Dear Amazon:

Dear Amazon Customer Service:

I would like to start out by saying thank you for offering so many wonderful products on your site.  You have made shopping for me so much easier on many occasions.

However, I am having some severe issues with your site as a seller.  In the past I have self-published books and offered them for sale through your site and have had success with them.  My recent release, however, has had nothing but issues due to technical difficulties and "testing" that you claim to be doing.  As a seller, it would have been nice to have been notified of this testing period so that I didn't release a product during this time.  Nor would I have offered a promotion on my book during this time.

By the removal of the "like" button, all of the people who have purchased my book or who are fans of my work, cannot be tracked on  your site.  This seems to be an internet-wide issue; some browsers can see it, some cannot.  I find if offensive that you would remove such a KEY issue to tracking success on your site but only seem to remove it from indie authors and not the big name ones.

In my book, that is discrimination.

I notice that you don't mind taking 65% of my royalties for a book that you had nothing to do with writing and nothing that you are doing to promote or market.  And in return for taking the majority of my pay, you took away one of the most important tools to help ME, the writer, have some form of success in moving up the charts on your site.

I even signed up for the Kindle Select program so that you had the exclusive digital rights to my book.  I thought that might work in my favor.  Clearly, it did not.  You wave around this "fund" that we get to be a part of but what difference does that fund make when we aren't getting any action or movement on your site because you've stifled us?

What do you have to gain from this?  Why would you take such an important tool away?  Why am I being punished for being a faithful customer and seller to your site?  I have had to jump through hoops for almost two weeks now for answers on when this issue is going to be fixed and I was told it would happen by today and you know what?  The button still isn't showing up!  How is that possible?  

I cannot even begin to describe all of the ways that your practices have hurt me as a writer, a seller and a customer.  I cannot even begin to tell you all of the ways that I will be getting the word out on how poorly you treat those that are loyal to you and your site.  I think what you've done here is despicable and that you should be ashamed of your business practices.

I believe I will be looking to do business elsewhere before I do any more business with you.