Doris Heilmann from Savvybookwriters.com
delves into the mysterious and unfair practices of Amazon when it comes to unequal rights for various countries. I was also elated to find that she had linked to some of my own discoveries I’ve shared here from previous posts in her post.
Have a read in her post below and learn where certain promos and opportunities are not afforded to all countries.
“Are We Amazon’s Foreign Aliens? I mean WE: readers and writers, Amazon customers/book suppliers, from Canada, Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Ireland … Why are we treated by Amazon as second-class citizens in this global Internet world? Sounds like Donald Trumps’ slogan: Make America Great Again (and let others pay for it).
Do foreign customers/writers not have the same value for this American company? Here are several issues that writers and publishers encounter at Amazon.”.
AMAZON is NOT International!
The company is touted as one of the world’s largest suppliers and a pioneer in the online business. In many aspects, such as eReaders and eBook uploading they really are. Amazon also insists on being customer-service centric – which I mostly agree with. However, the way their foreign suppliers (writers), who are also all Amazon customers, are treated – compared to American writers – is not right! So many perks that US citizens receive from Amazon are not available for the rest of the world.
.Countdown Deals ONLY for US and UK Customers!
When authors place their books into the Kindle CountDown program, the promotion is only available for U.S. and U.K. citizens. I remember when I ran my book Conflicted Hearts on that promo that I had no evidence of it being on sale. The deal was not showing up, even when I went over to Amazon.com.
I questioned Amazon and all that I was told that it was on sale, and they sent me a screenshot to prove it.This doesn’t help us when we are putting our books on promotion and paying for advertising to help boost sales and ALL THE OTHER COUNTRY’S readers are told it’s on sale, but they can’t have that Countdown price. Read the whole story here.
Amazon Rules: Can I use Kindle Countdown Deals if I live outside of the U.S. or UK, like Italy or Japan?
Yes, but your Kindle Countdown Deals promotion will only be available for Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. Customers for example from Germany, India, and Australia will not see the promotions at this time…
Let me give you seven more examples: Please Continue Reading . . .
DGKayewriter.com 
Amazon sucks – big time. They’ve become a huge corporation, seemingly without a conscience, flaunting power and most likely banking their billions offshore. Their practices across countries are inequitable, and their various departments ~ i.e., Amazon proper, Kindle, CreateSpace ~ don’t communicate with each other electronically. It’s unfortunate that they have indie authors by the short hairs. Perhaps we need to establish our own corporation and give them a run for their money!
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Hi T. How did I know you’d have something to add here, lol. I know you and I have talked quite a few times about the Giant. It’s all true, yet they continue to rule the nest. It’s good to know we have Doris advocating loud and clear, and she often contacts Amazon with her concerns and shares her findings. Doris and her books are a wealth of great information, particularly for us Indies. ❤
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I hope it’s just a learning curve and the advantages in the US will spread to the rest of the world. With our blogs, our reach is global and it’s frustrating that we can’t promote as effectively across borders. It clearly aggravating to non-US writers. 😦
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That’s so true and why the article was written. It’s also been like that since I started publishing 4 years ago Diana, and I’ve sent numerous complaints to Amazon, as did many others I’m sure, and still 4 years later nothing has changed. 😦
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When I held my Summer Writing Challenge and gave away free ebooks, I ran into a problem with a blogger in Ireland. She was unable to use the gift card because she was a customer of Amazon.uk and apparently American gift cards aren’t accepted by the UK branch of Amazon. If she wanted to, she could have signed up with just plain old Amazon in order to redeem it, but even that proved problematic. I ended up just sending her a PDF version, which I felt badly about.
Great post–good to have this informaton in our hands!
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I know all about the gift certificate debacle. I wrote a post on my findings. I believe it’s linked in the post here. But the trick is, when you know who you want to give the certificate to, you go to the Amazon site of their country to purchase the certificate in their currency. Just a pain. It should be illegal that people spend money on certificates to give out that are only valid on .com. I must have over $50 sitting in my .com account I can’t use. 😦
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One could hope that when some undisclosed critical mass of sales is reached that amazon will make the accounting and logistical changes needed to cure this. Pressing can’t hurt but likely won’t help until the numbers work.
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Pressing hasn’t helped in the 4 years I’ve been on them 🙂
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Hard to be optimistic but the more people complain maybe something will happen. Still, profit and loss is the driver not equity. That’s why it’s so hard to move them.
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True John. But still a little ridiculous and pre-historic 🙂
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Thanks for the link to the article, Debby. I was interested to read it. The English-language online community is so completely international these days, I’m surprised to read that Amazon seem to be so far behind the times in their thinking.
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Thanks Bun. Glad you found it useful. Yes, isn’t it amazing how far behind Amazon is?
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It really is.
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