The Amazon Publishing Game: Friend or Foe?

Well, here I am three days into "Ever After"'s release and STILL finding issues with Amazon.  I am NOT amused.

Don't get me wrong - I understand that this is a process and that when I wrote and published "The Christmas Cottage", it was a completely different beast.  Why?  I published a feel-god Christmas story and released it right after Thanksgiving.  As an avid reader of romances, I LOVE reading a good holiday romance at Christmas time.  So basically, the timing was beyond perfect.

"Ever After" is a new challenge.  There was no holiday that I wanted to tie in to (I don't want to write like that) and I released it just like every other author and now it has to compete like every other book with nothing to draw any particular attention to it.  It's frustrating to say the least.  What people don't realize is that, as an author,  you are ALWAYS going to want your book to be a success.  You write, you publish, you wait for success.

No one likes the waiting.

Ever.

So things are moving slowly right now and a HUGE hindrance to the process is that Amazon still has not figured out or fixed the problem with the "Like" button.  I chose to publish through Amazon's Kindle Select program and so the only place you will find "Ever After" is on Kindle.  Well, how does Amazon track traffic to your page or your popularity?  

Through the like button.

Basically, you don't have to have a boatload of sales to move up the charts.  Weird but true.  But you need to get traffic to the page and have people click like.  Hard to do that when the "Like" button isn't there!

So now here I sit with a book that is competing with a million other books and a missing marketing tool.  Not a good place to be sitting.  So what am I getting by being a part of this whole Kindle Select program?  No one knows.  There is the possibility of some higher profits from some special fund that they have but I'm not seeing them doing anything to move my book to get it to have higher profits.

Correct me if I am wrong but considering that they take a HUGE part of my profits, wouldn't it make sense for them to try and SELL my book???  I don't understand it.  I want to scream; I want to have an all-out hissy fit.  It won't do any good and unless you are a writer yourself, you probably don't understand what the big deal is.

Basically, I am marketing myself/my books.  Local advertising is a waste of time and energy.  I have to be all over the internet and not just on sites visited by people that live around me.  World-wide.  Global sites.  It's not a difficult concept but you'd be surprised.  Amazon is world wide and they are limiting my marketing.  I have a fan club base of almost 300 on Facebook (thank you, Nick!) and I have gotten multiple complaints that they can't go to Amazon and like the book!  I've gotten enough comments about it that it's sincerely and issue and all I get from Amazon is that they cannot identify the problem.

Why?  Because it's like the "Like" button is basically playing peek-a-boo; now you see it, now you don't.  Two computers in my house, one has the like button, one doesn't.  At work, there are 15 computers, half have the like button, half don't? 

What in the world is up with that?  Shouldn't an INTERNATIONAL company like Amazon do a little more to support the author's whose money they are taking?

Help me, readers!  Please go to Amazon and get your copy of "Ever After" - it's only $1.99 and if you can see it, click the LIKE button!