What to do with a dead/non-existent book?

[Rachel]

I have just published my first novel and followed the steps to gain an Author page.

While I was writing the novel, I released the prologue as "The Box", the first chapter as "Mug Half-Full" and the second chapter as "Tea for Two". These were done via Smashwords.

Nobody bought them, so I stopped releasing that way, concentrated on finishing the book and here we are today.

Those early releases have been removed from Smashwords but "Tea for Two" remains on goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

Despite goodreads showing a "Buy on" option, the book is definitely not available.

My preference would be to ask for it to be removed. I think it is confusing as things stand because it is an actual chapter in the book that has been published (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...) and because the synopsis for "Tea for Two" makes reference to the earlier releases that aren't anywhere to be found.

But I do understand that goodreads doesn't allow books to be removed.

Is there any way to have its status set to invalid or deleted instead? Would that stop the book showing up?

What are my options here?

Many thanks.

[Scott]

Rachel wrote: "I do understand that goodreads doesn't allow books to be removed."

This is your answer.

Is there any way to have its status set to invalid or deleted instead? Would that stop the book showing up?

Those are all just different ways of saying the same thing. We do not remove published books.

[Rachel]

Thank you for the confirmation.

Is it at least possible to remove the button that tries taking the user off to Amazon to buy the non-existent book?

Is it acceptable to update the book details in any way to show that it is not available?

[Scott]

That is a matter of site functionality and cannot be altered by librarians. I am sure that staff would not remove it for one book. It is present on all book records so that people may search for and purchase used copies of out of print books.

[Tawnya]

It sounds like it should have never been added to begin with since it was a work in progress. I would contact support and stress that it wasn't a finished product. Perhaps that will help. We remove "books" all of the time that are only extra chapters because of the rule.

[Tami]

Rachel wrote: "Is it acceptable to update the book details in any way to show that it is not available?"

Yes, you can edit the book's description to indicate that the book is out of print. You can find the guidelines here: https://help.goodreads.com/s/article/...