- Has your KDP account been suspended
or even terminated?
Then you're gonna wanna make sure
that you stay tuned to today
because I'm gonna share a little bit
of insights and advice that might help you out
in getting yourself back on your feet
and on the right track.
This is self-publishing with Dale,
where you'll learn how to publish books that sell
and build an unstoppable brand.
Make sure that you stick around to the end
because I'm gonna share some insights
on what you need to do if you're KDP account
has been suspended or even terminated.
Also you may want to take a look at one
of my previous videos about how to publish books on Amazon
without breaking the rules.
We'll leave that link down in the description below.
But to give you just a quick overview
Of some of the common mistakes and problems
that can get your account suspended or terminated.
I'm gonna go ahead and just summarize these points.
Opening multiple KDP accounts.
You can only have one KDP account per household.
There are exceptions to this rule,
and if for some reason you need to get that cleared up,
I would say go into your KDP dashboard,
scroll down to contact us
and ask them questions there.
So that way they can clear up any kind
of ambiguities with you.
Stick to one KDP account per household.
Price Gouging.
Print books have a price matching feature.
So in the event that for some reason
you have a book priced at $8.99
and you jack it up to $19.99,
and you have expanded distribution,
then what ends up happening is
it takes a little bit of time
for the expanded distribution to catch up.
In the interim, Amazon system does a price match
with those competitors.
so it'll take that $19.99 price mark
and drop it down to $8.99.
You will still get paid like $19.99.
However, if you try to go into this system
and try to work it to where you get a ton
of sales at a higher price point
and keep on fluctuating that price,
they're gonna grasp onto what you're doing there.
And they're gonna definitely come in
and either suspend or terminate your account
based on what they perceive that you're doing.
Falsified Page Reads.
Those of you that have E-books
that are enrolled in the KDP Select Program
know that for every page that's read inside your book
you are paid for each one,
and it also influences your bestseller ranking
in the Kindle Store.
However, if you're trying to game the system
to where you're having say your mother
flip to the end of the book,
or you're hiring out virtual assistants
to flip from one page to the next,
that way you can influence your paycheck,
as well as your bestseller rank,
then shame on you,
you shouldn't be doing that.
The KDP Select Program is there for legitimate authors
that have good content that compel their readers
to read from front to back
and not just working the system
so that way you get a better, bigger paycheck,
as well as a better rank.
Bonus Books.
Okay so here's the deal,
it's good to give your reader value,
and you want to kind of deliver
a lot of that up front if you can,
but the thing is if you have bonus books
or bonus content that you're gonna put in there
it cannot be more than 10% of your book.
So in the event that you have a hundred page manuscript
then you can't have more than ten pages
of bonus content.
Otherwise, what they're gonna see is
you're trying to work the KDP Select System
to where you're getting more content
within the confines of the the pages,
and people were able to read more
and they get to the back of the book
and influences your rank and influences your paycheck.
All that being said,
bonus books, you gotta kind of keep that down
to a minimum, once again below 10%
of your overall manuscript.
Unpublishing and Republishing.
okay this one gets a little bit confusing,
but for the most part the 30-day system
that is involved in publishing on Amazon,
they like to give new books a little bit of a nudge.
So you could be in one particular category,
and within the first 30 days
they do a little bit of a push
in what's called the New Release Category.
It used to be called the Hot New Releases.
And any rate you get a little bit
of an advantage over say books that
have been on the market a little bit longer,
and you get a little bit more search ability
and discoverability through this additional column.
After the first 30 days,
if for some reason you didn't capitalize on that exposure
it's going to drop off.
Well some of these people figured out
okay well what happens if I just go ahead and de-list this
and then republish it underneath another Aysen.
And there was no changing in title, subtitle,
or even the content.
All they were doing was gaming this 30-day system.
So unpublishing and republishing,
not a good thing.
If you've got to de-list a book
because it has dropped off in rank,
might I recommend that you just leave it on there,
on the market, and tweak out the product,
be it the title, subtitle, the cover,
or even the book description
or the content, or just de-list it all together
because it probably wasn't worth it.
Poor Customer Experience.
Amazon is very serious about the customers
having the best experience possible.
After all they wanna make sure
that they have repeat customers that are coming time again
and spending their hard-earned money on the Amazon platform.
So in the event that your publication
is absolutely terrible, it is way below snuff,
it is worse than a one-star review,
there is a report abuse button
that they can actually select on
and they can report that.
And if enough people complain about your publications,
then it's very likely
it's not gonna just get pulled off the market,
they may even suspend
or even terminate your account altogether.
Okay so now that we've got all
of the common infractions when it comes to
suspensions and terminations,
what exactly do we do if our KDP account is suspended?
Now assuming that you have got a notification
inside your email inbox,
they probably have said what your specific infraction is
and in very ambiguous terms they're saying
that your account is either frozen
or suspended, that doesn't mean
it's closed down entirely.
They may be just slapping you on the wrist
and they're investigating the specific situation.
So I just recommend this.
Take a deep breath, maintain poise
and your professionalism,
especially when you're communicating with
the KDP print team or the E-book team.
Now, contact the KDP Team.
You can do this either through the suspension email,
or you can even go over onto the platform itself.
It gets a little bit iffy
because obviously if your account is suspended
then there's no way to really log in per se.
So there's ways to kind of finagle this.
You can always just set up a dummy account
that you can go in there.
However, you run into that big issue
of having multiple KDP accounts.
So when you communicate with them
through a new specific account of some sort,
tell them hey I'm just trying to get ahold you
because my other account is shut down,
I just wanna talk to somebody,
either by email or by phone.
I would say lean in favor of contacting them
through the suspension email.
And chances are likely they'll get back to you.
When you contact them, find out why.
You're gonna sometimes get canned responses.
In fact 99.9% of time you're gonna get canned responses
that essentially says you know what you did,
we caught you.
And you're gonna be going I don't know.
And regardless of whether you think you know it,
it's a good idea to find out why.
And you know 'cause you could probably be
speculating about you know why or why not,
but ultimately at the end of the day
it was their decision to suspend your account,
so it's your responsibility to find out why.
So you're gonna have to probably keep pushing back.
And again, maintain poise and professionalism
when you're communicating with them at all times.
This is a business folks,
and at the other end of that phone conversation
or that email conversation is another business professional.
So let's keep it on the up-and-up.
And now find out what you need to do to appeal the situation
or remedy the specific problem that you may have
either indirectly created or directly done
through some type of a violation.
It's important to show that you're willing to work with
the KDP team to resolve the issue
so that way you can get on with business as usual,
and they can get on with business as usual.
And you won't do the problem again.
But worse yet, what do you do if your KDP account
has been terminated?
This means that you can't get in at all.
They won't let you in,
you're not gonna be able to get any of your money,
you're not going to be able to get any of your metadata
or your royalty,
or anything else inside that dashboard
because they have locked you out.
And you're gonna know that through an email
because they're gonna say terminated.
They're gonna say termination.
It's meaning that you're done, that's it.
You're out of the game.
They don't want you around anymore.
They don't want your publications.
Go somewhere else.
And I know that's kind of harsh for me to say,
but it is the stern reality that remember
this is Amazon's game, we're just playing in it.
And that's a scary situation.
And this is one of the reasons why
I always tell people to diversify
where they publish their books.
Not just go all in on Amazon.
Amazon's great, and sure they make up a vast majority
of the market sales,
but there's still other platforms you can consider
in publishing your books.
And you don't always have to take advantage
of the KDP Select Program.
You can also think about publishing wide
or even publishing through your own website.
So with that being said,
your account's terminated,
what do you do?
Okay it's pretty much the same type of situation
that we're dealing with when it comes to suspensions.
And yeah you're gonna have to maintain poise
and you're gonna have to be professional.
I know it's gonna be way harder
because you're not just suspended, you're terminated.
In other words, they're done talking to you.
And chances are likely that when you reach out to them,
they're gonna be saying we're standing by our decision.
So here's what we're gonna do, in this order.
Communicate with KDP.
Now you're gonna go ahead
and communicate through the termination email.
And the next thing is you may have to kind
of go in slightly in the backdoor,
and I'm not telling you to create a new account for the sake
of trying to publish 'cause they're gonna catch on to you.
But you're gonna need to go into KDP
and you're gonna probably have to
use a different email of some sort
in order to use the contact us feature.
I would highly recommend that
you get somebody on the phone if you can help it,
that way you can figure out what is going on.
And much like the other situation
when it comes to suspensions,
find out what you did
and how you can resolve the situation.
And if there's no resolution
then quite frankly you may have to consider
the next steps that I'm gonna recommend to you.
And it's it's fairly grim,
but rest assured we can go on,
trust me on this.
Start to consider the alternatives.
Okay I've already said this.
Amazon's not the only game in town.
In fact, believe it or not,
millions of dollars are made through other platforms
such as Apple books, Barnes & Noble Press,
Rakatans Kobo, Google Play,
and so much more.
And even self fulfilling it through your website.
There's other ways that you can make it in this business.
You don't have to live and die
by your earnings on Amazon.
Fair Warning.
If you use aggregate publishing platforms
like Draft 2 Digital
or publishdrive,
or any of the others that are like that,
if they have a relationship with Amazon,
then chances are likely they don't want your tainted work.
So any of the books that were uploaded
to the terminated, the now terminated KDP account,
don't bother putting them onto those platforms.
I know for a fact there's been some people
who've tried to test that little process
to where they uploaded it to Draft 2 Digital,
and what ends up happening is Draft 2 Digital
is vetting those things out.
They're figuring out okay what's tainted and what's not.
They don't want that because Draft 2 Digital
has a good relationship with Amazon,
and they're not about to ruin that
just because you're trying to slip into the backdoor.
Don't bother with it, don't go and republish things
through aggregate publishers expecting to
get back into the Amazon's good graces.
It's just not a good idea
and something I would not recommend.
Start from scratch.
I know you're probably hating that advice.
You don't want to start from square one.
You don't wanna be paying your dues all over again.
But any of the material that you have on the KDP account
is pretty much blackballed at this point.
You can probably think about
fulfilling it through your own website sales,
but for the most part
I would just recommend start over.
You can use an aggregate publishing platform,
but let's just say you just do brand new content.
And yeah that's not the nicest answer you wanna hear,
and that's not something that you would like to do,
but it is probably the best solution
when it comes to you moving forward
in the publishing business.
If this is too hard for you to do,
then you're probably not in the right business.
And then you have this tainted work
that was available through your terminated KDP account,
you can always take that, like I said,
and make it available through your own website,
You can even repurpose it in other ways,
and there's, this is not the end
of that particular content,
but it's probably the end of the road
when it comes to making it available through Amazon.
Big Warning.
I see a lot of people that are dispensing advice
when it comes to going back to KDP
and applying for an additional account
despite your earlier termination.
And the whole theory is well if I file a new LLC
then it's a different business entity
so they should allow me in.
Now this has worked for some people,
but I can promise you that if they find some way
to associate you with that terminated account, game over.
That account is gone.
And I understand this,
that sometimes good people get bad.
Sometimes people get onto the platform
and for whatever reason
Amazon decides to pull the plug on them,
pull the rug out from underneath them,
and that sucks.
I won't lie about that.
But conversely speaking bad people also get banned
for abusing the system,
And trying to work it,
and just trying to get it to where
they're scamming the marketplace.
And those are the people that
clearly do deserve to be terminated
and not allowed in this business anymore.
To summarize everything that I just kind of discussed,
here is how it goes.
Learn from your mistakes,
try to figure out what went wrong,
and just try to move forward.
Adjust your direction of your business
and get it to where you become better today
than what you were yesterday.
And speaking about the biggest mistakes
that you want to avoid in self-publishing,
I actually have an entire video series
that covers quite a few of those mistakes you should avoid.
In fact, I'm gonna meet you on over there.
Because the book titles sucked.
You can have the most brilliant book titles,
but you weren't saying exactly
what your audience is searching for.