Unpublishing?

Hey! So I realise this is a little against the grain compared to what most ask here, but I need advice. I would like to unpublish some of my previous work, yet no matter what I do, it's all still listed on Google. I'm unsure if D2D will be the same, but the particular piece I want to get rid of is an Amazon exclusive. It's not bound to KDP, I've deleted all the files from print on Createspace, but it is still listed, and still on my Amazon author page. I want it gone, permanently, or at least until I rework it and finetune it, which could be pushed back to next Summer. Any ideas?

 

There's really no such thing as "unpublishing"... like there's no such thing as un-birthing. Once it's published, it's published.

But you should be able to make it unavailable for sale. If you click the links on Google, are you actually able to buy the book?

 

That's a good idea!

No, can't puchase, but it's all still there, and it's a glaring mistake in my career

 

Well, you do have the advantage that you're writing under a pen name (if memory serves you wrote that elsewhere?), so you could use your current one to explore and develop and then start publishing under your name proper once you think you're ready... but in any case, maybe you're generally a bit hasty and should seek more input from others? Writing is a long and slow process, and it's very difficult to know when you'll hit the market successfully after all, and in our day and age of self-publishing it's too easy to damage your own career

 

Sadly, the penname it's under is one I've had for years, one I have fostered a community around. The book in question had great response from friends, readers, and reviewers, but... I hate it. Hate, hate, hate it. I liked it when I did it, but now I feel it's just a mess.

 

Print books follow you forever: Amazon will always keep the print book page up in case someone has a used copy to sell. You can unpublish ebooks from the KDP dashboard, but I don't think you can delete them (I have a few I'd like to get rid as they clutter up the rest).

 

Can you not send a nice e-mail to somebody, find a named individual perhaps, and say the listing is making you 'unhappy?'

I did the same once with an embarrassing poem and they were kind to me. Just be sincere. Even the action of posting - says to 'you' - I did my best, so move on...I can now move on...

 

There was one lady who pulled all of her books off kindle, though they
were never in print format. While I can still find the book I ordered on
my electronic orders history, it (along with her other works) do not exist,
nor does the author page.
So there happens to be a way of completely getting rid onf a book on
kindle, though I am not entirely sure how that process works. You should
be able to just go into that particular book in your published section and
simply delete all the information off of the 2-3 pages that you initially filled
out to get it posted on there in the first place.

You could ask the support staff that deal with the Kindle to get a better answer
as to how to permanently remove your e-book.

 

Unpublishing makes me think about the Thanos finger snap, except with the books you've written . In any case, you can only ever remove it from circulation to the best of your ability. If there is somewhere in which someone can still get a copy, just do your best to communicate with the trader/seller or potential buyer who might happen across that page (likely via a comments section) that an updated version of the work either does, or will one day exist.

 

I second this idea, and there's certainly precedent for this happening, even way back when digital was still Science Fiction. Against the Fall of Night was published in 1948, and The City and the Stars was published in 1956. They are the same story written, published, and then rewritten and republished by Arthur C. Clarke.

I know this is likely not what you wish to hear, but isn't this just part of the process too? And if it struck a chord with your readers...?

In the example I gave prior, my pal @minstrel is beholden to the original version of the story, where I hold the second version as one of my top five favorites ever read. Clearly Clarke felt something similar to your feelings, else he wouldn't have spent the time to completely rework the novel, but, these many decades later, there's still someone ready to engage me in some friendly verbal sparring that the original was fine just as it was.

 

Yes. If you unpublish an ebook on Amazon, the book page eventually goes away (I think it took about a month for the ones I unpublished). But you can't delete the ebook from your KDP dashboard, it sits there forever.

 

Oddly enough, I had exactly the same question about a similar situation.
I published a book in 2007 through Authors Online, who went out of business a few years ago and I later had severe regrets about publishing it in the first place.
It's still being shown as on sale at Amazon, so I wrote to them and received a reply:

In order to provide a complete record of your work, I'm unable to remove "Ten To Seven" from your bibliography.

Unlike Kindle books, we offer customers the opportunity to find out-of-print books, in case someone wishes to sell a used copy through any Marketplace which is similar to a used bookstore and lists a wide selection of titles for customers' reference and convenience.
To provide the best possible customer and reader experience, we include all titles and formats available on Amazon.com in your bibliography. This includes works both in- and out-of-print.

I've since changed the book description in my author dashboard to say that it's no longer available and that I intend to republish it.
In fact, I'm now editing it, removing large chunks that should never have appeared, adding some updated material and designing a new book cover. I'll be publishing it as a new and different book, so as to remove any connection to the previous title.

 

This whole thread serves as a cautionary tale, doesn't it? Don't rush to publication. Take your time, and make sure you've got something you can be proud of. Forever, apparently.

 

If you want to leave ALL of your previously published work behind, then one possibility could be to go to a pen name? I don't know how soon you'd have to reveal your real identity to an agent or publisher, but readers don't ever need to know.

 

Except these days, if you start being successful, your secret will come out. But a pen name can still help.
Janet Reid of Query Shark, an agent, says you should always tell your agent about your previously published works, at the beginning of the relationship. The publishers, I don't know.