I've had more and more books that need me to request approval on Amazon. For a while I was just able to request approval, answer a few questions and then receive approval. However, lately I have come across more and more books that are "Gated" - meaning they require proof of purchase from the publisher themselves. Since I sell used books found elsewhere that doesn't really apply to me.
Has anyone found a work around for this? Or had the same problem have an uptick on Amazon recently?
It is a growing issue. It appears that the documentation is specific to each of the affected publishers. I don't see a reasonable way that a small seller can get around it.
Unfortunately, that has been my experience as well. Looked around, contacted some people, but it just seems to be the way of it. I think eventually the price of some books will go up because not as many people can sell them. Silver lining sort of.
I'm thinking of dropping Amazon because of this issue. I have been with them for 24 years and have 5700 feedbacks but I haven't done much in the last year because of this problem.
I was wondering if long time sellers were being grandfathered in at all, but I guess this answers that question! Hopefully customers will start turning to other venues. Amazon is still the majority of my sales for certain types of books - education, non-fiction, even if one out of every eight of my books is gated and not for sale on there. It of course doesn't seem to be affecting giant used sellers like Thriftbooks, just small sellers.