What’s Going on with Amazon? and Other Complaints

This is NOT a post about grammar — or punctuation. It’s a post about complaints. Mine. Now maybe I have simply become a whiny old lady who complains about everything. Or maybe I am just whining so you don’t have to!

In any case, because of a reader request, next week I will be writing about quotation marks and their mysteries. And I would like to thank the people who wrote to me with blog post suggestions: Some said to repeat some old posts for newbie (or forgetful) readers. Okay. Some offered to write guest posts. Okay. And some offered suggestions for blog topics. Okay. Thank you all!

Now back to Amazon. There are really two Amazons: First, there is the Amazon that we (most of us) buy things from. For us writers, there is also the Amazon that publishes our books and pays us. I will deal with each separately.

Amazon, until a few months ago, had a publishing arm called CreateSpace, which published (and offered other services such as book design) print books. Kindle has always taken care of the e-books. CreateSpace had great customer service. Enter your phone number, and they would immediately call you, 24/7. Bye, bye, CreateSpace. Why? Who knows? I believe the reason given was better customer service (HA!). So we all had to migrate our books over to Kindle — before they had debugged everything. Customer service? Not 24/7. You have to wait until 6 a.m., and then they close around 5 p.m.

Then, there is this thing called AMS, Amazon Marketing Services. That is how one advertises books on Amazon. There used to be two kinds of ads: Display ads showed the book cover when someone was reading on a Kindle. I think the minimum cost for one of those ads was $100, and I don’t think they were effective. They are now being canceled. Then there are the “sponsored ads.” What the author does is choose keywords someone may use to find his or her book. Or any keywords that might apply to someone interested in a book like yours. So for me, grammar, grammar book, grammar workbook, commas, punctuation, etc., might be good keywords. But they say to have hundreds of keywords to improve your sales: titles and author names of competitor books, for example. For each ad (one book per ad), you pick the dates you want the ad to run and the maximum amount you want to spend each day. Then, you give each keyword a monetary bid amount. The more competition for that keyword, the higher your bid has to be for your book to be shown when someone types in that keyword. Well, this is all fine, but they just changed the reporting system. You used to be easily able to see how many times each keyword was shown, and how many people clicked on your book when they saw it. This would tell you which keywords were not working or which keywords might need a  higher bid. And it was easy to press a button and pause a keyword, which meant it was out of the ad campaign until you pressed a button to put it back in. Well, with the new program, you need four or five clicks and the knowledge to figure out what to click before you can see how your specific keywords are doing. A definite minus for us writers. Then, they have come up with a recommended bid amount that is generally higher than you would give a keyword. I think AMS is likely becoming very popular, and Amazon is now raking in the dough from it. More people using it, higher bids necessary. Want help? You can e-mail. Or, you pick your issue from a drop-down menu and then you apparently can put in your phone number for that immediate call. But no matter which issue you choose, you get a message that phone help isn’t available for that issue. Why hire more help? Bezos must not have enough money.

I haven’t as much to say about the buying end of Amazon. It is pretty good. It is very good. However, they have raised the price of Amazon Prime — and sometimes it takes longer than the promised two days, which is why you got Prime in the first place. And if it is late — I am not talking about items that you know beforehand take longer to get, but the ones that just don’t arrive in time — you get nothing for waiting.

Now, in defense of Amazon, I love Amazon! I buy all kinds of things from Amazon. More important, if it were not for Amazon selling my books, I would be living in a cardboard box on the side of the river.  So I am very grateful to Amazon (they pay on time too) for getting my books out there.

More complaints? Oh, little ones. 

I was in the grocery store the other day. One of the big ones I rarely go to, but I needed a few things the other stores I go to (Target and Trader Joe’s) don’t have. There were a few lines open with very long lines. There was no express line. There were, however, two Self-Service lines that were completely empty because NO ONE WANTS TO USE THEM!!!!! Doesn’t the store get it? Their clientele doesn’t want to use the self serve. I waited; the woman in back of me put her stuff down and left. I mentioned this to the checkout clerk and surprisingly he said, “I know. I have talked to my boss about it, but they don’t do anything.”

But before you even go into the store, you have to park your car. Some years ago, cars got smaller. Then, in response to the glut of smaller cars, many of the parking lots repainted the spaces and made them small. Now, everyone and his or her mother has an SUV or a pickup truck. The spaces are still, however, the same size. Annoying.

I promise this is my last complaint: Target. I am in Target a lot. It started many years ago, when I would go twice a month for toiletries, cleaning things, food — most everything. Then, it seems I started going weekly.  Now, I am sure I am there multiple times a week. I have spent untold thousands of dollars at Target. And ever since a new Target was built in my city, things have changed at all the Targets. At first they told me there was a distribution issue at my Target. But it is everywhere: Why are the shelves bare? Why do they never have, week after week, something I am looking for? Oh, they still carry it, but the shelf is empty. I have also had to return things there. The protein bars I buy there apparently are fragile in hot weather. I have had to return them for the chocolate covering being all white and disgusting. Last time, they simply tasted really bad, and I feared I had given myself food poisoning from them. And I just had to return a mascara that was so old and sticky, I couldn’t get the brush back into the container once I took it out. Thankfully, they are very good about taking returns!

I think I am now done complaining. Next week: quotation marks

And thank you to the Rotary Club in San Rafael I spoke to this past week. Great audience for my “Fun with Words” talk!