Regardless of the merits of the case, there is still no guarantee that you can beat Amazon’s resources.

Shortly after 1981, my long-time best friend, fellow author, and fellow IBMer, Dennis Grimes, and I decided that we would write a book about the new IBM PC. Both Dennis and I were Senior Systems Engineers for the IBM Corporation at the time. We called the new book the Personal Computer Buyers Guide.

Ballinger Publishing flew us up to Cambridge Massachusetts where Mike Connolly, the President of the company, a division of publishing giant Harper & Row at the time, signed us for the book. Grimes and I kept at it after our first success. When Mike retired from Ballinger, he asked us if we had any other book ideas. The IBM PC was very new at the time and we came up with a very comprehensive set of PC books featuring the major PC players at the time.

Mike asked if he could represent us as our agent and we agreed. He arranged a six book contract with John Wiley & Sons, another of the big name publishers we mingled with at the time. After this project, which took a lot out of us, Dennis lost interest in writing but I kept at it.

As a Senior Systems Engineer specializing in IBM’s most advanced business computer at the time, which was called the Application System/400 (AS/400), I contacted the top AS/400 publisher at the time, Midrange Computing, and they kept me busy for quite a while, writing AS/400-style tech books.

When Midrange got out of the business, I signed with the next best AS/400 publisher, a company called News/400. They later changed their name to 29th Street Press. I also wrote books for Cardinal Business Media and others before I decided to start my own company called Lets Go Publish!  I also created a distribution company called Bookhawkers.com.

I became one of the most published AS/400 authors in the world and I even had a regular column in a weekly called IT Jungle. Offset Paperback printed all of my hardcopy books under my imprint Lets Go Publish!, about 200 book copies at a time. What was left of Midrange Computing, as well as 29th Street Press, and the startup ITJungle, marketed and distributed my books during this period.

In the beginning of my writing career, I wrote only technical books. Many of them I eventually carried forward to Amazon with updated versions after 2015 when I stopped printing my own books. I had used a local company for that.

Dennis wrote some bits and pieces in my books to help me out over time. Both Dennis and I were part-time faculty members at Marywood University. The Academic Dean was so impressed with our book publishing prowess that they hired both of us as pro rata (half-time) faculty members. In other words, we split one faculty position. At Marywood, I taught Operational Management and other high technology courses for a number of years. Dennis Grimes taught all the heavy-lifting courses in programming.

Marywood highlighted our Lets Go Publish! books in their Business Department Bookcases.  In my interview, the Academic Dean, told me that she was very impressed that I was published by such big name publishers — Divisions of Harper & Rowe and John Wiley & Sons. She told me that weighed on her offering me the job. Dennis Grimes was also hired the same day. We both had MBA’s at a time when most universities were demanding faculty members possess PhD’s

I learned quickly that marketing, selling, and paying to print 200 books at a time was not fun. Another IBM Senior Systems Engineer, Paul Harkins, told me about the new avenue he began to use for his programming books. The company’s name was CreateSpace and Paul said that they did it all: “You just have to write the books and they do all the rest.” He was right. I did not know at the time that CreateSpace had been acquired by Amazon (where they changed the name to Amazon KDP).

(NOTE: The publisher of WritersWeekly.com, Angela Hoy, who also owns BookLocker.com, sued CreateSpace/Amazon KDP in 2008 for federal anti-trust violations, AND WON.)

It took me less than a day to sign up for CreateSpace. But, then things took a turn…

Amazon terminated me for unknown reasons, after blocking several non-fiction books ostensibly because they had facts in them that were freely available on the Internet. They claimed that they always had restrictive terms and conditions but I had never seen them. In just four years, I produced several hundred books for CreateSpace and no book had ever been blocked / censored. My final book count with CreateSpace and Amazon KDP, before I was terminated, was 262. Moreover, to the best of my knowledge, there were no returns. Meanwhile, I was beginning to be successful, earning impressive royalties.

Even after suing them with no lawyer, and subsequently losing in arbitration (life is not fair), I still have no hard facts about why Amazon terminated me. However, I believe it had to do more with them becoming WOKE. Twenty-six books, at the time, had certain politicians’ names in the titles. Many people, including most of my friends, told me that may be why I was terminated.

Think about that. Why would any company in their right mind want to get rid of an author who had produced 262 books in four years, and was headed for his first $10,000 royalty year with many more books on the horizon? They shut me down, and would not even speak with me about their real reasons. It sure was a tough blow for my personal finances, that’s for sure! Amazon would not relent and so even now, after losing in arbitration, I am still out.

If I understood how powerful Amazon was before I tried to be reinstated by legal means, instead of using continual persuasion, I would not have proceeded with my legal action. If I played along 100%, perhaps I would still have my books for sale on their site.

During this time, I found Draft2Digital (D2D). I published nine books with them in both paperback and eBook formats. Then, my books were prevented from being sold on Amazon through Draft2Digital.

I did complain about the Draft2Digital (D2D) cutoff in Count 2 of the arbitration case. Draft2Digital informed me that Amazon had placed a clause in their contract that said that D2D could not do book printing work for any author or company that had been terminated for any reason by Amazon. To comply with what it perceived to be the terms of their contract, D2D de-published (delisted) all my paperback books.

My objective in taking Amazon to court was to be reinstated so that the 262 books that may still be available in the Amazon databases would be sold again through the normal distribution channels.

Though the arbitration record shows that Amazon denied preventing my relationship with Draft2Digital to result in printed books, D2D took the safest way out, and stopped our paperback relationship no matter how I pleaded my case to them.  For me, the damage is done.  If I had it to do over again, I don’t think I would have taken Amazon on pro-se (without a lawyer) and I have been advised by many second-guessers that my case had little chance against Amazon in the first place. Amazon had three lawyers against me in arbitration. Of course, Amazon won.

On the plus side, I am very pleased that I have begun working with BookLocker, and just started working with them on my second book. Since I already have my files, I qualify for their $199 D.I.Y. program.

RELATED

• Amazon KDP Cancelled My Account, Too! – by Wallace Holmes (a pseudonym)
• MORE COMPLAINTS about Draft2Digital / draft2digital.com
• Amazon KDP Terminates ANOTHER Author’s Account, AND Keeps Her Royalties!
• “Amazon KDP Terminated My Author Account! How Can I Get It Back?”
• And, Even MORE Complaints about Amazon KDP!
• MORE AMAZON KDP COMPLAINTS! Poor print quality, incorrect sales reporting, dismissive customer service reps, and more!
• Amazon published his book, but it’s not “in stock” at Amazon…

Brian W. Kelly retired as an Assistant Professor in the Business Information Technology (BIT) Program at Marywood University, where he also served as the IBM i and Midrange Systems Technical Advisor to the IT Faculty. In his day, Brian was both a regular computer geek and a great problem solver. He always loved to write. Kelly also designed, developed, and taught many college and professional courses and he served as a contributing technical editor to a number of technical industry magazines. , including “The Four Hundred” and “Four Hundred Guru,” published by IT Jungle.

Kelly is also a former IBM Senior Systems Engineer. His specialty was problem solving for customers as well as implementing advanced operating systems and business software on his client’s machines. Brian is the author of over 300 books, including 26 books about Professional Football; 48 books about College Football and eight light hearted, heartwarming story books such as the one currently being published by BookLocker (Four Dollars and Sixtry-Two Cents). Kelly has also written hundreds of magazine articles. Before he began to write about many different genres about twenty years ago, his writing work products had been mostly technical.

Before he retired, Brian enjoyed being a frequent speaker at technical conferences throughout the United States. When he took an interest in politics, he wrote forty-some books on government and political topics. Additionally, he put his hat in the political ring as a candidate for the US Congress from Pennsylvania in 2010 and then he ran for Mayor in his hometown in 2015. Kelly says that his next win as a political candidate will be his first.

Brian loves to write. Though most of his books and articles are non-fiction, every now and then he will write a book that is not fact-based and simply fun to read because he enjoys watching what his creative juices can produce.

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