You wake to check your KDP stats, only to find a 404 error or 'account has been terminated', your heart skips a beat because you had the account last night and had it for months or years. You then check your email to find :
We are terminating your account effective immediately because you've submitted content through your account which violates our Content Guidelines.... yadda yadda..
or this one:
During a review of your account, we found activities that are attempting to manipulate our services. This is a violation of our Terms and Conditions, and as a result we are terminating our relationship with you and closing your account, effective immediately.
Examples of manipulation include abnormal reading activity and attempting to publish books that violate our Content Guidelines.
As part of the termination process:
• We will close your KDP account
• You're no longer eligible to receive any outstanding royalties
• You'll no longer have access to your account. This includes, editing your titles, viewing your reports and accessing any other information within your account
• All of your published titles will be removed from sale on Amazon
You then go to Reddit because you want answers, hoping someone has been in your same shoes, and 45% of the time, people on Reddit troll the person who posted "my account was wrongfully terminated). You are frustrated! You then try to appeal the decision and KDP is supposed to respond, but most of the time, they ignore the messages- yo, KDP Executive person, please get a better way of training KDP Content Review people! A lot of authors who did nothing wrong are getting terminated and authors have ZERO way to contact!
Why did your account get terminated? When KDP suspends/terminates your account, it is because they identified a possible violation of their terms of service, and are essentially pausing your account until they can review it further with you. You can think of it as a slap on the wrist for doing something you shouldn't..
The problem is this:
You write a story. You design the cover. You do research to see if said subject is for sale on Amazon and your book follows Amazon and KDP TOS - (they update them and never notify the author- again KDP executives, EVERY company is REQUIRED To notify the customers of any changes to privacy policy and/or TOS, why doesn't KDP? most people don't religiously look at TOS, an email needs to be sent out)
You check your email later to find out your book has been published! Yipee! you are excited!!! You are now an author and you continue to publish - and then you get that email "book is blocked; account suspended; account terminated" - so what did you do? NOTHING! most times the BOT program sends messages to Kindle Content Review that person who receives it is supposed to look at your KDP account but due to limited training, they do not and click the button. I know this because years ago I got ahold of someone high up in KDP who explained it to me.
That person contacted Kindle Content Review and that person didn't know they were talking to someone high up in KDP- that Kindle Content Review person was very rude. There has been many posts on google over the years who have done the same thing. Nobody in Amazon works together -that is why it is hard to talk to humans at KDP.
So what do you do? Publish elsewhere. I have read on Reddit, when a person asked if they should publish with other companies and another responded "if you violated KDP TOS, than you can't publish anywhere", well, that is actually a lie. Your books did follow TOS, and KDP Content Reviewer should know this but due to lack of training, or perhaps it is because of their background. If a person is very religious, they might not like erotica. And find a problem and will terminate an account except Amazon sells erotica!
Low content books? Amazon sells them and I have seen people post their accounts have been terminated - and then you see people say "how I made $17,000 a month with KDP - but you as an author make $20-$500 and your account got terminated - . I have read stories a person's book was top 10 or top 20 and their account got terminated due to 'manipulation' , how do you manipulate people read your book? Come on KDP, get a better system out there. If KDP allowed the book to be published, then it shouldn't violate TOS because KDP person made sure your book followed KDP rules.
KDP is broken, it is well-known. And if you haven't had issues with KDP, awesome.. but it is like walking on eggshells for anyone who has an account with KDP- a waiting game all because KDP folk are not trained right. If they were, honest authors wouldn't have their accounts randomly terminated.
So what to do? Publish elsewhere! We have our Ebook Store that is for romance & erotica! And with us, you can sell with us and anywhere else! we are non-exclusive! check out Salty Vixen Stories & More eBook Store: https://www.saltyvixenstories.com/shop-ebooks
