- It's story time kids.
(audience cheering)
On July 1, 2015,
Amazon restructured how they paid self publishers for books
opted in to the KDP Select program.
The news was game changing
and many would-be publishers jumped ship
for fear of the drastic loss in earnings.
While most publishers panicked,
a handful kept calm under fire
and brainstormed ways to work through the issue.
That is when I found out
that anyone is disposable in the land of plenty
at Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing.
In today's video,
find out why Amazon suspended my account
and even terminated hundreds of others.
You can't miss this one,
especially if you want to protect your business.
Welcome to Self Publishing with Dale.
And if you want practical strategies and solutions
for do-it-yourself publishing mastery
then subscribe and hit the bell icon next to it
to get notifications on all my latest videos.
In my video, The Untold Truth of the Kindle Best Seller,
I discuss the issue that's plaguing
the Kindle Best Sellers lists.
Well I have to come clean
and I don't share this with a sense of pride.
A little history first, so you understand the dilemma
and a perceived solution.
When I jumped into the self publishing business
a few years ago,
the KDP Select program was drastically different.
If a customer borrowed your KDP Select enrolled book
through Kindle Unlimited or Kindle Owners' Lending Library,
then you were paid a flat fee.
Here's the catch.
The customer had to read
at least 10 percent of your book for you to get paid,
otherwise you got paid nothing.
Here's where it gets good.
You weren't paid any more
if your customer read more than 10 percent of your book.
And here's the rub,
a book enrolled in the KDP Select program
could be five to six pages.
So even if the customer opened the book,
the publisher would get paid.
While hard working authors with 500 page epic novels
were paid nothing for 49 pages read,
other hack publishers
were profiting hand and fist from this little loophole.
Fast-forward to mid 2015.
Amazon changed the way KDP Select authors were paid,
and the process remains even today.
For an in depth look at it,
watch my video on, Amazon KDP Select Pros and Cons.
Since the payout structure changed,
many publishers had to change their strategy.
One strategy came to the forefront
and created a huge shift in payouts for many publishers.
The theory was,
since the current KDP Select model honors pages read,
then extensively long books could get bigger pay
from KDP Select than from the actual purchase.
Here's where it gets tricky.
The thought was, if you could put a hyperlink
from the front of the book to the back,
then Amazon would detect that entire book was read,
even if the reader hadn't read more than a word.
Once word got out about this hack,
quite a few people jumped on the wagon
and where making anywhere
from ten to one hundred thousand dollars per month
based on this method alone.
Thinking the coast was clear
and all was well with this method,
I too jumped on the bandwagon.
The part that got me in hot water with Amazon,
is a strategy that still exists to this day.
Fiverr, the source for cheap freelance work,
had quite a few gigs devoted to page flips
of your Kindle Unlimited book.
Essentially they would check out your book
in the Kindle store, flip all the way through it,
and you got paid.
Just think about the math.
If you have two thousand pages
and are paid a half a cent per page,
then your payout is ten bucks.
Not bad, especially since
you only pay five bucks for the gig on Fiverr.
Now remember, page flips influence best seller ranking.
Therefore pushing your book to the top of the charts.
Then you can leverage the exposure
for more sales and of course more page flips.
At the time, my account wasn't as filled
with as deep a catalog as some peoples.
I don't think I cleared more than a grand
from using this hack.
So, you can imagine the disappointment I felt
when I got the email from Amazon,
stating they had suspended my account
and froze all earnings from KDP Select.
They caught me red-handed
and I could stand to loose my account altogether
upon further investigation.
After a few days of sweating it out
and numerous phone calls to Amazon,
my KDP account was reinstated,
and I was told under no uncertain terms
was I to ever do that again.
I quickly went through my entire catalog,
pulled out the hyperlinks guiding readers to the back,
and prepared myself for the worst.
Within a few weeks the hammer came down,
and accounts were terminated and businesses were destroyed.
People lost out on their lucrative paychecks
and even had to return funds
and KDP All-Star bonuses, based on this activity.
However, to this day,
some people still illegally hire out fake readers
to manipulate page-reads.
You can find out more in a video about,
How Scammers Broke the Kindle Store.
In the past, I've made quite a few jokes
and even had a little fun at my own expense.
But I must implore you
to consider every action you do,
as it relates to your long term business plans.
If you're looking for loopholes, quick fixes,
and get-rich-quick schemes,
then this business is not for you.
Because even if you don't get caught now,
you will eventually.
Till later.
This has been Self Publishing with Dale,
and I'll see you guys soon.