Why Are Some Titles Unavailable When Buying Books On The Kindle App?

I occasionally get fed up with a book I want disappearing from the Kindle Store. This is not a bug, it’s a complex web of rights and restrictions that authors and publishers put in place when they sell ebook rights. This can mean a book is sold in some countries/regions but not others. It can mean that Amazon haven’t been granted the rights to sell a particular ebook. It can also mean that although a paperback copy of a book is available, the ebook version hasn’t been prepared. Sometimes, books are removed from sale by their authors/publishers. Sometimes, rights have reverted to authors and they choose not to sell their books as ebooks.

Then there are the weird technical issues, account restrictions, and browser snafus. Some titles are locked behind Kindle Unlimited. Others are removed from sale by their authors/publishers. And sometimes, a book simply gets pulled from sale because the rights have reverted back to the author. I like to tell people that they can check the author’s website, update their Kindle reading app, check their Amazon account country, or contact the publisher directly. Heck, your local library, or even an alternative ebook retailer, can often help too. I know it’s frustrating, but the more you know about why a book isn’t available for sale, the easier it is to work around the issue.

So I’ve explained the three main reasons why an ebook might not be available to you to buy and download. The first is contracts – typically these are granted by publishers on a per-territory basis (so for example if you are based in the US, a book available to you to purchase and download as an ebook may not be available to someone buying from Japan for example because the publisher has licensed ebook rights to another party in that territory). Often it will be available in print on Amazon in your territory though, and so won’t show up as available to purchase on your Kindle.

This can also be due to DRM or publisher/retailer settings within a platform. Titles may be enrolled in a publisher-select option, like KDP Select, or be part of an author or publisher’s exclusivity deal to sell within a platform. Others may be available to purchase as e-books or otherwise, but are part of Kindle Unlimited (a subscription service to read titles within the platform). Some titles may be removed from sale after their author regains the rights to a work or even be pulled by a publisher to fix errors on an eBook.

In some cases, it may be helpful to switch to the author’s website in order to purchase their book, or even check to see if they are available through your local library via OverDrive/Libby. But more often than not, the problem has to do with a region lock and/or licensing issue on the part of the publisher — so it’s best to contact the publisher or author via social media to ask for their input on the matter.

For the record, I have been frustrated by this on more than one occasion (usually when the sequel to something I am really interested in has not appeared in my Kindle library). In practical terms, the reason that some titles are not available on Amazon in your country is because of contractual rights around translation or sub-regions. Even though Amazon are a global company, the catalog available on each marketplace is specific to that marketplace, and is determined by the country that you are shopping with (as set on your Amazon account).

Of course, there are other reasons for these happenings. For example, a publisher might decide not to issue a title as an ebook, or to sell it only through certain online retailers. Also, the ebook may be protected with Digital Rights Management (DRM) which restricts reading to certain devices and applications, even if Amazon supports that ebook format. Some books are even in a kind of limbo: pre-order not yet available, typo fix pulled from sale, author regains rights. In all these cases, checking your Amazon account country, visiting Amazon in desktop mode, checking for updates to your Kindle app, or even purchasing from another online bookstore all can be faster remedies than waiting for the situation to get straightened out. A simple email to Amazon customer service, or to the publisher, can do wonders.

Now, I know there are some tech-savvy folks who use VPNs to look at other stores. However, I don’t recommend doing this as it is often against terms of service. My solution to this problem is to check for announcements from the author on their website, or to check their newsletter. Often, the author will give you an idea of when the book will be released in other territories, or where you can buy it.