An easy one to write about this week, I’ve been having trouble with my eBook pricing and this has resulted in me having to un-publish all my eBooks and re-publish them just to get it sorted out.
The basic problem came from a certain websites pricing algorithm, which for some reason increased the RRP of my eBooks from that which I had set and did not respond to any price changes that I requested, thus making it pretty useless when it came to promoting special prices. No wonder I never sold many through them.
But, one thing I have learned is that changing anything that is stored on a computer somewhere is never simple, at first I tried to convince people that there was a problem, that is never the easy bit, looking back I guess that I should have just deleted it all and started again at the first sign of trouble. But, being the sort of person that I am, I persevered. In the end, company one told me the problem was with company two and I should call them. Naturally, company two disputed this and told me to call company one again.
This is a version of tennis for the electronic age. You are the ball and spend your time on hold at one or the other company, when connected you always have to describe the problem from the start (strange in these days of ‘all calls are recorded and monitored,’ don’t they keep notes?), only to be told that the whole sorry mess is not their fault and you need to speak to the others. You then hang up and dial the second company, where the whole thing repeats. You can play for as long as you like, or your phone bill (even, at a push – life) allows.
In between times, when customer service lines were shut, I took advice. The general consensus was that I should start again, and detailed instructions were generously given. Thank you to all who helped me, you managed to show me that in the long run, this would be the sensible way to proceed. That all this hassle would be worth it, in the end.
To be fair, I actually managed to turn this to my advantage. I had been meaning to update the end pages in my eBooks, where I tell everyone about my other titles and invite them to leave reviews. And I had also spotted a couple of typo’s that needed correcting. But I had never got around to it as it meant re-formatting and all the fun that goes with that. After a lot of work, I had the file ready to go. All I needed to do was add it to the epub, recompile it and upload it, right?
Which was where snag number two turned up. Sure, I could upload new versions, with updated contents, but I couldn’t include the links I had so carefully embedded, the reason for me doing this in the first place. As I had now unpublished everything; the links were no longer valid!
So I had to upload the old files to their new home and get them listed as on sale. Then grab the links that were created to my new versions and get my file amended. Then I could incorporate it and upload the new eBooks to replace them. The links would be valid this time as these were only updates to already published books.
Simples, as they say. Well yes in a logical, step by step sort of way, but oh so infuriating to have to do it.
Still, it’s all done, now I have to deal with the rest of the incorrect links, on this website, Facebook and everywhere else that I might have placed them. And it’s surprising where they had actually ended up.
In a way, I’m pleased that this all happened. It brought things to a head and made me do what I’d been putting off for too long. Now all my eBooks have up-to-date lists of other titles and links at the back, ready for people to click straight through when they finish the main event. Even if it did make me want to do this.
