Sometimes real-life hands us our own mysteries. After writing them for awhile, you’d think I’d be thrilled to have a real life mystery drop in my lap.
Not exactly.
I’ve been quiet here but active in other places online, promoting my latest Rollin RV Mystery, Superstition Victim.
The other day I was on Amazon (where I’ve been buying and downloading hundreds of books since the pandemic hit) and checked my author’s page.
Low and behold, my Rollin RV Mysteries were gone.
Vanished.
As if they had never been published and uploaded to Amazon.
My heart nearly stopped. For a woman who never had children (or pets) of her own, my books are my creations, my children. I had that same panicky feeling I got once when my niece went seemed to disappear in a large department store. When I found her hiding under a clothing rack I didn’t know whether to scold her or hug her.
Where had my books gone?
I found the direct link for the book, and plugged that into the browser. Nope. Just a “Nothing here” page.
My heart kicked into gear. Then up a notch or two. Pounding, pounding.
Over the next few days I tried everything I could think of: e-mailing Amazon, e-mailing and filing a fix-it ticket with Lulu, the publisher I use to get my book files distributed around the Web.
I thought to check Kobo and Barnes and Noble — my books are still there.
Whew. My heartbeat steadied, at least a little.
Maybe all was not lost.
But what was going on?
I tried re-formatting the files and uploading them again. Waited a day or so. “Superstition Victim” reappeared, minus the one review a blogger had posted for it.
Since then it’s all been quiet on Amazon. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t lost some sleep, fretted to Bob about it.
“I wish there was something I could do about it,” he said. Well, there was. We went for ice cream, which always helps.
Yesterday I learned Lulu had decided to switch distribution services. Putting on my Betty Rollin/Sherlock Holmes hat, I deduced this was likely the culprit, but had no proof.
Today I found a forum where fellow Lulu users were suffering the same fate: their books had suddenly vanished from Amazon. And someone posted that Lulu had responded to their fix-it ticket saying the “one- to two-hour” job had turned into something a lot bigger than that. (Obviously.)
So… to those of you who’ve been clicking links to check out my books only to wonder where they are, I apologize. I don’t know where they are.
But they’re supposed to come back.
The mystery might be solved and the perpetrator identified, but we’re still waiting for justice.
And trying to stay patient, something we have all learned a little bit more about in these crazy pandemic times.
ellenbooks.com 
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