked the site.
Are the $1993.62 copies autographed? Sorry, this is not a joking matter, but Phoebe gave us a good answer.
Thing is, people are going to see that price and not even think about buying my book… The true price is $18.
I recall running into this issue for one of your Bell Mountain books, although I don’t remember which one. In fact, I notified you of the problem at the time. Unknowable’s explanation makes sense, but Phoebe’s discovery sort of goes around that issue. I’m going over to Amazon to see what happens. Stay tuned . . .
My first attempt was to search for “The Glass Bridge” under ‘all departments’. I was treated to a page filled with dental appliances and eye glasses lol.
Next, I narrowed my search to ‘books’ and up came your book for the correct price of $18.00 and $4.99 for kindle. As Phoebe said, the author’s page lists The Glass Bridge for the bargain basement price of $1,993.62 with a warning that there are only 3 left; however, underneath that are ‘more buying choices’ starting at $1,497.71 and offering both new and used.
I wish it were a compliment to your work, Lee, but at those prices . . The bright side is that those crazy prices seem to appear only on the author’s page and not on the book search page, although I’m not sure what consolation that is.
Strange, I’ve come across items on Amazon before with ridiculous prices. I’m thinking it must be some sort of algorithm glitch. On the flip side, I’ve seen them arbitrarily put items on sale without the seller’s consent or even knowing about it.
I see this kind of thing often. Never could understand it. There usually are a few reasonably priced offers to go with the ridiculous ones. Sometimes the used books cost more than the new ones.
Reblogged this on necltr and commented:
I went to Amazon for “The Glass Bridge” by Lee Duigon and read the reviews. It was highly rated even by adults, although it was written for younger readers. I found it reasonably priced, bought it, and stated reading it. I am finding it an enjoyable escape from the madness of this world.
Thanks very much, marblenecltr. The Glass Bridge is No. 7 in the series.