FIXED: Amazon Ads not showing for items with no price

1. 75

   lone77starposted 10 years ago

   I've looked at some of the other threads on this subject, tried the suggestions and still no luck.
   
   I have 4 of my own books I'd like to showcase on my article,
   
   http://lone77star.hubpages.com/hub/An-A … tists-Mind
   
   These books,
   B00JWFMFJS
   B00898EFJM
   B008CLWR1E
   B00K6N81HU
   ...don't show up.
   The error message is: "Amazon is not providing us a price for this item. Therefore it can not be displayed."
   
   It seems rather bizarre that the error message should be "Amazon not providing price," if this is an extension or plugin problem. A problem between my browser and your server should not affect the channel of communication between your server and Amazon. At the very least, the error message seems to be in error (Wrong message!) if the problem is between HubPages server and Amazon.
   
   I don't have any ad blockers! I'm using Firefox 29.0.1. And I cleared my cache. Odd, the past 2 months, it seems to fill rather quickly. I have also disabled all extensions and set all Plug-ins to "Ask to Activate."
   
   Bugs!?
   
   I also tried with my two other browsers with the same problems.
   
   CHROME:
   Version 34.0.1847.137 m
   All Extensions Disabled
   Still no ads!
   
   IE:
   Version 10.0.9200.16540
   All Extensions and Add-ons (except Shockwave Flash Object) disabled
   Still no ads!
   
   Suggestions?

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   1. 81

      Marina Lazarevicposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Hi lone77star, I'm sorry that you're having trouble with the Amazon Capsule! Unfortunately, sometimes the Amazon website will display a price but the API will not. As a workaround, you can link to those books in a Text Capsule.

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      1. 75

         lone77starposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         Great, thanks. Wonderful suggestion, Marina. Adding an image capsule would also help by showing the cover of the book.
         
         One problem I ran into was linking to a website page which had an affiliate link to Amazon. Oops! I found out very quickly that's a no, no!
         
         Linking directly to Amazon (not as an affiliate link should work. Of course, HubPages doesn't make any money off of this. If they fix it, perhaps they can increase their revenues. That could only be a good thing, because we all want HubPages to be successful.

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   2. 69

      Matthew Meyerposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Unless the price status for this item changed, then it looks like the recent Amazon capsule improvements may have addressed this issue.
      http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/124092
      
      Since this change has been made, does anyone have an example item without a price that is not allowing you to add it to the capsule now?

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      1. 95

         Glenn Stokposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         Matt, the recent change to the Amazon capsule eliminating the price indeed solves the problem with listing Kindle books. I added back a couple of my Kindle listings yesterday, and they display very well now.

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         1. 69

            Matthew Meyerposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            I saw your messages, but didn't have any other items with which to test.
            Thanks for the info Glenn!

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2. 95

   Glenn Stokposted 10 years ago

   Rod, I checked on the first item you listed and I see that it's a Kindle version of your book. I have the same exact problem with my Kindle book. It says "Amazon is not providing a price for this item." - Same as with yours. So I removed my Kindle version and just list the paperback version of my book. That works properly in Amazon capsules. I see you have paperback versions too. Try listing those with an Amazon Capsule in your hubs.

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   1. 75

      lone77starposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Glenn, this is awesome. Thanks for your insights. I hope HubPages can fix their API to include Kindle versions for those which don't yet have paperback versions.
      
      I also like Marina's suggestion to use a text capsule. Combined with an image of the cover, this could be a perfect alternative.

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      1. 95

         Glenn Stokposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         I already reported this to HubPages a long time ago. But they say Amazon is not providing the pricing info.
         
         Mine actually did work at the beginning. But once (a bout a year ago) I offered my Kindle version for free for a few days as a promotion to Amazon Prime members, and ever since then this problem appeared. So I gave up listing my Kindle version.
         
         However, I like Marina's suggestion too. I'm going to do that until HP looks further into the problem and fixes the API. HP should at least talk to Amazon about this to mutually figure out what's wrong.

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         1. 75

            lone77starposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            Good point, Glenn. Perhaps the real issue is HP not making money off of free Kindle books. That's silly, if that's the concern. There are some paper books you can buy for $0.01 (a penny). So, making Kindle a problem only hurts everyone.
            
            I like everyone winning, including HP. Perhaps there were other reasons behind the Kindle problem. It's nice having a workaround, though.

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            1. 95

               Glenn Stokposted 10 years agoin reply to this

               I don't think that's the problem Rod. I think it's a bug on Amazon's side and HP just doesn't know how to handle it. So HP displays that error message stating that "Amazon is not providing a price for this item."  After all, it started when I offered my book for free. But after the promotion was over and my book went back to the regular price, HP still displayed that error and it never cleared up.
               
               I'm not sure if this issue is ONLY related to Kindle books that were once offered for free. I do see that a lot of authors had taken advantage of the promotion in order to get the readership increased, hoping that some of the people downloading may actually buy the paperback version later. Another reason was to get more people reading so that some would post feedback in Amazon. That was the idea behind the promotion.
               
               I'd like to know if Hubbers are having this issue with other Amazon products. Or only Kindle books that were once offered with the free promotion.  The answer may be a clue.

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3. 75

   akhildev143posted 10 years ago

   Why can't we add kindle editions?

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   1. 75

      lone77starposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      I add my voice to your question. Why!?
      
      Perhaps HubPages programmers will fix this problem. It's definitely not a browser or plugin problem. Because HubPages is getting a message from Amazon that a price is not being included, this is a HP-Amazon problem, not a Browser-HP problem.

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4. 75

   akhildev143posted 10 years ago

   I also have the same problem. There is no paperback version for the book I wanna list..

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5. 95

   Glenn Stokposted 10 years ago

   I might have a solution.
   
   Doing more research I have noticed that Amazon has three price fields:  Amazon Price , New from, and Used from. 
   
   The Kindle books don't have a value under the New or Used fields. So I wonder if HP is trying to pick up the price from those fields in the API code of the Amazon capsule. If that's the case, then maybe a fix can be achieved by taking the price only from the "Amazon Price".
   
   I hope someone from staff sees this post.

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   1. 81

      Marina Lazarevicposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks for the suggestion, Glenn. We already try to grab any price available via the API. The problem is that the API doesn't necessarily offer the same information as the Amazon site, and sometimes doesn't return a price at all.

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      1. 95

         Glenn Stokposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks of your reply Marina. I understand what you're saying. But based on that, I wonder if you would share that with Amazon. Maybe they don't realize their API is missing the price on Kindle books.
         
         I have my own Kindle book, which gives me the ability to try various tests. I thought that the "Kindle MatchBook promotion" had been causing the problem. But I disabled that with my book and the API still did the same thing.
         
         It may be helpful to know that it broke about a year ago. I know that because it had worked back in Feb 2013. And it stopped working shortly after that. So if they look back at changes they made, they might find the error that was introduced.

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         1. 81

            Marina Lazarevicposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            Thanks for the helpful info, Glenn. Paul E reported this to Amazon a while back and they told us they have no plans to fix it. It also appears to be a known issue on the AWS forums: https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.js … mp;#395456
            
            The issue is also documented in their API: http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSECommerce … tings.html
            "This response group is not returned for Amazon Kindle digital books. An Amazon Kindle ASIN can be verified through the Binding, Format, and ProductTypeName response elements."
            
            Unfortunately, it does not look like we will see a fix anytime soon, if at all.

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            1. 95

               Glenn Stokposted 10 years agoin reply to this

               Thank you for that additional information and those links, Marina. I found that helpful to understand what has been going on between Amazon and other developers.
               
               As it turns out, as I can see, Amazon will not fix the problem with providing Offer Prices on Kindle books because they do provide List Prices, and that by itself should be sufficient.
               
               See their announcement about that at https://forums.aws.amazon.com/ann.jspa?annID=854
               
               So I would think that should be a method for a work-around. But if not, another idea I have, that may provide a solution, is the fact that I can generate a widget in my Amazon Affiliate account that shows all the information on Kindle books, except for the price. This works as a functional listing. 
               
               So if the widget can list the item despite not having the price, why can't HP do the same thing? Then Hubbers will be able to list Kindle books again. And that can potentially bring more revenue for Hubbers and HubPages, which is presently being missed due to lost sales.
               
               I'm not arguing with you. Rather, I'm working with you as one programmer to another.

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               1. 81

                  Marina Lazarevicposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                  Oh, interesting! I will relay this information to engineering, particularly the idea to display Kindle items without prices, and see what they think.
                  
                  By the way, I am not a programmer. I do work on the product with programmers, so perhaps that counts. Anyway, I really appreciate you sharing all of your insights about this. Thanks!

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                  1. 95

                     Glenn Stokposted 10 years agoin reply to this

                     That counts!

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