On Twitter a couple of minutes ago someone expressed annoyance that my books aren’t directly sold by Amazon, which seemed odd, because they were available just yesterday. But I check and sure enough they weren’t there (Amazon has its “available from these sellers”) line up. I checked other Tor authors and it seemed they were gone too. I noted that on Twitter and then someone pointed me to this news post, which suggests many books from Macmillan are off Amazon at the moment.
Also, just for fun I went to the Amazon site to see if any of my books are on the Kindle section. Nope, they seem to be all gone, as do the books of other Tor authors. I hope this doesn’t affect the folks who have already bought my Tor books for the Kindle.
What does this mean? Well, it could mean nothing; it might be a glitch, as has happened before. This was my first thought and continues to be my primary suspicion at the moment. Alternately Amazon might be trying to screw with Macmillan in some way (or alternately, Macmillan is trying to screw with Amazon), but it doesn’t seem like a very smart way to go about things if either of them are.
So what I plan to do at the moment is not panic, not try to assume more than I know, and check around to see if anyone has a clue what’s actually going on. When I know more, I’ll tell you.
That said, a reminder to folks that just because my Tor books and the books of other Macmillan authors are for the moment off Amazon, doesn’t mean you can’t find them elsewhere online: Barnes & Noble and Powell’s both have fine Web sites, for example, and I’m told the Sony eBook store (for one) has my Tor books in stock. And of course if you have a brick and mortar store near you, it might be a fine time to visit them.
Also, my non-Tor books (including The God Engines and my non-fiction work) are still about on Amazon, so there’s that.
No matter how you slice this, however, this is a bit weird. And if this does turn out to be something other than a glitch in Amazon’s system, I’m likely to be more than a little pissed.
Update, 10:12pm: Possibly relevant, possibly not.
Update, 11:33pm: The New York Times says it’s not a glitch, it’s Amazon trying to play hardball with Macmillan. I’m almost certainly going to have more to say about that later, likely not complimentary to Amazon, if it’s true.
Update, 1:55am 1/30: some of my further thoughts on the subject here.