Saturday 22 March 2008

Conversations with Amazon

What do you do when Amazon litter your book page with errors?

Here's the product description as lifted from the Words from a Glass Bubble page:


This passionate new book gathers together for the first time many of Vanessa Gebbiea??s award-winning stories. Described by Maggie Gee as a??a prodigiously gifted new writera??, she is a natural storyteller; her narratives unfold with a deceptively light touch, exploring with compassion what it is to be human and flawed. a??Words From a Glass Bubblea?? is about coming to terms with the cards we are dealt.


Good, innit?

There is, thankfully, as system whereby the author and the publisher can change their product pages. I followed the guidelines exactly, taking careful note of the exhortation to take care, as what I typed into the online form would override the existing content.

Good! That's why I was doing it!

But no. The incorrect paragraph is still there, incorporated into the product description, looking ever so, but ever so slightly amateurish...

The conversation continues.

Sigh. It is wonderful to have a resource like Amazon, but...


.

4 comments:

Ossian said...

I don't see that on either Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk, which have two different descriptions. I assume the corrections must have gone through?

Vanessa Gebbie said...

Hi ossian

Sadly, not. Ive just checked and if you click on the description link, you'll see what I mean. The sysnopsis isnt exactly professional, correct ot indeed needed at all. Its a copy, with extra formatting glitches, of the product description.

I dont think these things can be checked at all by humans.

Trouble is they dont respond to emails,

Ossian said...

oh, right. i see what you mean. they'll get to it eventually, i hope.

Vanessa Gebbie said...

I hope so too...