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Lucky on Amazon?

On Friday’s post I said that the only way to get a copy of The Cabins of Mineral King, by Jane Coughran and me, published by Cabinart Books in 1998, is to get lucky on eBay or on Amazon.

Then I decided to look for myself. Nothing on eBay, and this is what was on Amazon. Whoa. Here is a screen shot of the first listings:

$85 is the lowest price for a book that sold for $50 as a hardcover, and this one says it is paperback??

Then I went down to the more expensive books. Check this out:

Now that is what I would call a Peculiar Sight.

I contacted the last 2 sellers on the listing to ask them if they really and truly meant to list the book for that price. I’ll let you know if I hear back. . . (and yes, I signed my name and told them I thought I did a nice job on the illustrations but their prices seemed a bit high.)

P.S.The seller called FastShip replied:

Jana, Thank-you for bringing this to my attention. We have about 70K books.

They went on with a lengthy explanation of how books are priced and how some fall through the cracks, but they didn’t say if they were planning to reprice the book.

6 Comments

  1. That’s the nature of eBay. People can set whatever price they want for any item, but it doesn’t mean the item will sell at that price. I’ve seen some outrageous prices for the dumbest objects, and wonder, “What was the seller thinking??” The true test is to see what the item actually sold for–if, indeed, it sold at all.

    And when the seller said they had 70k books, I hope that means total, and not 70,000 copies of YOUR book!

    • Sharon, this is Amazon, not eBay, so one would expect more judicious pricing. And we only printed 1000 books, so that is 70K total books.

      • So obviously what he meant was that he has 70,000 books in his inventory, and information can slip through the cracks with that many products to keep track of.

        Sorry about the eBay slip up, but you can set your own prices on Amazon, too.

        • You got it, Sharon! Don’t you think that people selling stuff would be careful about inputting prices, regardless of the place?? They could slip up and put in 1.99 when they meant $199. . . you’d think it would matter to someone.

  2. Whew! that must have been a bit of a thrill, at least briefly.

    • Donna, that gave me a moment of a loud and disbelieving HA!! Then I decided to investigate under the premise of It Never Hurts To Ask. The other overpriced seller didn’t bother responding. The one who did said if anyone ordered at that price, the order would get cancelled (but didn’t say by whom).

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