In the wake of this weekend’s computer glitch that sent thousands of eager comics archivists ordering massive amounts of spuriously discounted collections, Amazon currently isn’t selling ANY books that are distributed via Diamond Book Distributors. No Marvel. No Image. No Dark Horse, IDW, Archaia, Dynamite, Top Shelf…the list goes on and on. Titles are available via Amazon Marketplace sellers (individual sellers and used booksellers) but no “Buy it now” button.
Sources at Diamond and the individual publishers contacted by The Beat expect the freeze to be temporary while Amazon inspects the data files from DBD to make sure there are no more “March surprises.”
The snafu has already proven very costly for Amazon — while orders that saw many $100+ hardcovers selling for $8.24 were canceled, Amazon has made good to the disappointed customers with a $25 gift certificate. This letter had been arriving in mailboxes all day:
Hello,
We wanted to follow up on a recent message we sent about the cancellation of your recent order.
To recap: Due to a pricing error, we sold many more graphic novels than expected. In fact, we completely sold out — we don’t have any in stock right now, and we’re not sure when we’ll be able to get more.
We’re sorry for any frustration the issue may have caused, and have applied a $25 promotional certificate to your account.
You can use it the next time you order an item shipped and sold by Amazon.com. You’ll see your available promotional balance at checkout–this amount will be applied to your next order automatically without entering a claim code.
I hope this helps. We look forward to seeing you again soon.
Sincerely,
While publishers remain perplexed — and no one likes to lose a few days worth of Amazon sales — this bizarre series of events should lead to a series of lively conversations at the DBD sales conference, which just happens to be kicking off next week.
And not all orders were canceled; even yesterday, they were still sending out some of even the $8.24 Ominibi which had been ordered during the weekend.
“Omnnibus Dome?” I’m not getting the reference.
I thought that since the ’70s it was required that all these things be called “-gates” of one kind or another.
“Omnnibus Dome?” I’m not getting the reference.
“Teapot Dome.” The -gate suffix doesn’t work in this case; it doesn’t look like anyone did anything illegal. -Dome does work, though, because the snafu resulted in profits and windfalls.
“comics archivists” – fuck no, I was planning to sell them on ebay.
I had this dream last night that I took advantage of the pricing glitch on Amazon over the weekend, and I ordered myself two giant hardcover volumes of some sort of Jack Kirby anthology / retrospective series for like $16 a piece. Then, I come home a couple days later and there’s a suspiciously small box from Amazon sitting at my door. I open it, and inside is a copy of Astonishing X-Men: Gifted, and it says I was charged $8.00 for it!!! Then, lower on my invoice, it says my two Jack Kirby volumes will be shipped soon, and it lists their prices at $60-something a piece. I get all furious and call Amazon and complain about it.
Point is, I woke up real stressed out from that. I didn’t even order anything from Amazon in real-life and I’m sweating it!!!!
@Jon Warren — I was thinking that the Dome reference was actually to “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome,” given how voraciously and competitively people were trying to buy these Glitch items as fast as they could.