At BookLocker, we heard from another author this week whose account was randomly terminated by Amazon KDP (Amazon’s publishing division). She said they gave her no reason. Sadly, the author is a quadriplegic. She has 20 books on the market and she will now need to send her book files to us so we can start over with publishing her books. And, the weird thing is…they’ll all be for sale on Amazon and Amazon will not remove her books.
This is just one author of MANY who have posted online that Amazon KDP terminated their accounts. And, according to comments we found online, if your account is terminated, Amazon gets to keep your unpaid royalties.
Why is Amazon shooting itself in the foot like this? We have no idea. Are they planning to get out of the publishing business? Perhaps. We can think of no other reason for them to just kill author accounts left and right.
I was reading the comments under THIS ARTICLE early this morning and one person said he was an Amazon KDP author, too, before they terminated his account with no notice and no reason. He wrote that he has been contacting them every day but he gets an automated response every time, telling him they will review his request in “5 days.” However, they never respond.
You can read more quotes from authors who were terminated by Amazon KDP RIGHT HERE.
And, of course, we found other quotes online from terminated Amazon KDP victims:
“KDP account terminated after 8 years, 300 books published. So apparently they took issue with a book I published (children’s non-fiction). But the Kindle Content Review Team approved it for sale. I also emailed them specifically about this book and they said it was fine to publish. What are my options here? They’re refusing to pay near 6k in royalties. I’m also out $700 in advertising costs, plus now I’m unemployed.” – u/Illustrious-Dish-220
“I run a tiny publishing company and I was approached by an author whose KDP account was terminated. She told me that apparently she can still publish with her own name as long as this happens through other publishers, even small one like me.” u/undecumani
“I’m extremely desperate, I really don’t know what to do anymore, I’ve tried to contact Amazon but they don’t answer anything and the moment they closed my KDP account I can’t access the usual costumer service lines of mail-phone-chat, just an “write your appeal and maybe we answer you” kind of form.” – u/bibibububibibibi (who was making almost $3K/month selling his/her books).
Response from ThePheonixWillRise: “Just so you know, if she went through an aggregate, like D2D (Draft2Digital), she wouldn’t get back on KDP. and I know several authors who have had their accounts terminated for all kinds of reasons.”
“This is so frustrating when I have all the proof/documents for my case but no one is replying…” – dangit66
“Same dude. No reply. It’s been 3 days. We’re dealing with AI here not humans. I also tried to reach them through authors central one of them wasn’t willing to help. The other recommended making another kdp account to access the kdp support. I replied to both but they ignored. I also mailed jeff once. Nothing yet.” – Best_Training408
“Now I am completely stuck, I cant log in and my name is completely disappeared from amazon! Very bad feeling.” – mchrgr2000
Question from u/Bluehostcom: “Hello guys, can amazon kdp send me the money I did make after the account termination”
Answer from nimitz34: “Nope they won’t. Per the TOS they keep it.” and “They never pay a termed KDP account holder.”
Those are just a few quotes pulled from one website (Reddit). There are MANY more complaints from terminated Amazon KDP authors online. At BookLocker, we have been approached by some of these authors and, if their manuscript passes muster, we quickly get their books back on the market. And, they all appear on Amazon. We usually get a book to market within a month.
If you don’t want your author account terminated, and your books ripped down from Amazon, do NOT publish your book through Amazon KDP!!!
Angela Hoy lives on a mountain in North Georgia. She is the publisher of WritersWeekly.com, the President and CEO of BookLocker.com and AbuzzPress, and the author of 24 books.
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Angela is the creator of the Original 24-Hour Short Story Contest!
Learn more here: https://24hourshortstorycontest.com/
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