It took years to complete the manuscript for Cast Out: Chronicles of a Familiar Spirit. When it was finally published in 2021 by a Christian publisher, I was elated. Eventually the Portuguese translation of Cast Out, Pandemônio, was completed. It wasn’t possible financially to use the previous publisher again. They kindly returned our original files, and sent a letter confirming that I owned all rights to the book.

Several author friends published with Amazon KDP. “Publish it on KDP!, they said. “It will be fun!” they said. Since I am technologically challenged, I enlisted the help of my husband to open our KDP account.

Soon the Cast Out paperback version was live on Amazon. Celebrating with high-fives, we imagined the libraries of books we would publish in the future…

Months later, Pandemônio in paperback format was also published on Amazon. The eBook was more challenging to set up. It took some time for my husband to navigate through the process. Customer service at KDP was helpful. Published friends gave us hints on this as well. Soon after the eBook version of Pandemônio was published, we submitted Cast Out in eBook format.

What a relief to go to sleep that night, feeling accomplished and free from the trials and tribulations of self-publishing (too many painful details to describe here).

The next morning we received the following email from Amazon:

“We are terminating your account effective immediately because we found that you have published titles with misleading content that have the potential to mislead or defraud our customers. As part of the termination process:

• We will close your account.
• You’re no longer eligible to receive any outstanding royalties.
• You’ll no longer have access to your accounts. 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.
• Additionally, as per our Terms and Conditions, you aren’t allowed to open any new KDP accounts.”

This email lunged me into the first four stages of grief:

DENIAL: “This has to be a mistake. Maybe a technical error, right?” Laughing, I asked, “What do they mean by misleading or defrauding their customers?”

ANGER: “Wait until I get one of those customer service good-for-nothings on the phone!” While listening to recorded messages over and over again, I screamed, “Stupid bots! Why can’t I speak with a human?”

BARGAINING: “I’ll email them. Yes. That will help. Once we connect to customer service, everything will be resolved.” Taking deep breaths, I wrote the most groveling email of my life, “Please, tell us what we did wrong. We will fix it. Please, gatekeepers of the KDP universe, give our account back. We sincerely repent from any technical sin we may have committed.”

GRIEF: After reading email after email of canned responses from KDP customer service, the reality hit: There was no way in Hades we would ever get our account back. To make matters worse, we never received an explanation from the nefarious bots as to why our book titles were deemed misleading or fraudulent. Through groans and gnashing of teeth, I lifted my fist and vowed to never, ever write again.

ACCEPTANCE: This stage was unattainable. My emotional dial was stuck between anger and grief. While searching for help online, I learned that thousands of authors have experienced this turmoil. How could this soulless company treat people who entrusted their most valued possessions—their books written with blood and sweat—to be discarded like trash? The more I read stories of authors facing the betrayal of having their accounts terminated—the more determined I became to vindicate myself of the authoritative, Killer of Dreams Publisher.

Through this period, many friends tried to help us to get our books back online. Our Christian publisher and another author friend offered to republish the books. Family members prayed and fasted for our account to be reinstated. Some well-intentioned people suggested that maybe it wasn’t God’s will for the books to be published. Like Job’s friends, their advice was unhelpful.

There is a verse in the Bible that teaches us that God can use evil for good. Through this emotionally exhausting experience, I found BookLocker. Thanks to Angela and her amazing team, Cast Out and Pandemônio are now published on multiple platforms, including Amazon.

Just days after the books were published and put up for sale all over the Internet by BookLocker, Amazon KDP reinstated our account thanks to  ALLi, who proved to Amazon that there were no issues of fraud regarding my books and that I owned all publishing rights to them. We felt vindicated to have our Amazon account reinstated but have no intentions of using the Killer of Dreams Publisher in the future.

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Ivani Greppi is the author of Cast Out: Chronicles of a Familiar Spirit and its Portuguese edition, Pandemônio: Crônicas de Um Espírito Familiar, published by BookLocker.com. Born in Brazil to spiritist ancestors, Ivani experienced supernatural encounters from a young age. Cast Out is a work of historical Christian fiction, based on Ivani’s and her family’s immigration and spiritual journey across three continents over a century. Now living in Florida with Maciel, her husband of 47 years, she enjoys spending time with her family, her grandchildren, and the adventures of country living.