Pulling books from the FOREIGN Amazon storefronts

[David Kazzie]

If I wanted to make my book available ONLY on Amazon.com, and not the other storefronts, is that possible?

Thanks in advance.

[Patty Jansen]

Nope.

[David Kazzie]

Even if you only select the U.S. and Canada as territories on the rights page?

[David Adams]

Uhh, I have no idea, but my understanding was that it's possible by doing what you described.

Can I ask why? o_O Is it actually rights issues?

[CoraBuhlert]

You can manually select the rights for the territories in which you want to sell your book under the "set rights and price" tab. "World rights" is the default setting.

Frankly, unless there is a rights conflict (i.e. you sold the English language e-book rights to your book in - say - the UK or Germany) or legal issue (e.g. a swastika on the cover will get your book blocked on Amazon.de), I would stick with world rights. Why would you deliberately limit your readership and deny yourself whatever sales you might get in those other countries?

[David Adams]

(e.g. a swastika on the cover will get your book blocked on Amazon.de)

Slightly offtopic, but... CAN a book be blocked in one region only? I thought it was a binary thing -- blocked or not. If it is blocked in just one region, how do you know?

[CoraBuhlert]

Displaying the swastika is illegal in Germany and Austria, but legal elsewhere, so as far as I know Amazon will block books with swastikas on the cover on Amazon.de only. Someone here had that very issue, maybe he or she will show up to explain what precisely happened.