- Kindle books on Amazon are getting banned
and accounts are being terminated left and right,
all for good reason.
Because there are some bad actors out there
that are starting to poison the well,
and thankfully, there's been some folks
that are starting to report these issues.
Are you not sure what I'm talking about?
Well today, I'm gonna talk about
the Kindle books on Amazon being banned
for poor quality and plagiarism.
Are you part of that lot?
We'll find out in today's video.
(dramatic music)
Hey, I'm Dale L. Robertson, best-selling author
as well as the self-publishing advocate
who wants to show you how to publish books that sell.
If you want that too, make sure you subscribe,
hit the little bell notification icon,
and switch it to all so that way you don't miss
a single one of these videos.
So kind of as I teased, as we were going into this video,
I said that Amazon is going through
and removing books left and right,
and it's for very good reason.
Now, before we start to jump into things,
I'm gonna address the elephant in the room,
and that is of course this recent viral outbreak
that's going throughout the world.
And I'm not gonna say the name
just for the fact that YouTube doesn't quite like that.
I mean, also it's going to take away from the fact
that some of these bad actors or what they're doing.
So I'm just gonna simply point up here,
and you'll kind of understand what I'm referring to
and these people that are capitalizing
on this particular state of the world.
I also want to thank viewers for sending me direct messages
and emails and showing me some of these articles.
I originally wasn't going to say anything about this,
but after probably about six
or seven people nudging me to this,
I said, okay, I probably ought to go ahead
and at least touch on this so that way everybody is aware
and you're not accidentally getting terminated
for violating some of their terms of services
for Amazon KDP.
Because that's essentially what is coming down to.
It's because some people see an opportunity
and they try to capitalize it,
but they aren't aware that there are some policies
that are put in place that forbids you
from publishing content like this.
So between Slate, Wired, NBC News, and more,
there are a lot of news sources that have been rolling out
over the past week to two weeks addressing this issue
in that Amazon actually has a lot of these books
and products that are rolling out
in response to the recent viral outbreak.
But one of the most shocking things is actually there are
some Amazon resellers that are going
from one store to the next clearing out shelves,
and they're doing this purposely.
What they're doing is they're going
taking all of the supplies that you would normally need,
such as hand sanitizer, and toilet paper,
and many other goods that you need at a time like this,
and they're clearing it out.
And then they're sending it over to Amazon,
and then they're just price gouging.
They're just knocking it up considerably more,
and then you're forced to actually have
to pay this bigger amount
rather than just go to your local store and buy it
because someone didn't just go over and was stingy
and being greedy about the situation.
In fact, there was actually a New York Times post
that actually covered someone who specifically did this,
went to like over half-dozen to a dozen stores
and did pallets full of these type of items.
I'm gonna put links to each one of these articles
down inside the description down below,
if you want to go ahead take a look at those.
But I want to address the books,
the books that are being pulled from the shelf,
and some of them that are starting to get some recognition
on these various news sites.
And it's so embarrassing because you know I pride myself
on being a self-published author, being an indie author,
and I always try to equip you and the others
with as much information as possible
to become successful at this but also maintain
some form of integrity and some type
of ethics about your business
and that you're not trying to abuse the system
in order to make a quick buck.
Sadly, there are some that are starting to do that,
and they're profiting hand and fist,
but for how long, we don't really know.
So there's five ways that they're abusing the system,
and let's start it out with number one,
under false or misleading names.
So they're publishing these books underneath being a doctor.
So they're putting out them and they're pretending
underneath a ghost written name that they're this
when they probably aren't that at all.
So what's happening is people are looking
for some type of solace right now, some type of solutions,
sometimes a cure of some sort.
Who are they gonna go to first?
Possibly a doctor.
But in some instances, they're going over to Amazon
and purchasing up some of these books
that are masquerading about as being doctors,
when in fact they are not.
Now, you might say, hey, Dale,
how do you know that they're fake doctors?
Well, if you just go over to the Amazon profile,
you can see instantly that there's just no way possible
that these are actually doctors
that are putting out this type of work.
Two, plagiarize content.
Yeah, believe it or not, the plagiarists are at it again.
This time, they're stealing directly
from news sources online and articles online,
and they're essentially putting it up here
which has me baffled because I thought
Amazon KDP had this on lockdown.
I thought they were keeping a better eye
on what's going on online that's freely available.
But apparently, some things have been
slipping through the cracks.
Whether they're spinning some of the content,
they're getting it to where it's going through
with no issue, not really sure.
But either way, the plagiarized content
is making it in there.
Thankfully, some of them are starting to get pulled.
And I know one of the new sources actually had cited
the actual article that it was taken from.
Three, poorly written content.
Well, this is a surprise.
Bad actors putting out poorly written content,
who would have thought?
Well, it gets pretty bad,
and I'll share one of the bits here in a little bit.
Number four, bogus claims on cures.
Yeah, people are actually putting out books
saying that they have the cure for it,
and you know that people are,
there are some people that are naive to this.
They think that, oh, well, I'm gonna go ahead
and get this book, and it's going to give me the cure.
That is a big no-no when it comes to Amazon.
You cannot say you're going to provide a cure
through any type of publication
unless there actually is a cure.
If you were to go into Amazon's content guidelines,
you would actually see quite a few
of these items broken down into why they won't accept it.
But if you scroll down even further,
and click on a link that actually goes
into offensive and controversial materials,
you'll scroll down and you'll notice that it says
products related to human tragedies and natural disasters.
So this is what they prohibit.
So you might be able to get your work through
and get it processed, but chances are very likely
at a time like this, they aren't liking that too much.
So at the very least, they may block your book.
At the very most, they may end up
shutting down your KDP account.
So be warned that this is actually inside their guidelines,
so you may not want to violate that.
Number five, improper categorization.
Oh yeah, we got some category squatters here.
We got some folks out there that are publishing books,
and they're putting them into these random categories
so they get better placement and discoverability.
Shame on you.
So what is the issue?
I've told you these five things.
I mean, what's the big hang-up here?
Well, it definitely appears that Amazon's paying attention
because they're starting to take some of these books down
that some of these news sources are showing.
In fact, actually if you were to do a search query
for the given name of this virus and pull it on up,
you actually will see they have a little disclaimer
that sends them over to the CDC, I believe,
and gives more details about that.
And that comes up right at the top,
and you're not given products right away, thankfully.
But again, as I'd mention, we're finding
that there are some poorly written products
that are out there.
And I'm not shaming anybody
that's putting out books based on this,
and maybe some of the information you've learned,
and especially if it's original content.
It's the ones that are just rushing it out to the market
to try to make a quick buck.
It was actually the Wired article that did a quote
of one of the books, and they actually said this.
One sentence reads in a section
supposedly describing the disease as,
you bookmark wholesome recipes,
select up kale and quinoa at the grocery,
and purchase a pressure cooker.
Well, what?
Oh, no, no.
So what can we do about all this?
I mean, is there anything we can do?
'Cause I know that there's quite a few of us
throughout the world that are quarantined into our houses.
Is there really anything that we can do?
I hate saying this, nobody likes a snitch,
but sometimes you're gonna have to report it if you see it.
So if you see some poor quality content,
then it might be on your best interest
to actually say something to Amazon.
They may not be fully aware.
It's such a large beast that they're producing
and publishing and uploading thousands upon thousands
every minute of every day,
so some stuff is going to slip through the cracks.
We've got to give them just a little bit of leniency.
So what we need to do is work together
and report some of these issues.
Also, I would say continue this conversation
with loved ones and friends,
whether in person or online through video
or through social media to build awareness
of these bad actors so that they know, okay,
I probably shouldn't be going and buying a book
from a doctor I've never heard of.
Because it probably isn't legit.
And if you're publishing content
surrounding this, use common sense.
Common sense would dictate that you don't
just try to stir people up into a frenzy
just to make yourself a quick buck.
What you're gonna want to do is
put together something that is meaningful.
Take your time.
Hire a good editor so it's not poorly written.
and put out into the market that way.
'Cause rest assured, Amazon's going
to go ahead and kick you on out.
And also, just to kind of talk about
feeding into the frenzy,
the World Health Organization said
don't feed into info infodemic.
That's essentially just talking more about the pandemic
and just putting more fuel onto the fire.
What you just need to be doing
is following some of their instructions
about social isolation and getting it to where
you're staying healthy for the meantime
until we get the all clear.
So self publishers and authors all out throughout the world,
take care of yourselves and take care of your loved ones.
If you want a little bit more information about
how to avoid getting your account terminated or suspended,
I actually have an entire video about that
and addressing some of the ways that you could avoid it.
You're gonna take a look at this very next video down below.
I will see you there.