# KDP account closed without warning: Amazon says my KU borrows are suspicious



## Pauline Creeden (Aug 4, 2011)

_"We are reaching out to you because we have detected that borrows for your books are 
originating from systematically generated accounts. While we support the legitimate 
efforts of our publishers to promote their books, attempting to manipulate the Kindle 
platform and/or Kindle programs is not permitted. As a result of the irregular borrow 
activity, we have removed your books from the KDP store and are terminating your KDP 
account and your KDP Agreement effective immediately.

As part of the termination process, we will close your KDP account(s) and remove the 
books you have uploaded through KDP from the Kindle Store. We will issue a negative 
adjustment to any outstanding royalty payments. Additionally, as per our Terms and 
Conditions, you are not permitted to open new KDP accounts and will not receive future 
royalty payments from additional accounts created."_

No, I did not hack into Amazon's algorithms to boost my borrows, nor did I pay anyone else to do so. So if someone hates you and wants to see you fail, and know how to do this... they can sabotage you and take away your KDP account.

I have been in contact with them for over a week now, and am currently just in suspension while they look into this. Needless to say that if I get my account back, I will be pulling all my books from KU.

Adding in:
There was a sudden spike in borrows on one of my books which caused this fiasco - it was a book that I had no promos for at all, although I had done promos on other books this month, the book that had the borrows was not one I'd run a promo on. Bknights is a reputable site and I have nothing but positive things to say about them. In fact, they are helping me with contacting KDP to what they can do to help this situation.


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

Have you run any promotions recently?


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## Pauline Creeden (Aug 4, 2011)

Just the usual - BKnights - mailing list promos with Patty Jansen and Rebecca Hamilton... nothing strange or huge. - And the book that I had the problem with was not promo'd by BKnights - or the other two either. So I'm not blaming any of them.

_Just posting here for the benefit of new people just reading the thread that apparently, as posted later in the thread, the book that Amazon had issues with was not one of the ones promo'd by the above services. See http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,237687.msg3310798.html#msg3310798. --Betsy/KB Mod_


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## Pauline Creeden (Aug 4, 2011)

I don't have a suspected promo site at all - but no offence taken. I'm low selling - happy just to stay out of the 100,000s


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## Pauline Creeden (Aug 4, 2011)

BTW - did your friend get his/her account back? They keep telling me they'll get back to me in about 5 business days - they need time to look into it.


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## BookwormT (Dec 4, 2015)

That's terrible and I'm sorry you're dealing with it. I hope your account gets restored soon.


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## Jeff Sproul (Dec 21, 2014)

I could imagine a situation in which a promotion service (whatever it be) might buy borrows, to help boost the promotion. Albeit entirely unbeknownst to yourself, as the customer of the service. But also it raises the greater problem of authors (or anyone for that matter) having the means to destroy your livelihood. I only need about $700-$1000 to live comfortably from my writing career. Meaning, that I would technically be a low mid-lister. (Thereabouts.) It would be pretty easy for someone to destroy my only source of income if they were; bored, upset with me over something, or simply wanted to derail competition in a niche genre. The only solution would be to beg Amazon to reinstate your account, and then of course completely rid yourself of KU. (Which for some authors, is a significant source of their revenue.)  
  
This is the same issue that some partnered youtubers ran into, when overzealous fans (of smaller-time youtubers) would frantically click all their ad-links. The youtuber would soon find their monitization rights/options removed.


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## DGS (Sep 25, 2013)

Do you have a link to the back matter in the front? Maybe people reading books then once their kindles sync, it creates a boost of borrows over few days and that triggered it?


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## Pauline Creeden (Aug 4, 2011)

Jeff Sproul said:


> I could imagine a situation in which a promotion service (whatever it be) might buy borrows, to help boost the promotion. Albeit entirely unbeknownst to yourself, as the customer of the service. But also it raises the greater problem of authors (or anyone for that matter) having the means to destroy your livelihood. I only need about $700-$1000 to live comfortably from my writing career. Meaning, that I would technically be a low mid-lister. (Thereabouts.) It would be pretty easy for someone to destroy my only source of income if they were; bored, upset with me over something, or simply wanted to derail competition in a niche genre. The only solution would be to beg Amazon to reinstate your account, and then of course completely rid yourself of KU. (Which for some authors, is a significant source of their revenue.)
> 
> This is the same issue that some partnered youtubers ran into, when overzealous fans (of smaller-time youtubers) would frantically click all their ad-links. The youtuber would soon find their monitization rights/options removed.


YES! This! That's why I decided to go ahead and go "public" with what's happening to me now - This is a way for people to get back at someone else or destroy what they deem competition - or for an overzealous fan/helper to get you in trouble for, etc.... etc...


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## Pauline Creeden (Aug 4, 2011)

DGS said:


> Do you have a link to the back matter in the front? Maybe people reading books then once their kindles sync, it creates a boost of borrows over few days and that triggered it?


Nothing like that - it's just the book with back matter in the rear - no link


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## Jeff Sproul (Dec 21, 2014)

DGS said:


> Do you have a link to the back matter in the front? Maybe people reading books then once their kindles sync, it creates a boost of borrows over few days and that triggered it?


The problem that Amazon has detected, is that they've flagged certain accounts that probably do a LOT of borrowing, like...crazy amounts of borrowing. Those accounts then probably borrowed her books, which then caused her account to be flagged. It's highly unlikely that it's a sync issue with legitimate borrowers.


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## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

Pauline Creeden said:


> YES! This! That's why I decided to go ahead and go "public" with what's happening to me now - This is a way for people to get back at someone else or destroy what they deem competition - or for an overzealous fan/helper to get you in trouble for, etc.... etc...


Or a promo service using shady tactics...


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## Jeff Sproul (Dec 21, 2014)

Pauline Creeden said:


> YES! This! That's why I decided to go ahead and go "public" with what's happening to me now - This is a way for people to get back at someone else or destroy what they deem competition - or for an overzealous fan/helper to get you in trouble for, etc.... etc...


It's a really terrible situation to be in. I'm sorry that this happened to you.  I had those exact same feelings when I lost my youtube partnership/monetization rights because a guy I knew across the US was spamming my links every day for a week. I was so low in views, that it was a huge red flag and I've never been able to monetize with google adsense from that point forward. I really hope Amazon leans your way on this. (I have no way of knowing if you DID or DIDN'T actually pay for borrows, but I'll just assume you didn't. 

But I really can't envision a good way for the developer/backend side of things (for Amazon) for them to be able to know one way or another that it was the Author, or simply someone else who ends up buying those borrows. It's a really tough situation for Amazon to deal with fairly.


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## MissingAlaska (Apr 28, 2014)

I have a terrible sinking feeling about this.  What if the blackhat "authors" overseas are trying to cover their tracks by "borrowing" indie books at the same time they borrow their own drivel? This would make it harder for Amazon to filter out those cheating the system.


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## Jeff Sproul (Dec 21, 2014)

NeedWant said:


> Or a promo service using shady tactics...


It's really unfortunate, but I imagine you could create a profitable business by going this route, and if you have the means to buy borrows (through a bot-net account, or however that works) than you as the "creator of the service" have nothing to lose. Amazon can't ban your website. And if you get a bad name for that website, you just create another and promote it. It really sucks.


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## Lynn McNamee (Jan 8, 2009)

Jeff Sproul said:


> The problem that Amazon has detected, is that they've flagged certain accounts that probably do a LOT of borrowing, like...crazy amounts of borrowing. Those accounts then probably borrowed her books, which then caused her account to be flagged. It's highly unlikely that it's a sync issue with legitimate borrowers.


I think this may be correct. But if so, then shouldn't Amazon punish those accounts instead of the authors, who may not even know about it?

Let's say you are part of one of these "borrow rings." You constantly borrow the books you're told to borrow, but you don't read most or any of them. Then one day, you're on Amazon, and you see a book that looks interesting. So you borrow it and and actually read it.

Should that author be punished for your unethical activities on other books?


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## Pauline Creeden (Aug 4, 2011)

Jeff Sproul said:


> It's a really terrible situation to be in. I'm sorry that this happened to you.  I had those exact same feelings when I lost my youtube partnership/monetization rights because a guy I knew across the US was spamming my links every day for a week. I was so low in views, that it was a huge red flag and I've never been able to monetize with google adsense from that point forward. I really hope Amazon leans your way on this. (I have no way of knowing if you DID or DIDN'T actually pay for borrows, but I'll just assume you didn't.
> 
> But I really can't envision a good way for the developer/backend side of things (for Amazon) for them to be able to know one way or another that it was the Author, or simply someone else who ends up buying those borrows. It's a really tough situation for Amazon to deal with fairly.


I agree that it's hard to deal with fairly - but for my wish - take away all my borrows for the month and kick me out of KU - that would be fine with me. On a normal month I only get like 2000 pages read anyway...


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## Pauline Creeden (Aug 4, 2011)

michaelsnuckols said:


> I have a terrible sinking feeling about this. What if the blackhat "authors" overseas are trying to cover their tracks by "borrowing" indie books at the same time they borrow their own drivel? This would make it harder for Amazon to filter out those cheating the system.


Ack! Scary thought - but that's my point. If their system is so vulnerable to manipulation, should we really be taking part in it?


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## Jeff Sproul (Dec 21, 2014)

Pauline Creeden said:


> I agree that it's hard to deal with fairly - but for my wish - take away all my borrows for the month and kick me out of KU - that would be fine with me. On a normal month I only get like 2000 pages read anyway...


I wished that Google/Youtube had dealt with me in that fashion, but when you're running a free model like this, they go with the route that holds them less liable. "You're" the one taking money from them, but then so are those bot accounts...So... Yeah. They can ban the bot borrowers and they can ban you as well. It's easier to just do both and then take on less risk for themselves.


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## Jeff Sproul (Dec 21, 2014)

You may even want to send an email off to Bezos. Tell him how detrimental this is to authors. (I don't have the email but I imagine it's easy to find.)  
Just have a nicely worded email about how the current system can destroy legitimate authors, and that authors shouldn't be the one to get fully banned. The system should target those borrowing bot accounts, and then just deduct those borrows from us, instead of terminating our accounts.


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## Cactus Lady (Jun 4, 2014)

I thought I was having a bad day, with my domain name provider playing Stupid Domain Name Provider Tricks (no one can figure out if they've gone out of business or if they're just really really incompetent; the result is that half the time my website is inaccessible), but this is way way worse. I really hope you get it sorted out soon.


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## Pauline Creeden (Aug 4, 2011)

Jeff Sproul said:


> You may even want to send an email off to Bezos. Tell him how detrimental this is to authors. (I don't have the email but I imagine it's easy to find.)
> Just have a nicely worded email about how the current system can destroy legitimate authors, and that authors shouldn't be the one to get fully banned. The system should target those borrowing bot accounts, and then just deduct those borrows from us, instead of terminating our accounts.


Wow - do you think he'd really care, though? I guess it wouldn't hurt to at least say something...


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## Jeff Sproul (Dec 21, 2014)

Pauline Creeden said:


> Wow - do you think he'd really care, though? I guess it wouldn't hurt to at least say something...


I'm pretty sure the email that people contact him through (People, being folks like us.) Is monitored by a small team, not just him. I'm sure they sift through it and see what warrants the most attention. It can't hurt.


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## MissingAlaska (Apr 28, 2014)

Pauline Creeden said:


> Ack! Scary thought - but that's my point. If their system is so vulnerable to manipulation, should we really be taking part in it?


I sincerely hope Amazon fixes this for you. If they don't, it's an indication to me that we all might be better pulling out of KU and going wide (rather than running the risk of losing our accounts).

Between this, Amazon's crackdown on affiliate/mailing lists (assumedly to bolster Goodreads), and the plethora of Amazon ads on Facebook recently (which will result in authors being outbid), I'm wondering if we aren't about to see another seismic shift in the Amazon landscape.


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## dianapersaud (Sep 26, 2013)

Pauline Creeden said:


> Wow - do you think he'd really care, though? I guess it wouldn't hurt to at least say something...


It goes to an "executive" escalations team and they handle it. I had to email them as a customer and it seemed that they blew me off. Then a week (or two) later, I got a call (three in fact) to fix my issue.

So they might seem like they are ignoring you when in fact, they are looking into it.

[email protected]


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

I would guess that one of the promo services you are using is the cause, if I had to guess. If that service has a lot of KU borrowers who borrow and click through books (legitly even), it could trigger this maybe?

Sorry this happened. Hopefully they get it sorted. Maybe let Amazon know where you have done promo?


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## Moist_Tissue (Dec 6, 2013)

My gut is telling it may be BKnights. Not that they were doing anything shady because they have always seemed professional in their dealings. But I think there was a crackdown (lawsuit?) with Fiverr, so maybe Amazon is scrutinizing all of those connected?

Then again, a portion of my stomach was removed so it's a bit unpredictable.

_For those joining the thread late, please note that since this post and others, Pauline has determined that the book in question had NOT been promoted via BKnights and the OP has reiterated that she has every faith in BKnights. Please see the now edited OP and http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,237687.msg3310798.html#msg3310798. Thanks! --Betsy_


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Moist_Tissue said:


> My gut is telling it may be BKnights. Not that they were doing anything shady because they have always seemed professional in their dealings. But I think there was a crackdown (lawsuit?) with Fiverr, so maybe Amazon is scrutinizing all of those connected?
> 
> Then again, a portion of my stomach was removed so it's a bit unpredictable.


My gut says it isn't BKnights, but only Amazon could probably tell for sure, which is why I'd let them know which sites I'd used if I were in this situation.

Hopefully it is just a mistake and not dealing with any of the promo sites or anything, but the Zon seems to be going after stuff hard, and just like with backmatter links, innocent people are going to get caught. I hope they fix this.


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## Pauline Creeden (Aug 4, 2011)

Annie B said:


> I would guess that one of the promo services you are using is the cause, if I had to guess. If that service has a lot of KU borrowers who borrow and click through books (legitly even), it could trigger this maybe?
> 
> Sorry this happened. Hopefully they get it sorted. Maybe let Amazon know where you have done promo?


Either way - if it was a promo - according to the TOS, I'm still responsible:
_You're welcome to promote your book through third-party websites and other services, but we encourage you to keep a close eye on the tactics they use to promote your books. You are responsible for ensuring that no tactics used to promote your book manipulate the Kindle platform and/or Kindle programs. We advise against using any sites that "guarantee" a return on your investment.

We support our authors' efforts to promote their books worldwide, but at the same time we work to prevent any manipulation of the Kindle platform._

Which I didn't know until this happened to me - So that's why I'm warning others that they may want to consider this before signing up for KU


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Pauline Creeden said:


> Either way - if it was a promo - according to the TOS, I'm still responsible:
> _You're welcome to promote your book through third-party websites and other services, but we encourage you to keep a close eye on the tactics they use to promote your books. You are responsible for ensuring that no tactics used to promote your book manipulate the Kindle platform and/or Kindle programs. We advise against using any sites that "guarantee" a return on your investment.
> 
> We support our authors' efforts to promote their books worldwide, but at the same time we work to prevent any manipulation of the Kindle platform._
> ...


Ugh. That sucks 

I'd say this is more a warning to be super clear on who you promo with. Thank you for sharing the sites you've used so people know there might be a risk with them (and I'd still tell Amazon which ones, personally). Maybe people in KU should be extra careful? I still hope Amazon can fix this for you.


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## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

Annie B said:


> My gut says it isn't BKnights, but only Amazon could probably tell for sure, which is why I'd let them know which sites I'd used if I were in this situation.


I don't think it's them either. I would hope this is all just a big misunderstanding, but I'm definitely going to be cautious about the promo sites I use from now on.


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## over and out (Sep 9, 2011)

11


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## D-C (Jan 13, 2014)

I have to agree with Annie. It sounds as though you've gotten caught up in the dodgy dealings of others. Tell Amazon where you've promo'd so they can stop it at the source. Otherwise, how do we, as authors, check every single download coming from a promo site? We can't. Sure, if they say, 'oh hey, we buy the sales' then yeah, back away slowly. But otherwise?


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## Pauline Creeden (Aug 4, 2011)

I honestly don't think it was any of the promo sites I've used - I've used all of them in the past, as well as several other authors here on Kboards - I don't think any of them are to blame. I may have been targeted randomly by someone who found me through a promo, or this could be a glitch in some other system. I'm hoping that the Zon will be able to figure it all out and restore me, but my gut is in knots over this...


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

I found someone on a Japanese blog that had the exact same email, and they were crying foul, but I cant find any other internet posts. At least we know it is not a single author issue. Hopefully more will come forward and shed some light on how this could be happening. It's making me nervous about using promotion sites now.

What also worries me is that around the time of the KU scam issue, I had lots of their cook books in my also boughts.


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## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

This is awful!

What is a "systematically generated account"?


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## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

Pauline Creeden said:


> _"We are reaching out to you because we have detected that borrows for your books are
> originating from systematically generated accounts. While we support the legitimate
> efforts of our publishers to promote their books, attempting to manipulate the Kindle
> platform and/or Kindle programs is not permitted. As a result of the irregular borrow
> ...


I'm so sorry this has happened to you.

What level of page reads were your books getting prior to this suspension? Thousands? Tens of thousands? More?


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## Taking my troll a$$ outta here (Apr 8, 2013)

Holy crap!? No warning or anything? I recall back when the _service-that-shall-not-be-named_ fiasco happened and at least one of our members received a warning email, Amazon at least gave a warning before yanking the KDP account. I mean, it's not like you just hopped on the scene, you've been around a bit. Yikes. 

Definitely email jeff & escalate it. So sorry this happened to you.


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## lyndabelle (Feb 26, 2015)

Pauline Creeden said:


> I honestly don't think it was any of the promo sites I've used - I've used all of them in the past, as well as several other authors here on Kboards - I don't think any of them are to blame. I may have been targeted randomly by someone who found me through a promo, or this could be a glitch in some other system. I'm hoping that the Zon will be able to figure it all out and restore me, but my gut is in knots over this...


Though, it would be a good idea to try to figure what happened so other authors can avoid it. We all really want to work with the Zon to make more money together. If it is a shady promo site, than we need to out it to help others. I've used BKknights for promos, and some of the erotica promo sites, but I've been turning away from the big promo sites, and doing cross promo with other authors more. Most don't take erotica these days anyway.

I hope BKnights could come on and help. Maybe there is a connection between Facebook and the Zon. I know that they've been taking down reviews from fans on Facebook reviewing authors and trying to say the author knows them. Which of course, the friends on Facebook aren't like what we'd call absolute friends, but mainly are our fans. I mean if celebrities had all of their friends on Facebook actually called "Friends", it would be ridiculous. But the one thing it might be is a connection to Facebook.

Example: I was doing a Facebook Release Party, and was answering people's questions and interacting for like an hour. I was trying to type as fast as I could to answer everyone's questions and comments. After an hour, I started getting a flag from Facebook that I was commenting too fast and that I was apparently using the event inappropriately(spamming) which I wasn't. I was just commenting too fast. So, the Facebook bot only knew I was posting quickly and a lot over an hour, not what I was posting. So, I slowed down. But I'm sure that account has a flag on it now that I was spamming. So, for all future promos on Facebook, I'm going to type slower and let people know I might have to space answering their questions so I don't get flagged again. I clearly don't want to loose my Facebook account(and followers).

Maybe BKnights has something happening because of the Facebook promo. And when everyone clicks to buy your book or read your book from Facebook, it could look like a click farm when it isn't. I don't know. Just saying that the Zon must be trying new stuff to stop the click farms, and it might be showing promo services as a click farm. It's worth checking into.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Pauline, I think writing to Jeff B. about this is absolutely the way to go. It's the only way I got my copyright problem resolved last year. I know it seems weird, but that [email protected] address is the way you access the higher levels of customer service for authors. Don't think of it as your email showing up on Bezos's phone while he golfing, or something like that. It goes to his trusted peeps, not him.

It seems important to mention a couple things. Point out how low your pages-read figures, are. I mean, 2,000/month equals 60-70 pages read per day, right? That's pretty pathetic performance for a "systematically generated" account. It can't even get through one book a day? The click-farmer is never going to make his two cents, or whatever, at that rate.

As others have said, list all the sites you've promoted with and describe what you know of how their promos work. The point is that you believed these promotional outlets to be reputable, and that you're not alone in believing that -- we all use the outlets you mentioned. We're not talking about Free Book Service, here. We're talking about promotional venues that are very widely used in the indie community and that, so far as we know, are ethical. Vetting by the community on sites like Kboards is really the only thing we can turn to to make sure the promotional sites we use are legit; you were operating according to the only body of knowledge that's available to you and to the rest of us. Pointing this out seems important. We're not psychics, here. We do our best, but there's stuff we don't know.

In connection with that, it's also worth pointing out that Amazon has the opportunity, here, to see indie authors as partners, not adversaries. If they know something bad about a promo site that we don't know, they should share that info with us, so that we can get the word out. Closing accounts without warning or specific explanation is not only draconian but, from Amazon's POV, counterproductive. All it can accomplish is a mass exodus from KU ... because who's going to stick around to risk losing their KDP account? That's so much worse than what happened to me.

I hope so much that this gets resolved in your favor.

In the meantime, for anyone in KU, it seems worthwhile to drop a line to that [email protected] address saying that you've become aware that Amazon is closing accounts without warning, expressing fear, and wondering what you can do to keep your account safe. This is a terrifying practice. It'd be good if Amazon rethought it.


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## Silly Writer (Jul 15, 2013)

Becca Mills said:


> Pauline, I think writing to Jeff B. about this is absolutely the way to go. It's the only way I got my copyright problem resolved last year. I know it seems weird, but that [email protected] address is the way you access the higher levels of customer service for authors. Don't think of it as your email showing up on Bezos's phone while he golfing, or something like that. It goes to his trusted peeps, not him.
> 
> It seems important to mention a couple things. Point out how low your pages-read figures, are. I mean, 2,000/month equals 60-70 pages read per day, right? That's pretty pathetic performance for a "systematically generated" account. It can't even get through one book a day? The click-farmer is never going to make his two cents, or whatever, at that rate.
> 
> ...


If *I* was having this issue, I'd ask Becca to write my email to Jeff. Just sayin'


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## BookishDreams (Apr 12, 2016)

Wow, this was some scary reading. 

I hope things get sorted out for you... And that Amazon finds a way to actually punish the guilty party and not those authors who are nothing but collateral damage in their schemes.


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## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

Becca Mills said:


> 2,000/month equals 60-70 pages read per day, right? That's pretty pathetic performance for a "systematically generated" account. It can't even get through one book a day? The click-farmer is never going to make his two cents, or whatever, at that rate.


2,000 reads a month was in her "normal month". I guess that the period prior to the suspension was an abnormal period with drastically higher page reads than normal.

The question is: what led to those drastically higher page reads?


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## AuthorX (Nov 11, 2014)

What a major WTF? 

I have ran BKnights promos that I barely broke even on. That didn't result in me stopping using them since it was only $5.

Although I could see a mail list promo company making 5 or so amazon accounts with KU and doing borrows on all the books that sign up for the service just to keep sales rolling in and everyone thinking they are making their money back.  How the hell would we know though? There is literally no way for us to tell who is borrowing our book.

Hey Amazon, how about banning the systematically generated accounts first? There is no transparency with borrows so us authors are always going to be clueless.


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## Lynn McNamee (Jan 8, 2009)

Oddly, they missed one: https://www.amazon.com/Abiding-Flame-Pauline-Creeden-ebook/dp/B00KWEYV4U


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## VirginiaMcClain (Sep 24, 2014)

Becca Mills said:


> Pauline, I think writing to Jeff B. about this is absolutely the way to go. It's the only way I got my copyright problem resolved last year. I know it seems weird, but that [email protected] address is the way you access the higher levels of customer service for authors. Don't think of it as your email showing up on Bezos's phone while he golfing, or something like that. It goes to his trusted peeps, not him.
> 
> It seems important to mention a couple things. Point out how low your pages-read figures, are. I mean, 2,000/month equals 60-70 pages read per day, right? That's pretty pathetic performance for a "systematically generated" account. It can't even get through one book a day? The click-farmer is never going to make his two cents, or whatever, at that rate.
> 
> ...


Excellent points!


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

P.S. I'd change the title of this thread to something like "KDP account closed without warning: Amazon says my KU borrows are suspicious." I suspect not enough people are reading this. When I saw the title, I almost didn't click through. "Just another person ranting about being paid per page read ...," I thought.


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## Moist_Tissue (Dec 6, 2013)

Just want to say that the emails do make it Jeff's eyes. I dealt with a few Jeff escalations when I worked at Amazon.

He doesn't respond back to customers. He forwards the email to the Senior VP of your group who forwards to VP then down to Director then Senior Manager of the original emailer.

Jeff's emails are literally:


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## geronl (May 7, 2015)

Lynn McNamee said:


> I think this may be correct. But if so, then shouldn't Amazon punish those accounts instead of the authors, who may not even know about it?


I think we would all agree to that.


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## Guest (Jun 16, 2016)

Lynn McNamee said:


> Oddly, they missed one: https://www.amazon.com/Abiding-Flame-Pauline-Creeden-ebook/dp/B00KWEYV4U


I believe that one was published by a small press rather than indie.


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## Pauline Creeden (Aug 4, 2011)

Anma Natsu said:


> I believe that one was published by a small press rather than indie.


Yep - that one isn't self-published :/


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## A Woman&#039;s Place Is In The Rebellion (Apr 28, 2011)

Really sorry you have to deal with this, OP.



Becca Mills said:


> P.S. I'd change the title of this thread to something like "KDP account closed without warning: Amazon says my KU borrows are suspicious." I suspect not enough people are reading this. When I saw the title, I almost didn't click through. "Just another person ranting about being paid per page read ...," I thought.


I second this. I generally skip KU threads but am glad I opted to click on this one.


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## Pauline Creeden (Aug 4, 2011)

Becca Mills said:


> P.S. I'd change the title of this thread to something like "KDP account closed without warning: Amazon says my KU borrows are suspicious." I suspect not enough people are reading this. When I saw the title, I almost didn't click through. "Just another person ranting about being paid per page read ...," I thought.


Sheesh Becca - you're so much smarter than me. I copied and pasted your suggestion!


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## Silly Writer (Jul 15, 2013)

I have to say I can't believe it'd be BKnights. Only because I run several different pen names through him, and sometimes it barely makes a dent in sales/page reads.

If his service was using automated clicking (?) for page reads, then every ad I've ran would have shown huge page-reads. And it hasn't. Not by a long shot. It all depends on the genre. So if he HAD the ability to do this, and could ramp himself up to Bookbub levels by giving such huge results, then he would, every time.

That said, if the ONLY thing you've done with these books is promo's and now this is happening, then you really have to look closely at those promos. Which of those promos guarantees results? Do any of them? Which of those has the longest reach? Which is the least transparent in that reach? In other words, On BKNights, you can clearly see his newsletter, website and FB to get an idea of how he does what he does. It's pretty transparent. Can you do that with any and all promo's that have been run?

I'm focusing on the promo's because I see no other way/reason for you to have been targeted. You're not a huge seller (sorry), and you're not a trouble-maker, so why would someone just target you? It's got to be something you've inadvertently stepped into, unintentionally. 

ETA: He's even refunded my $20 bucks before when the ad did so poorly. So no... I'd think he has no clickfarm.


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

Pauline I am so sorry your account was shut down. 

I don't remember that language in TOS about the 3rd party promotions, but I totally believe you it's there, please don't think I'm saying I don't think it is. It's just not there in my picture in my head, but I haven't read the document in a few months.  I wonder if that was added after the other promotion thing was causing accounts to get shut down prior to KU 2.0. 

And this is what we were all afraid about when the first call for stop the scammers started going out all over. The ban hammer always comes down unscrupulously, with lots of collateral damage. Very sorry this happened to you Pauline.


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## Pauline Creeden (Aug 4, 2011)

Elizabeth Ann West said:


> Pauline I am so sorry your account was shut down.
> 
> I don't remember that language in TOS about the 3rd party promotions, but I totally believe you it's there, please don't think I'm saying I don't think it is. It's just not there in my picture in my head, but I haven't read the document in a few months. I wonder if that was added after the other promotion thing was causing accounts to get shut down prior to KU 2.0.
> 
> And this is what we were all afraid about when the first call for stop the scammers started going out all over. The ban hammer always comes down unscrupulously, with lots of collateral damage. Very sorry this happened to you Pauline.


No problem - here's the link: https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A35X707K01AW78


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## writemore (Feb 3, 2016)

What a nightmare!!  I hope this gets sorted out ASAP.  Sorry this happened to you.


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## Pauline Creeden (Aug 4, 2011)

L.L. AKers said:


> I have to say I can't believe it'd be BKnights. Only because I run several different pen names through him, and sometimes it barely makes a dent in sales/page reads.
> 
> If his service was using automated clicking (?) for page reads, then every ad I've ran would have shown huge page-reads. And it hasn't. Not by a long shot. It all depends on the genre. So if he HAD the ability to do this, and could ramp himself up to Bookbub levels by giving such huge results, then he would, every time.
> 
> ...


I don't believe BKnights is a clickfarm either - they've refunded a promo for me that didn't go well in the past, and they've been nothing but upfront and honest.

But I ran no more than 3 promos and I listed them here - all of them are ones used repeatedly by authors here on Kboards, and I've used them in the past too. As far as being targeted - I agree, I'm not a big name, nor am I a trouble maker - but I did have a dispute with the wife of someone who works for Amazon in New Jersey - and it's possible that I had a rabid fan (as someone can get sometimes through youtube, etc)


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## DanaG (Feb 13, 2011)

To the OP - did you notice a sudden surge in KU borrows right before this happened, or were they the same as usual?

This is indeed REALLY scary and also an excellent reason not to be in KU.\

Please keep us posted - I hope you get it resolved quickly!


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## Jake Kerr (Aug 6, 2014)

At least a few erotic romance authors faced a similar thing a year ago. At that time it was a community of people that would borrow each other's books and then read them to 10% or to the end to get the full revenue during KU 1.0. What Amazon took issue with was the amount of people who simply read each other's books. It was a closed loop of highly cross-fertilized reading for profit.

After the emails dropped the entire concept of "B4B" (borrow 4 borrow) became toxic.

The difference here is the use of the word "systematically generated accounts." They also make a point of using the phrase "to promote their books." So that makes me agree with pretty much everyone on this thread that this is materially different and about bot account activity. 

So let's unpack the Amazon email. It said borrows originating from those accounts, not the VOLUME of borrows or pages read. This means to me that they uncovered a bot account and are working from there to books borrowed from that account. Some thoughts:

You could, unfortunately, but the sacrificial lamb. Amazon has been known to go after individual accounts to "set an example." We saw that in KU 1.0, for example. So looking for a broader trend is problematic. It could be ONE bot account that is tied to BKnights and you were the ONE KDP account flagged.

It could be that this was a perfect storm. One click farm utilized BKnights to hide their activity by spreading out their borrows, and your book just happened to be the one that flagged the click farm as Amazon was doing their investigation. That doesn't mean BKnights or you or anyone did anything wrong. It just means that all the pieces were connected (unfortunately) via your book.

It could be that promo sites really DO use click farms, although I find this REALLY hard to believe.

Overall, this strikes me as you being "caught up in the net."

My hope is that you are cleared quickly by Amazon and can get back your account.


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## Pauline Creeden (Aug 4, 2011)

DanaG said:


> To the OP - did you notice a sudden surge in KU borrows right before this happened, or were they the same as usual?
> 
> This is indeed REALLY scary and also an excellent reason not to be in KU.\
> 
> Please keep us posted - I hope you get it resolved quickly!


Yes, on one day in may I had 25,000 borrows - where my usual borrows for the day averages about 80.

So I was shocked, but had no idea why it happened, and had a minor heart attack, you know the gambit of feelings that go through you when something like that happens...


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## Lynn McNamee (Jan 8, 2009)

Pauline Creeden said:


> Yes, on one day in may I had 25,000 borrows - where my usual borrows for the day averages about 80.
> 
> So I was shocked, but had no idea why it happened, and had a minor heart attack, you know the gambit of feelings that go through you when something like that happens...


Do you mean 25k "pages read" vs. your usual 80?

Or do you mean you divided the total pages read by your page count and it came out to 25k borrows?


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Moist_Tissue said:


> Just want to say that the emails do make it Jeff's eyes. I dealt with a few Jeff escalations when I worked at Amazon.
> 
> He doesn't respond back to customers. He forwards the email to the Senior VP of your group who forwards to VP then down to Director then Senior Manager of the original emailer.
> 
> Jeff's emails are literally:


Okay, that's sort of a terrifying thought. 

Still think you should email him, Pauline.



Pauline Creeden said:


> Yes, on one day in may I had 25,000 borrows - where my usual borrows for the day averages about 80.
> 
> So I was shocked, but had no idea why it happened, and had a minor heart attack, you know the gambit of feelings that go through you when something like that happens...


I bet whatever caused that spike is the source of the problem. BTW, do you mean 25K pages read, or borrows of entire books?


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## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

Pauline Creeden said:


> Yes, on one day in may I had 25,000 borrows - where my usual borrows for the day averages about 80.


Do you remember if/where you promoted immediately before that massive spike in May? The huge increase must have surely been associated somehow with one of those sites.

Unless this thing is somehow totally random.

Philip


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## KL_Phelps (Nov 7, 2013)

holy crap! Have had a jump in my borrows the last couple of days, now I'm freaking out.


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## mach 5 (Dec 5, 2015)

michaelsnuckols said:


> I have a terrible sinking feeling about this. What if the blackhat "authors" overseas are trying to cover their tracks by "borrowing" indie books at the same time they borrow their own drivel? This would make it harder for Amazon to filter out those cheating the system.


That was one thought that ran through my head, too


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## Moist_Tissue (Dec 6, 2013)

Becca Mills said:


> Okay, that's sort of a terrifying thought.
> 
> Still think you should email him, Pauline.
> 
> I bet whatever caused that spike is the source of the problem. BTW, do you mean 25K pages read, or borrows of entire books?


My heart dropped whenever I received an email because I had to develop a plan of action that would result in a) addressing the original complaint and b) creating a process so that it never happened again.

Emailing Jeff is a good thing, though. I've always recommended it because it's how convoluted processes get fixed.


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

Pauline Creeden said:


> No problem - here's the link: https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A35X707K01AW78


Ahh, yeah that is new-ish. And it's just applying to Kindle Unlimited titles, and I don't promote my pen name at all and my EAW books aren't in KU. For a second there I was having a panic attack that I couldn't SEE the part where that would be in the long thing that applies to all KDP accounts. But I should go reread that too, I'm sure things have changed.

Sorry for threadjack, still really sad for this.


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

I'm so sorry this happened to you.

I don't think it was bknights either. I wish we had his email address so he could come here and respond.


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## Donna White Glaser (Jan 12, 2011)

Wow, that is crazy scary. I really hope it all works out for you.  Please keep us posted.


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## CassieL (Aug 29, 2013)

OP.  So sorry this happened to you.  Was it just on one book that spike in page reads?  Because it makes me wonder if a scammer just got a little dyslexic and sent their bots after the wrong book and you got wiped out by it.

This and the box set scam also make me wonder how many of those All-Star Bonuses have gone to scam accounts.  We have legit authors on here getting them, but how many missed out because of these kinds of things.  Does put the two month delay on payments thing into perspective.  'Zon needs time to weed out the frauds.


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## Pauline Creeden (Aug 4, 2011)

Philip Gibson said:


> Do you remember if/where you promoted immediately before that massive spike in May? The huge increase must have surely been associated somehow with one of those sites.
> 
> Unless this thing is somehow totally random.
> 
> Philip


I didn't promote at anywhere that wasn't out for a week or more before the random spike. It was on one book. 25000 pages read in one day compared to my average of 2000 pages read per month.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## G.L. Snodgrass (Aug 12, 2014)

Question for the OP. Are your books associated with any other authors. I haven't checked. Was that jump in borrows related to that association?

If no association, then never mind. Just curious.


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## AllyWho (May 16, 2015)

Pauline Creeden said:


> I didn't promote at anywhere that wasn't out for a week or more before the random spike. It was on one book. 25000 pages read in one day compared to my average of 2000 pages read per month.


So working backwards... you said there was promo on that title the week before, who with?


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## 555aaa (Jan 28, 2014)

michaelsnuckols said:


> I have a terrible sinking feeling about this. What if the blackhat "authors" overseas are trying to cover their tracks by "borrowing" indie books at the same time they borrow their own drivel? This would make it harder for Amazon to filter out those cheating the system.


I thought about that also (along with Mach 5). I think this was a thing with FB "like" farms a couple years ago where fake 'like' accounts would randomly go off and like stuff on your page.

As was posted upthread, what could be happening is that your black hat bots (scam Amazon accounts) use the books on promo sites to help mask their activities. If you are running fake accounts, you need to feed your bots with a stream of legit ASINs to make them look real. An easy way to get those is from legit promo sites.

I think borrows / page reads have just become another coin of the realm, like "likes", in the scammer's world, and they do use methods like that to hide their activities. In this case however it seems like they must have missed their mark if the number of reads is that high, so I think it's more likely that a promo has gone awry.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

Pauline Creeden said:


> I didn't promote at anywhere that wasn't out for a week or more before the random spike. It was on one book. 25000 pages read in one day compared to my average of 2000 pages read per month.


A bunch of people are jumping on BKnights in this thread, but there's no way they can generate this many page reads in a day. I've used their service before and will use it again. But they ain't bringing in those kinds of numbers...


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

555aaa said:


> I thought about that also (along with Mach 5). I think this was a thing with FB "like" farms a couple years ago where fake 'like' accounts would randomly go off and like stuff on your page.
> 
> I think borrows / page reads have just become another coin of the realm, like "likes", in the scammer's world, and they do use methods like that to hide their activities. In this case however it seems like they must have missed their mark if the number of reads is that high, so I think it's more likely that a promo has gone awry.


I thought about this possibility, but it seems unlikely. If click-farmers were trying to make their accounts look more legit, dropping 25,000 reads on a single book wouldn't be the way to go. That's just more of the same suspicious pattern they already have. Instead, each account should go out and borrow different books, to diversify its history compared to other accounts held by the same farm (right?).


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## Donna White Glaser (Jan 12, 2011)

Actually I've seen most people going out of their way to say they don't think it was BKnights.


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## 555aaa (Jan 28, 2014)

Becca Mills said:


> I thought about this possibility, but it seems unlikely. If click-farmers were trying to make their accounts look more legit, dropping 25,000 reads on a single book wouldn't be the way to go. That's just more of the same suspicious pattern they already have. Instead, each account should go out and borrow different books, to diversify its history compared to other accounts held by the same farm (right?).


Sorry Becca I edited my post while you were writing...


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

Becca Mills said:


> I thought about this possibility, but it seems unlikely. If click-farmers were trying to make their accounts look more legit, dropping 25,000 reads on a single book wouldn't be the way to go. That's just more of the same suspicious pattern they already have. Instead, each account should go out and borrow different books, to diversify its history compared to other accounts held by the same farm (right?).


Right? That has got to be the dumbest scammer alive if they're going about it that way.


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

Also, the spike of 25,000 pages may not have actually occurred ON that day. That's another variable none of us really know. We don't know if those were clogged up in teh system due to suspicious accounts involved etc. Amazon's graphs have discloaimers that the information is not factual to the day, and we've all seen "clogs" clear. In the last few weeks, I've had entire days fall hard, like $40 made in a day when every day around is $150-$200+ (because I have newish releases) and the day after the $40 has a huge spike. It' possible the sales happen that way, but it's a huge swing.

Hopefully, Amazon will get back to you but I wouldn't hold my breath for information on who or what is flagged in their system. And, sadly, the way they work, even if it was a certain list that's poisoned in a way, then there's no way to even be sure if Amazon is applying the the problem evenly (this is the whole Hey, we did the same thing but that person wasn't punished and I was!) or that the flagged account opened their emails two days in a row etc.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Seriously, I doubt it is BKnights. He's been around for years and his results are, honestly, pretty poor and have gotten worse over the last year. That isn't scam behavior. It's more likely to be something newer and more focused.


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## Moist_Tissue (Dec 6, 2013)

Krista D. Ball said:


> A bunch of people are jumping on BKnights in this thread, but there's no way they can generate this many page reads in a day. I've used their service before and will use it again. But they ain't bringing in those kinds of numbers...


Actually, I was the only one who felt that FIVERR where BKnights runs their promotions could be the culprit. Not Bknights and their service. But the fact that they are on Fiverr where Amazon has cracked down before.


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## Guest (Jun 16, 2016)

Did I read right that you are saying this random spike happened a week after you ran promos? If so, I agree with you in your doubt it's related. What would ANY promotional site gain from giving you results a week later (real or fake)? They wouldn't get credit for it since it was a week after the promo, and who wants to do work they wouldn't get credit for? Also, as far as I know, I've never seen anyone report results like that from any of the promos you've mentioned.


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## M.D. Massey (Dec 3, 2013)

michaelsnuckols said:


> I have a terrible sinking feeling about this. What if the blackhat "authors" overseas are trying to cover their tracks by "borrowing" indie books at the same time they borrow their own drivel? This would make it harder for Amazon to filter out those cheating the system.


I'd say that's very likely. All it would take is one IM guru to tell people to use that tactic, and boom - lots of legit author/publishers suffer.


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## 555aaa (Jan 28, 2014)

If I have 100 fake accounts and I need them to look real, I just pick a book off of a legit promo site and have them (my bots) read it, and if I am a sloppy programmer all those page reads go out on the same day, so the author gets this huge spike in reads for no apparent reason.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Krista D. Ball said:


> A bunch of people are jumping on BKnights in this thread, but there's no way they can generate this many page reads in a day. I've used their service before and will use it again. But they ain't bringing in those kinds of numbers...


There's nothing wrong with 25,000 page-reads in and of themselves. They must've come from accounts Amazon has tagged as problematic. If BKnights had suddenly started paying click-farms for page-reads, we'd have heard about it -- his results would've shot up, like L.L. said, and everyone would already have been talking about it. So that can't be it. Patty's promos are just the participating authors cross-promoting to their followers, so that can't be it. Rebecca's promos go out to the mailing list she built with fans of her own writing, right? Those are real people, not click-farmers. None of these promos seem like good explanations for a big spike or for borrowing from suspicious accounts.


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## Pauline Creeden (Aug 4, 2011)

AliceWE said:


> So working backwards... you said there was promo on that title the week before, who with?


Actually, now that I am looking at it, none of the promos this month were even for that book. The promos were for 3 other books, so that throws out the promo idea... I'm glad I'm talking to you all, since this is helping get my thoughts in order too

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## M.D. Massey (Dec 3, 2013)

Krista D. Ball said:


> Right? That has got to be the dumbest scammer alive if they're going about it that way.


Yeah, but many of these people just do whatever they read in black hat forums. Like I said, all it takes is one person saying it works for someone else to try it.


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## Pauline Creeden (Aug 4, 2011)

Becca Mills said:


> There's nothing wrong with 25,000 page-reads in and of themselves. They must've come from accounts Amazon has tagged as problematic. If BKnights had suddenly started paying click-farms for page-reads, we'd have heard about it -- his results would've shot up, like L.L. said, and everyone would already have been talking about it. So that can't be it. Patty's promos are just the participating authors cross-promoting to their followers, so that can't be it. Rebecca's promos go out to the mailing list she built with fans of her own writing, right? Those are real people, not click-farmers. None of these promos seem like good explanations for a big spike or for borrowing from suspicious accounts.


Yes. This. All 3 promos were legit. And on different books than the one that had the borrow spike

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## Guest (Jun 16, 2016)

Pauline Creeden said:


> Actually, now that I am looking at it, none of the promos this month were even for that book. The promos were for 3 other books, so that throws out the promo idea... I'm glad I'm talking to you all, since this is helping get my thoughts in order too
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


My reaction was to think this is a glitch in THEIR system that you're getting punished for. I just really don't see what would be the goal in anyone doing this. If I were you, I would ask them to have their technical team look into it. And I'm sorry you are going through this.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Pauline Creeden said:


> Actually, now that I am looking at it, none of the promos this month were even for that book. The promos were for 3 other books, so that throws out the promo idea... I'm glad I'm talking to you all, since this is helping get my thoughts in order too
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


So... I'm confused? Amazon banned based on a single book having a spike? Why ban all your books? Did any of the others have big spikes?


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## Pauline Creeden (Aug 4, 2011)

TheForeverGirlSeries said:


> My reaction was to think this is a glitch in THEIR system that you're getting punished for. I just really don't see what would be the goal in anyone doing this. If I were you, I would ask them to have their technical team look into it. And I'm sorry you are going through this.


I agree that this is another possibility- and their tech team is looking into it... Going on 10 days now that I'm waiting to hear back on it

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## Pauline Creeden (Aug 4, 2011)

Annie B said:


> So... I'm confused? Amazon banned based on a single book having a spike? Why ban all your books? Did any of the others have big spikes?


None of the other books had a spike 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Pauline Creeden said:


> I agree that this is another possibility- and their tech team is looking into it... Going on 10 days now that I'm waiting to hear back on it
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


Take Becca's advice and email Bezos. Seriously.


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## UnicornEmily (Jul 2, 2011)

I'm so sorry this happened to you, Pauline.  That's appalling.

I hope it gets sorted out soon.


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## Guest (Jun 16, 2016)

Pauline Creeden said:


> I agree that this is another possibility- and their tech team is looking into it... Going on 10 days now that I'm waiting to hear back on it
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


I really don't understand Amazon lately. It seems like they have a track record recently of taking action first, asking questions later, and frequently being WRONG. Then it's just "oh, sorry, our mistake" - I feel as if they are getting sloppy, and I'm so sorry it's affecting you. It sounds as if it could happen to anyone for no reason at all, and I think that makes it a lot scarier


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

TheForeverGirlSeries said:


> My reaction was to think this is a glitch in THEIR system that you're getting punished for. I just really don't see what would be the goal in anyone doing this. If I were you, I would ask them to have their technical team look into it. And I'm sorry you are going through this.


Could it be that her book got the click-farm treatment by accident? Like, someone with a similar title or ASIN paid for a sleazy promo, and the wrong book got the clicks?



Annie B said:


> So... I'm confused? Amazon banned based on a single book having a spike? Why ban all your books? Did any of the others have big spikes?


I think we're _guessing _that whatever caused the spike was the problem. If the email Pauline got is the only explanation, well, there's nothing concrete there to go on -- just the implication that promotional activity was to blame, somehow.

God, they're so friggin' opaque.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

Becca Mills said:


> There's nothing wrong with 25,000 page-reads in and of themselves. They must've come from accounts Amazon has tagged as problematic. If BKnights had suddenly started paying click-farms for page-reads, we'd have heard about it -- his results would've shot up, like L.L. said, and everyone would already have been talking about it. So that can't be it. Patty's promos are just the participating authors cross-promoting to their followers, so that can't be it. Rebecca's promos go out to the mailing list she built with fans of her own writing, right? Those are real people, not click-farmers. None of these promos seem like good explanations for a big spike or for borrowing from suspicious accounts.


If anything, I would normally say it's a glitch. But one would assume they'd just send out an email, "cancel your helicopter order, the page readers were a mistake" or something like that. But that's not really seeming to fit here, either. So weird.


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## Pauline Creeden (Aug 4, 2011)

WasAnn said:


> Well, whatever the actual reason for it happening, it sure does give me pause. And even more pause because it's the second time I've heard of it happening to someone honest very recently.
> 
> And that's not even counting all those folks caught up in the last fiasco.
> 
> I'm not sure KU is worth it to me anymore. I don't get enough page reads to worry about this kind of stuff. Yeah, my books may sink like a rocket without KU, but I won't have to worry about this.


Exactly!

If I had known this was a possibility before, I would have taken the books out of KU long ago...

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

If, as seems certain, it was the 25,000 page reads on a SINGLE book that caused the problem, the use of PLURAL "books" in the first line of the Amazon email would seem to indicate an error within Amazon's system.



> "We are reaching out to you because we have detected that borrows for your books are originating from systematically generated accounts.


Maybe you could point that out to them in your emails.

Philip


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

Philip Gibson said:


> If, as seems certain, it was the 25,000 page reads on a SINGLE book that caused the problem, the use of PLURAL "books" in the first line of the Amazon email would seem to indicate an error within Amazon's system.
> Maybe you could point that out to them in your emails.
> 
> Philip


That's probably just a generic email. I imagine "book(s)" would be more accurate.


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## Donna White Glaser (Jan 12, 2011)

Hey, if these "borrows" were legit wouldn't there have been a corresponding rise in ranks--and therefore sales due to visibility too? If the ranks didn't shoot down, then there wasn't any real borrows, so it's got to be a reporting glitch, doesn't it?


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

NeedWant said:


> Or a promo service using shady tactics...


This was my first thought as well, but it's probably something deeper than that. I know several people on the KDP forums have been reporting the same thing, with the same email, and they all say they have no idea why Amazon thinks they're using some sort of scam service. Accounts are closed, with no warning and seemingly no way to get them reinstated.

It's possible that Amazon has flagged suspicious accounts for click farming, and any author who shows up on those accounts are considered guilty without further evidence. I agree it's likely some black hat way of hiding their click farms.

All I can say is get onto that email to Bezos and see if that gets something moving, because you've waited long enough for this to be fixed.


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## Vinny OHare (May 3, 2013)

I agree with everything above regarding sending an email to Jeff and having someone higher at Amazon take a look. 

Just so I have this straight the book actually wasn't one promoted on a promo site, it was your other books? That eliminates that theory somewhat. The promo sites mentioned have been on kboards for years. If something like this was going on you would know about it asap from many authors.

The first thing I thought of is a glitch in reporting because I had that happen once, think it was 10k in reads but it disappeared the next day. Never got a notice about it either. 

Then I was thinking about maybe a yahoo group that shares KU only books or a sub reddit of some kind. You would have noticed a spike in sales though that match that 25k number somewhat. It just doesn't make sense. I wish you luck getting your account back in good standing.


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## JB Rowley (Jan 29, 2012)

Pauline Creeden said:


> _"We are reaching out to you because we have detected that borrows for your books are
> originating from systematically generated accounts. While we support the legitimate
> efforts of our publishers to promote their books, attempting to manipulate the Kindle
> platform and/or Kindle programs is not permitted. As a result of the irregular borrow
> ...


Holy Nelly! Whatever happened to 'innocent until proven guilty'? That is an appalling email to send out. They could have at least sent a 'please explain' before firing the cannon. I can imagine how upset you must have felt when you received, Pauline. Thank you for going public; I am learning a lot from this discussion. I wish you all the best in sorting this issue out.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

The Fussy Librarian said:


> Folks, please stop speculating about BKnights. I don't know anything about them but unless you have facts, your speculation is potentially damaging the reputation of a small business owner.


Ironically, the people popping in to say this sort of thing are the ones potentially damaging BKnights by creating the idea that criticism is happening here. The vast majority of posters mentioning Bknights have said it can't be due to BKnights, and no one has lodged any meaningful criticism against that service.

We're problem-solving. It's important: an author's career is on the line. Promo sites will be mentioned. They'll have to live with it.


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## SunshineOnMe (Jan 11, 2014)

Pauline, I actually gasped when I read that.. So harsh and unfair. I'm so sorry! I hope this all gets sorted out quickly. Sending you a *big hug*


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## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

I haven't been to the KDP Community Forum for a long time (since joining KBoards) but this problem prompted me to look there.

This is from June 2. I guess (hope) its OK to re-post it here.



> Just received an email indicating my account had 'borrows for your books are originating from systematically generated accounts' and 'As a result of the irregular borrow activity, we have removed your books from the KDP store and are terminating your KDP account and your KDP Agreement effective immediately.'
> 
> Absolutely in the dark on this one. I've never paid for any marketing, reviews, borrows or anything like it. In fact, I've barely touched my KDP account & books this year.
> 
> ...


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## RedAlert (May 15, 2015)

It's brutal that you got hit with this without recourse.  This is a bad advertisement for joining KU.  The language certainly shows a lack of respect for you.  What's strange is the response to a single surge.

I feel for ya.


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## D-C (Jan 13, 2014)

Philip Gibson said:


> I haven't been to the KDP Community Forum for a long time (since joining KBoards) but this problem prompted me to look there.
> 
> This is from June 2. I guess (hope) its OK to re-post it here.


Wow. So basically, it's random and can happen to anyone? WTH Amazon?


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## D-C (Jan 13, 2014)

I have a new series due to hit KU at the end of July. But do I risk losing a massive percent of my income apparently for no reason and with no warning for the sake of one books visibility? This is nuts.


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## Gentleman Zombie (May 30, 2011)

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I'm sincerely hoping the OP get's this resolved ASAP by Amazon. 

My first wild guess is that the spammers are trying to cover their tracks by borrowing legitimate books. It makes sense they would target the prawns (no offense.. I'm a prawn) to do this. And if this turns out to be true... it just points out another reason that the presence of spammers is problematic for honest authors.  

I really hope this is just a mistake and not the tip of a much bigger problem brewing behind the scenes.


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## writemore (Feb 3, 2016)

10 days in limbo (account suspension) could kill a book/series.  Just so scary!  And I just know their eventual response is not going to be satisfying.


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

Pauline Creeden said:


> Yes, on one day in may I had 25,000 borrows - where my usual borrows for the day averages about 80.
> 
> So I was shocked, but had no idea why it happened, and had a minor heart attack, you know the gambit of feelings that go through you when something like that happens...


Do you mean 25,000 page reads? Still a lot, but 25,000 borrows would put you in the top 10 on Amazon for sure.  Nevermind. I saw that was addressed.

One thing I would like to know is did you see a sudden spike in ranking prior to the 25,000 page reads? I don't know what your book's KENPC was, but just for the sake of simplification, if your book had a KENPC of 500, that would take a minimum of 50 borrows. That's going to spike your ranking pretty high--probably in the high 3 digits. If there was no spike, then it had to have been a KDP glitch. Books not borrowed can't be read, no matter whether it's a bot or a person. For a legit 25,000 page read, it would make sense that there would be a lot more borrows and an even bigger spike, because not everyone is going to read the book or they won't finish it. Even a bot or a series of bots are going to have to borrow the book somehow.


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## Jill Nojack (Mar 7, 2014)

Pauline, I have no advice to give. Wiser people then me have already given you great advice.

I just want to send warm thoughts your way and hope this gets straightened out quickly for you. I hope you're getting lots of hugs today.

Jill


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## Pauline Creeden (Aug 4, 2011)

Thank you for the hugs Jill!

Mary - it's 25000 pages read... I don't know how high the ranking was, but around 3000, maybe


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## Anonymously Anonymous (Sep 25, 2015)

Sorry to butt in on someone else's thread, but, what's the difference between 'borrows' and 'pages read'? And is all this caused because the book with the spike was in KU? If it hadn't been in KU, you would still be able to sell your books as an ebook/kindle book?


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## PermaStudent (Apr 21, 2015)

she-la-ti-da said:


> This was my first thought as well, but it's probably something deeper than that. I know several people on the KDP forums have been reporting the same thing, with the same email, and they all say they have no idea why Amazon thinks they're using some sort of scam service. Accounts are closed, with no warning and seemingly no way to get them reinstated.


I was on the fence about putting my next release in Select or wide, because I keep trying to see if I can get traction with KU readers. Beyond the initial flash of interest I don't see a lot of borrow action, and I think this just decided it for me. Risk may now be greater than the limited rewards for me.

OP, I'm so sorry you got hit with this. I'll be writing Jeff to register my concern with the program and this response. Please keep us informed as the situation progresses, and I hope they reinstate you quickly.


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## Pauline Creeden (Aug 4, 2011)

I just found this blog post and hope that I get the same outcome: https://pjbayliss.com/2016/06/06/steal-my-books-please/

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

I hope you will get this resolved.

I remember having to take the book out of the promo because the link didn't work and you notified me what had happened the next day. What a nightmare. I had my own account shut for a week or so in 2012, which was a big factor in my decision to go wide and stay wide.


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## JB Rowley (Jan 29, 2012)

Pauline Creeden said:


> I just found this blog post and hope that I get the same outcome: https://pjbayliss.com/2016/06/06/steal-my-books-please/
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


The blogger suggests the problem might be in Amazon's technology - entirely possible I should think.

_Needless to say, I'm sceptical about if this illicit activity actually happened or not. Maybe it was yet another glitch in the Amazon KDP machine?_


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## Donna White Glaser (Jan 12, 2011)

Anonymously Anonymous said:


> Sorry to butt in on someone else's thread, but, what's the difference between 'borrows' and 'pages read'? And is all this caused because the book with the spike was in KU? If it hadn't been in KU, you would still be able to sell your books as an ebook/kindle book?


"Borrows" are when the book is first "checked out" from KU, and that action can cause a rise in rank. But the author doesn't get paid for it yet. "Pages read" is counted when the person actually starts reading or, in cases of scamming, create a link to the back of the book to artificially move the reader from the beginning to the end.


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## NoLongerPosting (Apr 5, 2014)

Pauline, I'm so sorry this is happening to you. 

I hope this gets sorted, and soon.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

I wrote about this on my blog, FWIW: https://the-active-voice.com/2016/06/16/think-you-couldnt-possibly-lose-your-amazon-publishing-account-think-again/


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## Vinny OHare (May 3, 2013)

Becca Mills said:


> I wrote about this on my blog, FWIW: https://the-active-voice.com/2016/06/16/think-you-couldnt-possibly-lose-your-amazon-publishing-account-think-again/


I like your writing style. The original post in this thread has been added to and the books in question were not using a promo service so that has been changed.


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## suliabryon (May 18, 2009)

Wow! this is by far the scariest thread I have ever read here! That blogger who posted about her similar experience said she never even saw a sales spike or any unusual activity - it was just account closed, then eventually reinstated, but never with any explanation of why/what specifically triggered the close in the first place from Amazon! If KU 3.0 would address whatever is causing this, I say bring it on. If not, we live in frightening times, and it could happen to any author at any time.


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## Mark Tyson (Sep 22, 2014)

This is horrifying! 

I have been thinking about leaving KU for various reasons. It seems to be sliding down hill in relation to what it pays versus going wide. Many of my titles drop off in July and I think I will go wide again. The amount of revenue in my case is not worth the risks of being in KU. I am not an alarmist and I have been pretty loyal to KU over the years. Now, I am thinking KU just isn't worth rolling the dice on what may happen next that I have no control over. If KU is turning into a crap shoot where I feel like I am gambling with my career by being involved in it, I am going to go with the safe bet and dump it.


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## Anonymously Anonymous (Sep 25, 2015)

How does one leave KU? I don't remember reading anything about how to get out.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Anonymously Anonymous said:


> How does one leave KU? I don't remember reading anything about how to get out.


I think you just have to make sure the KU/Select renewal box for that book isn't checked on your KDP dashboard.


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## Pauline Creeden (Aug 4, 2011)

Thanks Becca for the great blog post! You put my feelings into words better than I could 


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## MCwrites (May 26, 2016)

So sorry you are dealing with this! It must be extremely distressing. I'm reconsidering KU now as well.


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## celadon (Sep 12, 2015)

WOW, this is very disheartening and depressing to hear!

I have one book wide, and the other may go wide. My faith in the Zon is waning!

Pauline, I hope this gets resolved! I try to have faith that it will, because it seems so nonsensical. Writing to Jeff Bezos seems like a good idea.

I have been thinking of this for a while. Becca, I recall you had a fake copyright claim scare a while back (where some scammer filed a false copyright claim on one of your books), and now we have this. It seems like anyone's account is at risk at any moment of being nuked ifrom orbit, through no fault of their own, due to some black hatter or something else out of their control. 

I am wondering, would selling our Kindle books through a third party (like Lulu) help with some of this? If you no longer have any books in your own KDP account, they can't exactly take it away. I'm just wondering if having a "layer of protection" (a third party) to distribute both your print and ebooks might help a bit. But I realize there are downsides to going that route.


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## Guest (Jun 17, 2016)

This is absolutely awful.

If this is standard procedure by Amazon to terminate publisher accounts based on the activities of customer accounts borrowing their books ... The two aren't even related! It's MAYBE the publisher asked the scammer for help. MAYBE they're one and the same.

Yeah? Well MAYBE they didn't!

What sort of policy is this that the moment a scam customer touches your book, your whole publisher account explodes? This is such an injustice its sickening. 

Amazon should be forced to address this matter publicly.


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## Jake Kerr (Aug 6, 2014)

> Could it be that her book got the click-farm treatment by accident? Like, someone with a similar title or ASIN paid for a sleazy promo, and the wrong book got the clicks?


This was absolutely the first thing that crossed my mind. Someone hired a click farm with a book with the same title or ASIN that was off by one number, and boom... this is what happens.

What's the title of the affected book? Maybe others have that title and are worth looking for? The ASIN will be harder to track down.


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## LadyStarlight (Nov 14, 2014)

ShaneJeffery said:


> This is absolutely awful.
> 
> If this is standard procedure by Amazon to terminate publisher accounts based on the activities of customer accounts borrowing their books ... The two aren't even related! It's MAYBE the publisher asked the scammer for help. MAYBE they're one and the same.
> 
> ...


It's insane and absolutely frightening. I wish we had like an Indie Author Union or something so we could combat this type of injustice when it rears its ugly head.


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

Just to summerise for those who haven't read all the 6 pages of posts, and correct me if I am wrong

1, You have only ever used 3 promotion sites. Two are kindleboard members with no other such reports and the other is Bknights which everyone on here uses, and again, no similar problems with other users reported.

2, The book in question that caused the problem was not even promoted at the time of the staggering borrows surge which would be easily identified as it happened in a single day.

3, Your norm averages around 60 to 70 per day, or 2000 per month. The book in question that triggered the action from Amazon had 25,000 page reads in one day.

4, You had a run-in with the wife of someone whose husband works for Amazon.

5, You were involved in posting threads about KU scams.

At this stage you have not said if the borrows were all from one territory.

I do hope Amazon get to the bottom of this, but I can understand them raising a query with such a difference in view of the recent scams. To be honest, if that happened to me I would have sent them an email to query if there was a technical hitch, because I wouldn't have believed what I was seeing, but that's by the way. Anyway I don't like that they have dived straight into an outright ban As you say, possibly suspend you from KU and I suppose suspend the royalty from the borrows and any sales that transpired from the rank surge after the event, until it was sorted. Even at that, we are only talking about a $120 royalty for the borrows if I have the math correct. No author would be so stupid as to hire a click farm to only make that sum at the risk of losing their account. It would probably cost more that that.

I think that we can rule out a promo site. If it is definately a click farm as they suggest, then it is likely to be malicious, and there Amazon could possibly look at points 4 & 5. It could even be an error by a click farm and the link they intended to use was incorrectly typed. Lastly, it could be a technical glitch. Saying that, if they were genuine borrows and Amazon bots had been to devised to try and identify scammers and so threw it out as an anomaly for them to check, that would be even more gutting.

As I said before, I can only find one other example of the exact wording of your email and that's on a Japanese site from an author with 10 books, so it's not a bespoke e-mail, but a form letter.

Whatever the reason. I do hope they restore your account.


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## tommy gun (May 3, 2015)

I have been considering going in with a new series that I am releasing at year end.  At least as a way to check and see if there is more profit in it.
Then I read this.
No way.  I'll stay wide and out of KU.

I hope this is resolved for you quickly and in your favour.  This is just nasty.  But this is what happens in big business sometimes.
Stay Positive!


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## Pauline Creeden (Aug 4, 2011)

Decon said:


> Just to summerise for those who haven't read all the 6 pages of posts, and correct me if I am wrong
> 
> 1, You have only ever used 3 promotion sites. Two are kindleboard members with no other such reports and the other is Bknights which everyone on here uses, and again, no similar problems with other users reported.
> 
> ...


Overall that's about right... Except I have used other promos in the past including bookbub and ENT... but not in more than 2 months

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## Maysage (Feb 18, 2016)

This is appalling! And seriously frightening, too. KU isn't my main, it's my ONLY source of income. If they suddenly decided to boot me out for the hell of it, I'd quite literally have _nothing_. I don't think anything has ever scared me as much as this. I had every intention of going wide by 2017 but now that will be my absolute priority. 
Thanks so much for sharing this, good luck, I sincerely hope it will resolve itself! But even if it did, you'll lose you rank, your reviews, and pretty much everything that established you, right?? 
Wow. I really feel for you. <3


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## VirginiaMcClain (Sep 24, 2014)

LadyStarlight said:


> It's insane and absolutely frightening. I wish we had like an Indie Author Union or something so we could combat this type of injustice when it rears its ugly head.


I kind of think Kboards IS the indie author union to fight these injustices. I mean, if you think about it, if we all decided to pull out of KU because of this stuff Amazon would be in some serious trouble. Especially with the bigger time authors that frequent our ranks, the Hugh Howies et al. I imagine if we all actually made enough of a fuss we could get amazon to sit up and take notice. And honestly, if folks from amazon came and checked this thread right now and saw just how many authors are considering leaving KU because of this I would think they'd starting making a more serious effort to sort this kind of thing out and keep it from happening again.


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## over and out (Sep 9, 2011)

2


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## CrissyM (Mar 14, 2012)

michaelsnuckols said:


> I have a terrible sinking feeling about this. What if the blackhat "authors" overseas are trying to cover their tracks by "borrowing" indie books at the same time they borrow their own drivel? This would make it harder for Amazon to filter out those cheating the system.


Hate to say it, but this was the first thought that came to mind. Amazon has really been cracking down on click farms so it seems reasonable that the click farms would do the same thing that they do for Facebook and Adsense... click everything so they can hide their tracks.

This is terrifying for anyone who isn't selling a lot of books. And what if I, a relatively unknown author, finally get a good promo in the right market and a lot of sudden clicks? Does that mean I deserve to loose my account because I suddenly did well?

Heck, you could have just had a really large book club pick up your book... I'm sure when Vaginal Fantasy's or Sword & Lasers picks up an indie author's book that author gets a HUGE spike for a month. How does Amazon account for that?

Scary.


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

this is then a case of guilty until proven innocent. Pauline, I do hope you get this sorted. If you promote one book and people like what they read, they will very likely go and borrow or buy all your others, sometimes all at once. Now I have just joined KU as a reader and have borrowed a lot of books by one author (not you). This is a trad published author I used to read 50 years ago, but it seems unlikely Amazon will rush to ban her. 

There is a poster on kdp forums who regularly writes to Jeff Bezos and posts his email address. If you PM me, I will give you his name but I think if you Google Jeff Bezos, the email will appear somewhere.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

I would hope Amazon realizes that we as writers/publishers have NO control over who buys or borrows our work. A more sane way of handling suspicious activity from accounts would be to tell the author something like "these pages originated from accounts under investigation for suspicious activity and will not be credited" or similar. Author keeps their account, scam-potential pages don't get paid out. Nobody loses the same way.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

I am not blaming the OP. Heaven knows this could happen to anybody through no fault of their own, and that's scary.

To protect yourself--if anything about any promo site seems at all shady--back away. Especially if there are any kind of guarantees that make you wonder. There is one service in particular that guarantees downloads. Don't use a service like that.


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## CrissyM (Mar 14, 2012)

Annie B said:


> I would hope Amazon realizes that we as writers/publishers have NO control over who buys or borrows our work. A more sane way of handling suspicious activity from accounts would be to tell the author something like "these pages originated from accounts under investigation for suspicious activity and will not be credited" or similar. Author keeps their account, scam-potential pages don't get paid out. Nobody loses the same way.


This. Plus investigate the books. If they are scam books (random words, lots of blank pages, etc etc.) then block that account. If it is an actual book then see if it happens multiple times, not just once.

Yes, Amazon is a multi billion dollar company, and we (individually) don't really matter to them much in the long run, but this could ruin a persons livelihood.


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## Mxz (Jan 17, 2015)

Wow, this is insane.  I'm sorry you're going through this.  It's sounding like it can happen to anyone.  If scammers pick a book to borrow to cover their tracks that's out of our control.  Why not go after the suspicious accounts or try and get the account's IP addresses (if possible) and ban people from reopening KU & scammer KDP accounts?  Does this mean a promo could put someone in this position?  It's frustrating, given how they've handled scammers in the past, and now that they decide to do more, still miss tons of scam books published every day and end up with the ax on legitimate authors.


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## Guest (Jun 17, 2016)

Annie B said:


> I would hope Amazon realizes that we as writers/publishers have NO control over who buys or borrows our work. A more sane way of handling suspicious activity from accounts would be to tell the author something like "these pages originated from accounts under investigation for suspicious activity and will not be credited" or similar. Author keeps their account, scam-potential pages don't get paid out. Nobody loses the same way.


This is a perfect solution. Scam / fake pages read shouldn't be paid out. Why do they have to go further? There is no evidence that the publisher has broken the t.o.s. NO EVIDENCE.

Really, this is a slap in the face to all of us. Closing someone's account without warning, without giving them a chance to respond in addition to being based on zero evidence - it shows what they really think of us.


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## Zelah Meyer (Jun 15, 2011)

I really hope that you're able to get this resolved and your account and books reinstated as soon as possible!


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## LadyG (Sep 3, 2015)

I've been reading through this, and it reminded me of a conversation that took place here on KBoards a while ago. I don't remember the details, but there was an author who saw a sudden, unexplained spike in free downloads of his book that made no sense at all. Tens of thousands of downloads that weren't reflected in the rankings, and it turned into a rather heated discussion on whether they were real downloads or a system glitch of some sort. 

Is there any chance the OP's sudden spike in pages read is the same sort of thing?


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## smikeo (Dec 1, 2014)

Annie B said:


> I would hope Amazon realizes that we as writers/publishers have NO control over who buys or borrows our work. A more sane way of handling suspicious activity from accounts would be to tell the author something like "these pages originated from accounts under investigation for suspicious activity and will not be credited" or similar. Author keeps their account, scam-potential pages don't get paid out. Nobody loses the same way.


The problem is that the point of the click farms isn't to earn money (though that's a nice side effect), it's to rise in the ranks, and this is what Amazon get especially cranky about. I assume it's difficult, on their side, to counter rank rise due to illegitimate borrows, so they prefer to nip this in the bud, and also to intimidate people from using these methods.
It's quite horrendous and scary, I hope they start developing a less irritable trigger finger. These days, it's easy for an author to use a service that he thinks is legitimate, without knowing what lies behind it.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Annie B said:


> I would hope Amazon realizes that we as writers/publishers have NO control over who buys or borrows our work. A more sane way of handling suspicious activity from accounts would be to tell the author something like "these pages originated from accounts under investigation for suspicious activity and will not be credited" or similar. Author keeps their account, scam-potential pages don't get paid out. Nobody loses the same way.


I agree that Amazon pulling an author account with no evidence that the author was involved with suspicious behavior is wrong, period.

However, it's not quite true that writers/publishers have no control over who buys or borrows work--or, at least "can't" have some control...and that's the problem. Some unscrupulous writers/publishers HAVE engaged click farms to buy/borrow their books--or, at least I assume that someone is paying those Fiverr accounts for doing those things. 

But again, investigation is fine, but pulling the author account before there is evidence that the author was involved is not right.

Betsy


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

> Why not go after the suspicious accounts or try and get the account's IP addresses (if possible) and ban people from reopening KU & scammer KDP accounts?


I think this is actually what may be happening. Amazon is aware of the click farm issue -- goodness knows, it's been reported to them enough -- and now they've probably got some people running through accounts with unexplained hikes, people who may not understand what constitutes suspicious amounts of downloads. They have the power to freeze accounts and send out a form letter. As usual, innocent writers/publishers pay for the dirty deeds of others.

Of course, it could be a glitch. They happen. But they seem to be happening a lot lately, considering that I can recall at least five people getting this exact email and posting on the KDP forums asking what happened. Each person swears they aren't using illicit methods to get page reads. Now, they might all be lying, but I tend to think it's all just like what happened to the OP.

Amazon has screwed up, and the sooner it's bumped up to the [email protected] email the better. Maybe if they get enough emails from people having their accounts jerked out from under them without at least a warning, something will be tweaked.

Meanwhile, the scammers keep on twisting the system to their advantage, pulling in money and getting bonuses on top of it.


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## Sarah Shaw (Feb 14, 2015)

she-la-ti-da said:


> Maybe if they get enough emails from people having their accounts jerked out from under them without at least a warning, something will be tweaked.


And maybe if enough people (like me) are scared off from ever trying KU by it they'll think twice. I thought it would be a good idea to at least start my book in KU until I saw this. No more. And I'm starting to look at buying from other stores, too. It's made me realize just how helpless we'll all be if Amazon becomes the only game in town- as they're well on their way to being.


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## Antara Mann (Nov 24, 2014)

What a nightmare! I hope Pauline gets this sorted out. Like so many had already advised -- email jeff Bezos.
The suspicious borrows and and the fake generator accounts give some ideas for possible crime/suspense novel, though


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

LadyG said:


> I've been reading through this, and it reminded me of a conversation that took place here on KBoards a while ago. I don't remember the details, but there was an author who saw a sudden, unexplained spike in free downloads of his book that made no sense at all. Tens of thousands of downloads that weren't reflected in the rankings, and it turned into a rather heated discussion on whether they were real downloads or a system glitch of some sort.
> 
> Is there any chance the OP's sudden spike in pages read is the same sort of thing?


There was no accompanying rise in rank for the folk who saw those spikes in downloads. The OP here says the book went to maybe a #3000 rank, which is equivalent to about 70 sales/borrows. So it appears the book was actually borrowed unlike the free DL glitch.

Looking a bit closer, we can take the 25,000 page reads in a single day and divide by 70 borrows to get a full read-through KENPC of 357. That seems consistent with a typical novel.

From that behavior, it seems like it's not JUST a spike in borrows or that folk eventually read through a book they got through a promo. What is unusual here is that it appears the book got borrowed and read through completely by the exact same number of borrowers all within the same day. THIS is the behavior that looks like a scam in Amazon's eyes. Yes, they should be able to track back to see where those borrows came from. Just as they likely know during what period the read-throughs were all recorded. They might have all come within the same hour for all we know. Maybe all the books being read all the way through in a 24-hour period isn't enough to trigger, but having them all hit within 6 hours or 2 hours or 1 hour is. We can't see that detail, but the tracking software can.

I'm not passing judgement on the OP, just pointing out the behavior seen in the account that likely triggered the investigation, and to maybe help assure others running promos that normal promo sales and read-through spikes behave very differently and are unlikely to trigger any flags.

I agree Amazon can be a little fast on the ban hammer. However, I also see an account that was purged a couple of weeks ago because the author was keyword stuffing titles and stuffing in the same unrelated bonus books into each of their titles (including translations and military and shifter and erotic and clean romance as bonuses in historical romance titles). Nothing about the books was changed, yet the titles all got reinstated a few days ago. I can't even begin to understand the criteria Amazon is using to do its clean-up sweeps.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

As usual, Amazon is trying to automate this, because heaven forbid, they might have to put a Real Person (TM) onto this. And as we all know "To err is human, but to completely eff things up requires a computer". This is the first law of IT.


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## jazzywaltz (Jan 3, 2016)

Pauline Creeden said:


> Wow - do you think he'd really care, though? I guess it wouldn't hurt to at least say something...


I emailed Jeff when my multi-author boxed set was unfairly pulled from Amazon, and within 24 hours I had a rep calling me and it got sorted out. Of course, in this instance some 1500 pre-orders were lost, and I also had a ton of other people email him about the same issue, so it got their attention. You might consider asking your fans and author friends to email as well.

Very sorry this happened to you, btw. Hope it gets sorted soon.


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## Joshua Edward Smith (Jun 17, 2016)

Pauline Creeden said:


> I have been in contact with them for over a week now, and am currently just in suspension while they look into this. Needless to say that if I get my account back, I will be pulling all my books from KU.


When you say you "have been in contact with them" who is the "them" in that sentence? Because in my experience, there are three completely different support organizations at Amazon. There is one at CreateSpace, another at KDP, and a third at Amazon proper. Since this is a KDP issue, I think you will find that you get a much better response working with them. Fill out the form here: https://kdp.amazon.com/contact-us

I've never gone more than a day without hearing back from them. And in one case* when they needed to deal with Amazon proper, they checked in with me daily just to say "we haven't forgotten about you; we're working on it." Based on the time of day they responded and some of the names of the support people, I think they are in India.

*I wrote about this rather absurd experience here: https://alfageeek.wordpress.com/2016/05/24/attempting-amazon-ads/


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## RuthNestvold (Jan 4, 2012)

Crazy and scary. I hope it gets resolved soon! *hugs*


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## Donna White Glaser (Jan 12, 2011)

Looks like a similar situation happened to PJ Bayliss too. I don't know her details but here is the link to the post where she describes her experience. https://pjbayliss.com/2016/06/06/steal-my-books-please/ At least this mean there's hope for Pauline!


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## VEVO (Feb 9, 2012)

emilycantore said:


> Scammers have a long history of mixing in legitimate accounts to hide themselves. The review sellers do it all the time - five star generic reviews on permafrees to establish credibility and then when they post a paid fake review its hard to spot.
> 
> I see them turn up on my permafrees quite a bit. Then Amazon sweeps through and a bunch of reviews vanish. It would be super easy to accuse me of buying reviews because I have scam reviews on my books!
> 
> ...


that might be what happened. Scammers creating KU "farm" accounts to "farm" but in order to make it look legit, they "farm" none scam books to hide their activity.

Amazon need a real person to double check the "machine" before banning because innocent authors will get caught up in the middle of this.

KU is very easy to scam because it cost $10 a month for an account. But if that scammer account can read many books, the KU payout will be in many multiples of that $10 investment.


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## Tymber Dalton (Mar 6, 2016)

Is it possible the problem stemmed from this issue using a long link?

http://www.gwendolynkiste.com/Blog/how-writers-ruin-their-amazon-links-yes-you-probably-do-it-too/


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## Gina Black (Mar 15, 2011)

What doesn't make sense to me is that they wouldn't see that 25,000 page day as an anomaly. If the OP was scamming, one would think she wouldn't do it only on a single day... 

However, as a result of reading this, if I ever see anything like that happen on my account, I'll write them and ask if it's a glitch on their end...


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## Donna White Glaser (Jan 12, 2011)

Gina Black said:


> However, as a result of reading this, if I ever see anything like that happen on my account, I'll write them and ask if it's a glitch on their end...


Me too.


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## horrordude1973 (Sep 20, 2014)

I had a book banned a couple years ago due to "content guidelines" and tried to figure out why or what I could change. All they did was said they were looking into it and were super vague about it. After about a month or so they told me after further review, my book was back up for sale. At the time I had a few trolls who had been leaving lots of bad reviews and harassing me and my readers on social media. So I think someone had reported the book for something, maybe multiple times. 

I'm led to believe in these instances something triggers an automated ban. But once you inquire about it they get people on it. It may take a bit but I hope this gets sorted out as well and soon once some human eyes have a chance to look at it.


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## mach 5 (Dec 5, 2015)

Tymber Dalton said:


> Is it possible the problem stemmed from this issue using a long link?
> 
> http://www.gwendolynkiste.com/Blog/how-writers-ruin-their-amazon-links-yes-you-probably-do-it-too/


I guess that's a possibility - BUT even if it wasn't the cause here, everyone should read the article and make sure they aren't doing their links like that, including when they are sharing other people's links if they can remember to think about it. Very interesting and thank you for posting it!


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## writerbee (May 10, 2013)

This is so terrifying, partly b/c I don't really understand what it is the OP supposedly did wrong, according to Amazon.  Just the notion that Amazon can kill your account, with no warning, no real explanation, no apparent recourse.....? Should everyone here ask Jef Bezos WTF is going on? (not in those words ;-p) 
I hope this problem gets fixed soon. Please keep us posted! 

DMac
w/a Victoria Hodge


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## anotherpage (Apr 4, 2012)

Crazy stuff.


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## EmmaS (Jul 15, 2014)

This is awful. Pauline, I'm so sorry you have to deal with this. I hope it gets sorted out soon!


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## Anonymously Anonymous (Sep 25, 2015)

I un-clicked the automatic renewal to un-enroll, but there's still some time before the end date. Any idea how fast un-enrollment happens when the end day arrives? Hours? Some time that same day? A couple days?

I was making a little money off of my books being in KU, but these heavy hammer tactics are too worrisome to make it worth my while any longer. I have enough stress in my life.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

My blog post on this seems to be getting reads beyond the KB community. (Annnd the graphic illustrates how pathetic my site traffic usually is ... heh, heh. Yeah.  ) Hopefully we can bring some pressure to bear ... if Amazon is sensitive to bad PR. Always an open question, that. They're bent on their mission, that's for sure.










ETA: Whoa. Just noticed there are 52 unapproved comments.


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

Becca Mills said:


> My blog post on this seems to be getting reads beyond the KB community. (Annnd the graphic illustrates how pathetic my site traffic usually is ... heh, heh. Yeah.  ) Hopefully we can bring some pressure to bear ... if Amazon is sensitive to bad PR. Always an open question, that. They're bent on their mission, that's for sure.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That's because passive voice linked to it Becca http://www.thepassivevoice.com/


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## Guest (Jun 17, 2016)

I saw your post shared in the Smarter Artist Facebook group (Self Publishing podcast guys group), which may also explain the traffic boost


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## 31842 (Jan 11, 2011)

Just to add another herring that may or may not be red to this mix... I noticed that everyone who has reported their account suspended has participated in a Thunderclap.  Again, could just be coincidence, but it does look like a common denominator.  Perhaps there is something going on with that program that is triggering the red flags...?


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

I can vouch that Pauline is a REAL author selling real books. She's been an author friend of mine for years and holds to the highest standards when promoting her books. 

This is definitely a mistake on Ammy's part.
I'm so glad I pulled all of my books out of KU.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Mark E. Cooper said:


> That's because passive voice linked to it Becca http://www.thepassivevoice.com/


So awesome. Thanks to Passive Guy and to whomever alerted him!


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## Nancy_G (Jun 22, 2015)

KateDanley said:


> Just to add another herring that may or may not be red to this mix... I noticed that everyone who has reported their account suspended has participated in a Thunderclap. Again, could just be coincidence, but it does look like a common denominator. Perhaps there is something going on with that program that is triggering the red flags...?


Yikes! I pulled out of a multi-author promotion using Thunderclap, now so glad I did (if that's the case).


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

I'm not coming here frequently, but I just clicked on a link to your blog through Facebook. Pauline is a FB friend of mine too, and I've known her for years through groups we both belong to.


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## Jake Kerr (Aug 6, 2014)

Thunderclap is an interesting lead, but the connection between their business model and massive KU borrows seems tenuous.


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## walkingwithapen (Aug 5, 2015)

Long time lurker, firstish time poster. First, I'm so sorry this is happening to you Pauline. I really do hope it gets sorted out. This has been added to the list of fuel for recurring nightmares.

Also, what I don't think anyone's pointed out yet and what feels to me as an even bigger slap to the face is that there are KNOWN PLAGIARIZERS who have had individual books pulled down from the store and yet their accounts are still active and well. And these plagiarizers are blatant, some have had multiple lawsuits thrown at them and many of them have been dragged by the media and the public to hell and back. Yet their accounts have never been hit by the ban-hammer. Why? Because it doesn't affect Amazon's bottom line? Laura Harner comes to mind as one of the most recent. She published a book a few months ago which I can't find anymore probably because it was plagiarized once again... so why is the rest of her library still up? It just sucks to think Amazon is so quick to shut down a hardworking author's account and potentially ruin her livelihood/career over something so obscure. Isn't there anything we can do? I'm not very educated in the union topic but can't something be formed? A hundred joined voices has to be louder than a hundred scattered ones? Heck, even a WoW guild at this point may help.


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## MissingAlaska (Apr 28, 2014)

KateDanley said:


> Just to add another herring that may or may not be red to this mix... I noticed that everyone who has reported their account suspended has participated in a Thunderclap. Again, could just be coincidence, but it does look like a common denominator. Perhaps there is something going on with that program that is triggering the red flags...?


Forgive my ignorance, but what is a Thunderclap?


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## Donna White Glaser (Jan 12, 2011)

Becca Mills said:


> So awesome. Thanks to Passive Guy and to whomever alerted him!


Me.


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## Vinny OHare (May 3, 2013)

Tymber Dalton said:


> Is it possible the problem stemmed from this issue using a long link?
> 
> http://www.gwendolynkiste.com/Blog/how-writers-ruin-their-amazon-links-yes-you-probably-do-it-too/


Very good observation. All authors should red this and use the short link. I can't tell you how many are submitted to us and the links end up broken or not working because of a space or & in the url.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Donna White Glaser said:


> Me.


<cheers!>


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## Taking my troll a$$ outta here (Apr 8, 2013)

walkingwithapen said:


> Long time lurker, firstish time poster. First, I'm so sorry this is happening to you Pauline. I really do hope it gets sorted out. This has been added to the list of fuel for recurring nightmares.
> 
> Also, what I don't think anyone's pointed out yet and what feels to me as an even bigger slap to the face is that there are KNOWN PLAGIARIZERS who have had individual books pulled down from the store and yet their accounts are still active and well. And these plagiarizers are blatant, some have had multiple lawsuits thrown at them and many of them have been dragged by the media and the public to hell and back. Yet their accounts have never been hit by the ban-hammer. Why? Because it doesn't affect Amazon's bottom line? Laura Harner comes to mind as one of the most recent. She published a book a few months ago which I can't find anymore probably because it was plagiarized once again... so why is the rest of her library still up? It just sucks to think Amazon is so quick to shut down a hardworking author's account and potentially ruin her livelihood/career over something so obscure. Isn't there anything we can do? I'm not very educated in the union topic but can't something be formed? A hundred joined voices has to be louder than a hundred scattered ones? Heck, even a WoW guild at this point may help.


I was thinking the exact same thing (re:Harner).


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

I can't see how promotion sites come into this. Promotion sites are for free or reduced price books, or with possibly services to send out ARCs for reviews and legitimately so. This is also not even about promo  sites that quote guaranteed downloads.

The problem here is with the  click farms in question, they are not to boost free downloads, or price promotions, but to garner large numbers of borrows and page reads all in one day. That would involve people not only setting up a free KU account to join the 30 days free borrowing program, but also for them opening each book on the last page. 

Amazon are being very specific here "We are reaching out to you because we have detected that borrows for your books are originating from systematically generated accounts"

Tell me any promo site that offers/boasts it can increase borrows and page reads only? I have never heard of any. Increased borrows are usually a biproduct of visibility after a successful free promo.

Amazon will know exactly the IP of where these "sytematically" opened accounts that borrowed and created page reads for the book in question came from. They will also know what other books, if any, these accounts clicked to borrow. They will also know the details of others with the same problem. From that they will be able to make some deductions when looking into the matter and taking into account the history and considerations put forward by the author.


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## SunshineOnMe (Jan 11, 2014)

Tymber Dalton said:


> Is it possible the problem stemmed from this issue using a long link?
> 
> http://www.gwendolynkiste.com/Blog/how-writers-ruin-their-amazon-links-yes-you-probably-do-it-too/


Thanks for sharing~


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## Nancy_G (Jun 22, 2015)

Vinny OHare said:


> Very good observation. All authors should red this and use the short link. I can't tell you how many are submitted to us and the links end up broken or not working because of a space or & in the url.


But then we read this on submission forms like yours..."_Please post your link to your book on Amazon. Do not use a link shortener like bitly or your entry will be rejected. We also do not accept affiliate links._" What do we do then?

ETA: Nevermind, corrected on next page!


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## Zelah Meyer (Jun 15, 2011)

I have deleted this post as I do not consent to the new Terms of Service that Vertical Scope are attempting to retrospectively apply to our content.  I am forced to manually replace my content as, at time of editing, their representative has instructed moderators not to delete posts or accounts when users request it, and Vertical Scope have implied that they will deal with account deletion requests by anonymising accounts, which would leave personally identifying information in my posts.

I joined under the previous ownership and have posted over the years under different Terms of Service.  I do not consent to my name, content, or intellectual properties being used by Vertical Scope or any other entity that they sell or licence my data to.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Nancy Glynn said:


> But then we read this on submission forms like yours..."_Please post your link to your book on Amazon. Do not use a link shortener like bitly or your entry will be rejected. We also do not accept affiliate links._" What do we do then?


Nancy, the short link is just this -- https://www.amazon.com/Black-21-Golden-Hills-Legacy-ebook/dp/B00YATEWDS -- instead of something like this -- https://www.amazon.com/Black-21-Golden-Hills-Legacy-ebook/dp/B00YATEWDS/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1466191175&sr=1-1&keywords=black+21. This isn't a shortened link, like Bitly produces. It's just the shortest functional natural link to the book page.

Pauline's problem isn't connected to URL forms. At least, I don't see any way in which it could be connected.


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## DEM (Jul 15, 2014)

Pauline-

I give you my total support. To be falsely accused is horrible. However, worse is to be judged by Amazon's unknown ruling hierarchy without benefit of representation and evenhanded rules. Your livelihood is at stake.

For me, it is shocking to realize that there are "authors" out there who probably have received "our" bonuses without having earned them. There are groups of people who could be doing anything with their computer hacking and machinations to deprive us all of our fair earnings. *Quire frankly, I just never realized that the KDP Select Game could be a "big money pyramid scheme" where unworthy people would invade the monetary reward process. *

*Amazon has created a "game" they evidently can't judge, or control, properly to our detriment--a scheme that makes it worthy of hacking and dishonesty. They admitted this by suspending Pauline, and by admitting that they have to monitor for fraud in the first instance. *

KDP Select is fatally flawed.

Dale, author


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## Nancy_G (Jun 22, 2015)

Thanks, guys. I just went back to that article and saw this..._So what can you do to fix it? In the end, this turns out to be one of those great problems because the solution is insanely simple. Just delete everything after the ten-character ASIN (Amazon Standard Identification Number). That's it. Really. It's super simple and will take you no more than two seconds. A TWO-SECOND FIX. If only everything in life was this easy_. Makes sense and will do that from now on.


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## MorganKegan (Jan 10, 2013)

To link to your book on Amazon, all you need is http://amzn.com/YOURASIN

Pretty short, right?

(Edited to add) So, merely as an example , mine is http://amzn.com/B00I3GMCRM


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## 555aaa (Jan 28, 2014)

You don't even need the book title in the short link, just the ASIN and the dp tag like this:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01GK5QHCI

That's not the same as using bitly, which obscures that the link is to Amazon as the "home URL." It's perfectly OK to use the above form on your google or FB ads AFAIK. I really don't like the link obfuscators because they can send you off to some scam site. With the above form, you know you are linking to some Amazon product of some sort.


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## Gone To Croatan (Jun 24, 2011)

DEM said:


> I just never realized that the KDP Select Game could be a "big money pyramid scheme" where unworthy people would invade the monetary reward process.


It's not KDP Select, it's KU. You just get enrolled automatically in KU if you enrol in Select (unless they changed that).

KU removes the price mechanism between readers and writers. For just $9.99 a month you can create a unending source of income by publishing scam books and borrowing them. As soon as Amazon did that, it was inevitable that many scammers would use it to suck money out of Amazon at minimal cost to them.

The whole thing is broken. Which is why most book subscription services have shut down or restricted the amount of borrowing to a level where it's not a problem.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Becca Mills said:


> Okay, that's sort of a terrifying thought.
> 
> Still think you should email him, Pauline.
> 
> I bet whatever caused that spike is the source of the problem. BTW, do you mean 25K pages read, or borrows of entire books?


I did email Jeff. I've known Pauline for at least six years. She is well-known in Christian self publishing and small press circles. She's won awards for her books, and she needs to be re-instated. Not everything she does is self published. She's building a steady readership, and we as self publishers need to have warnings first, not banning as a first step.


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## 3rotic (Mar 28, 2013)

Sorry to hear this, OP. Thank you for starting this thread and letting us know.

This sort of thing scares the bejesus out of me.

Curious, though-- I've heard it said that this sort of thing can only really harm us prawny authors. Why is that? If I were raking in a few thousand bucks a month, would I be less at risk? Are only those authors with Amazon reps immune to this kind of automatic ban, or is anyone fair game? Heck, what does one had to do to get an Amazon rep of their own?


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## juliatheswede (Mar 26, 2014)

This is all so horrible. Isn't there a way we can band together to help Pauline? Send Amazon a mass petition or something?


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## 3rotic (Mar 28, 2013)

juliatheswede said:


> This is all so horrible. Isn't there a way we can band together to help Pauline? Send Amazon a mass petition or something?


This. I'm hoping that if the higher-ups get enough complaints they'll be forced to realize this isn't a good way to deal with these issues.

Not that I expect them to care about our livelihoods-- but if word gets out that you can get booted out of KDP for no good reason, then Amazon can probably expect at least some writers to bail out of KU. Maybe a lot of them.


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## MissingAlaska (Apr 28, 2014)

3rotic said:


> Curious, though-- I've heard it said that this sort of thing can only really harm us prawny authors. Why is that? If I were raking in a few thousand bucks a month, would I be less at risk? Are only those authors with Amazon reps immune to this kind of automatic ban, or is anyone fair game? Heck, what does one had to do to get an Amazon rep of their own?


This is probably occurring among best-selling authors but getting lost in the data.

An additional 25,000 pages read for someone who gets 1,000,000 pages read in a month is hard to tease apart statistically (using automated algorithms). That many pages on one day for a writer whose daily page reads is typically in the dozens/hundreds stands out.


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## JB Rowley (Jan 29, 2012)

Nancy Glynn said:


> Thanks, guys. I just went back to that article and saw this..._So what can you do to fix it? In the end, this turns out to be one of those great problems because the solution is insanely simple. Just delete everything after the ten-character ASIN (Amazon Standard Identification Number). That's it. Really. It's super simple and will take you no more than two seconds. A TWO-SECOND FIX. If only everything in life was this easy_. Makes sense and will do that from now on.


You get the short natural link if you access your book on Amazon via your KDP bookshelf - under where it says 'View on Amazon'.


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## Clint Hollingsworth (Nov 24, 2014)

This is horrific!

I'm *really* reconsidering being Amazon exclusive now.

I hope they treat you like a human being and work with you.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Folks, 

We're discussing this in the smoke-filled admin caves now.  Please keep it civil.  I'm leaving the post in place for the time being.

EDIT:  Also, this thread is about a serious issue with implications for both the OP and other authors.  ""Popcorn"posts will be removed.

EDIT:  The poster removed her own post and has apologized; I've edited other posts so that the conversation can continue without disruption..



Betsy


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## Sarah Shaw (Feb 14, 2015)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> We're discussing this in the smoke-filled admin caves now. Please keep it civil. I'm leaving the post in place for the time being.


Thanks, Betsy. I debated saying something, but then thought, "Nah, I'm sure Admin is on it."


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

statoun said:


> Thanks, Betsy. I debated saying something, but then thought, "Nah, I'm sure Admin is on it."


Thanks!

Betsy


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## KevinH (Jun 29, 2013)

MorganKegan said:


> To link to your book on Amazon, all you need is http://amzn.com/YOURASIN
> 
> Pretty short, right?
> 
> (Edited to add) So, merely as an example , mine is http://amzn.com/B00I3GMCRM


This. If you go to your book's product page and scroll down, you'll see "Share" on the right side with a little envelope next to it. Click it and it'll bring up the short link. Basically, Amazon has done the heavy lifting for you.


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## John Van Stry (May 25, 2011)

Edward M. Grant said:


> It's not KDP Select, it's KU. You just get enrolled automatically in KU if you enrol in Select (unless they changed that).
> 
> KU removes the price mechanism between readers and writers. For just $9.99 a month you can create a unending source of income by publishing scam books and borrowing them. As soon as Amazon did that, it was inevitable that many scammers would use it to suck money out of Amazon at minimal cost to them.
> 
> The whole thing is broken. Which is why most book subscription services have shut down or restricted the amount of borrowing to a level where it's not a problem.


The problem with KU is that they need people, real PEOPLE to manage it aggressively. Not robots, not algorithms. Because computers are not smart enough to pick out the scams. Every time you put in a new routine or program, someone is going to game it. 
The problem Amazon is facing, is that they aren't hiring people to run this program who understand human nature or game theory. There are ways of dealing with these problems, but you need a team of people to oversee it and make it work reliably. The folks at Amazon just can't wrap their heads around that yet.


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## SomeoneElse (Jan 5, 2016)

I believe the OP when she says she didn't pay for click-farm reads, but there's no evidence one way or the other - for us, or Amazon. It seems that, for whatever reason (same title or similar ASIN being the two main ones suggested in this thread) click-farm readers 'read' her book. She had no control over that, and Amazon was doing what we'd be asking them to in any other situation - shutting down what they saw as a scammer.

I hope Amazon do reinstate her. It's awful to find yourself looking guilty when you're not - much worse, I think, than being caught when you are - and I'd rather give her the benefit of the doubt. They shouldn't pay out for the phony reads, but they should give her a chance to continue selling.


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## Guest (Jun 17, 2016)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Lillian3--
> 
> If you have evidence to support what you are saying, we'll be glad to hear it. Otherwise, at this point, your post appears to be "designed to inflame" which is against Forum Decorum.
> 
> Betsy


Ah, sorry. Just saw this post from the mod. Disregard and delete these posts then. My mistake. I've probably had a little too much wine and was just talking out of turn.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

John Van Stry said:


> The problem with KU is that they need people, real PEOPLE to manage it aggressively. Not robots, not algorithms. Because computers are not smart enough to pick out the scams. Every time you put in a new routine or program, someone is going to game it.
> The problem Amazon is facing, is that they aren't hiring people to run this program who understand human nature or game theory. There are ways of dealing with these problems, but you need a team of people to oversee it and make it work reliably. The folks at Amazon just can't wrap their heads around that yet.


We need "Make KDP people!" bumper stickers. 



Decon said:


> Well now, you obviously set up this account just to say that. This part is interesting
> 
> "A live person from the title submission department looked at her account activity and sent an email suspending the account and telling her to declare: "I will cease manipulation of the Kindle platform and/or Kindle programs."
> 
> ...


Let's not, eh? Once the thread is locked, we'll have trouble keeping track of how Pauline's situation plays out.

Several people on the KDP forums reported receiving the take-a-pledge language Lillian3 quoted. My guess is that KDP decided it was too much work to wait on pledges from suspected black-hats, given the amount of scamming that's going on. Lillian3 is probably a KDP forum user and saw the language quoted there.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Don't worry, we're not going to lock the thread.  And since some posts have been edited (by the way, y'all can delete your own posts as long as they don't start a thread), we'll be doing some editing ourselves as some posts no longer make any sense.

Thanks for the civility, folks.

Betsy
KB Mod


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## MorganKegan (Jan 10, 2013)

Becca Mills said:


> We need "Make KDP people!" bumper stickers.


Did anyone else read this and immediately think Soylent Green? KDP is made of people!


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

MorganKegan said:


> Did anyone else read this and immediately think Soylent Green? KDP is made of people!


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## JB Rowley (Jan 29, 2012)

Lisa Grace said:


> ... and we as self publishers need to have warnings first, not banning as a first step.


Hear! Hear!


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## DesertRatRose (Nov 4, 2015)

Moist_Tissue said:


> My gut is telling it may be BKnights. Not that they were doing anything shady because they have always seemed professional in their dealings. But I think there was a crackdown (lawsuit?) with Fiverr, so maybe Amazon is scrutinizing all of those connected?
> 
> Then again, a portion of my stomach was removed so it's a bit unpredictable.


I read about this incident on a FB group that I'm in. Actually, as soon as the OP mentioned BKnights, my gut told me the same. I've stopped advertising with them completely. My alarm went off regarding them for a few reasons. First, they just accept any books, which tells me that they're just collecting money. Second, I always received around the same amount of free downloads--which always presents a red-flag in my opinion. And the few times I ran 99¢ ads with them, I received a very low ROI. The disparity between paid and free was too high for my taste.

So. They may be legit but in my book a lot doesn't ad up so it's my choice to stay away from them. And my instincts may have been right.

_Moderator stepping in here: For those joining the thread late, please note that since the post quoted above, Pauline has determined that the book in question had NOT been promoted via BKnights and she has reiterated that she has every faith in BKnights. Please see the now edited OP and http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,237687.msg3310798.html#msg3310798. Thanks! --Betsy_


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

DesertRatRose said:


> I read about this incident on a FB group that I'm in. Actually, as soon as the OP mentioned BKnights, my gut told me the same. I've stopped advertising with them completely. My alarm went off regarding them for a few reasons. First, they just accept any books, which tells me that they're just collecting money. Second, I always received around the same amount of free downloads--which always presents a red-flag in my opinion. And the few times I ran 99¢ ads with them, I received a very low ROI. The disparity between paid and free was too high for my taste.
> 
> So. They may be legit but in my book a lot doesn't ad up so it's my choice to stay away from them. And my instincts may have been right.


It's good to be cautious, but we're pretty confident of Bknights around here. Among other things, if he were using a click-farm instead of a mailing list of real people, he would never have to give authors refunds following unproductive ads, which he routinely does.


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## SomeoneElse (Jan 5, 2016)

DesertRatRose said:


> I read about this incident on a FB group that I'm in. Actually, as soon as the OP mentioned BKnights, my gut told me the same. I've stopped advertising with them completely. My alarm went off regarding them for a few reasons. First, they just accept any books, which tells me that they're just collecting money. Second, I always received around the same amount of free downloads--which always presents a red-flag in my opinion. And the few times I ran 99¢ ads with them, I received a very low ROI. The disparity between paid and free was too high for my taste.
> 
> So. They may be legit but in my book a lot doesn't ad up so it's my choice to stay away from them. And my instincts may have been right.


I know this is a long thread, but the OP has stated (and modified her initial post to say) that the promo she had run with BKnights was both a little while ago and NOT on the book in question. There is absolutely zero motivation for any promo site to have directed this traffic.


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## rohini (May 31, 2016)

As soon as I read this thread I went into my account and unchecked the automatic renewal on select. I have three books there and was quite pleased with the reads until I read this. 
I do hope your problem gets solved soon.

I have been reading kboards but this is my first comment.


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

DesertRatRose said:


> I read about this incident on a FB group that I'm in. Actually, as soon as the OP mentioned BKnights, my gut told me the same. I've stopped advertising with them completely. My alarm went off regarding them for a few reasons. First, they just accept any books, which tells me that they're just collecting money. Second, I always received around the same amount of free downloads--which always presents a red-flag in my opinion. And the few times I ran 99¢ ads with them, I received a very low ROI. The disparity between paid and free was too high for my taste.
> 
> So. They may be legit but in my book a lot doesn't ad up so it's my choice to stay away from them. And my instincts may have been right.


If they were just collecting money, they wouldn't immediately refund your money when your books don't sell.


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## Verve (Jun 18, 2016)

I've been lurking for quite a long time, but this thread disturbed me enough that I had to say something. I had plans to release some material on KU in the near future (my first release ever!), but this is definitely a wake-up call. Even though I may get fewer reads, I'm staying away from KU now! If there is a satisfactory resolution to all of this, I may change my mind--but not until then.

My condolences to the OP and I hope things work out.


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## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

I've always had reasonable paid sales using BKnights for the price.  Never needed a refund.  As I understand it, click farms don't generate paid sales.

When fake reads are identified as coming from a member of a 'click farm', is that member barred from Amazon?

Or not?


Philip


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## celadon (Sep 12, 2015)

rohini said:


> As soon as I read this thread I went into my account and unchecked the automatic renewal on select. I have three books there and was quite pleased with the reads until I read this.
> I do hope your problem gets solved soon.
> 
> I have been reading kboards but this is my first comment.


Welcome to Kboards, rohini! 

And... you and me both. I've unchecked the automatic renewal on my one book that is in KU. The borrows were pretty good, but going wide has been good to my other book, so...

Also, welcome Verve! This thread has been bringing out the lurkers! It's so alarming, truly disturbing, what is going on...


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## Adrienne Lecter (Jun 3, 2016)

Honestly, I'm not concerned about KU and I won't pull my books. But for the time being until this has cleared up I won't advertize anywhere and just let amazon do its thing organically for those I do schedule.


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## SomeoneElse (Jan 5, 2016)

Adrienne Lecter said:


> Honestly, I'm not concerned about KU and I won't pull my books. But for the time being until this has cleared up I won't advertize anywhere and just let amazon do its thing organically for those I do schedule.


I'm not saying there aren't risky advertising sites out there, but are people even reading this thread? The OP has modified her first post to clarify she had run _no promos at all_ on the book that had the spike which caused her account to be deleted. She had run promos on other books. This incident is not related to promos - what would a promo site have to gain from directing a bunch of click-farm traffic to a book they weren't asked to promote?

There seems to be a bit of panic where people are deciding either that promo sites are sending click-farm traffic to books or that the spikes from promos are causing Amazon to decide activity is abnormal, therefore scammy. The original post with Amazon's letter states that Amazon linked the reads to systemically generated accounts, i.e. scam accounts. That's why they pulled her account.

Most likely due to a mistake, a bunch of click-farm accounts have 'read' the OP's book. Amazon noticed and assumed she hired them to do so and pulled her account. It's a terrible thing to happen, and it does worry me because it could happen to anyone, but blaming promo sites for this is a bit ridiculous.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

I want to reiterate that BKnights (or any other promoter) was NOT involved in the situation described in the OP, which Pauline has edited to make clear.  I've also edited a few posts that were made before the promotional situation was clarified, including the one DesertRatRose quoted.

Thanks to our members for helping to make that clear, and for doing so civilly.

Betsy
KB Moderator


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## Adrienne Lecter (Jun 3, 2016)

LSMay said:


> I'm not saying there aren't risky advertising sites out there, but are people even reading this thread? The OP has modified her first post to clarify she had run _no promos at all_ on the book that had the spike which caused her account to be deleted. She had run promos on other books. This incident is not related to promos - what would a promo site have to gain from directing a bunch of click-farm traffic to a book they weren't asked to promote?
> 
> There seems to be a bit of panic where people are deciding either that promo sites are sending click-farm traffic to books or that the spikes from promos are causing Amazon to decide activity is abnormal, therefore scammy. The original post with Amazon's letter states that Amazon linked the reads to systemically generated accounts, i.e. scam accounts. That's why they pulled her account.
> 
> Most likely due to a mistake, a bunch of click-farm accounts have 'read' the OP's book. Amazon noticed and assumed she hired them to do so and pulled her account. It's a terrible thing to happen, and it does worry me because it could happen to anyone, but blaming promo sites for this is a bit ridiculous.


Yes, I have been reading most, if not all of the posts, and still stated my opinion. Everyone's running screaming from KU, a lot of them first time authors who might set the takeoff of their career back months that way. I was just saying there are some people who see things differently. I'm one of them. We don't know how stupid amazon's bots are. That's why I don't want anything except what I directly control linking to my books right now, so no paid promotion for my next countdown deal. I didn't say I thought the newsletter services are to blame, but do we know for a fact what the next tweaks or iterations of the bot algorithms will be? Kudos to you if you can predict it. I'm being careful. That way I can test how much organic traffic amazon drives with its own promos unaided. Already got that data for free days last term, now I'm doing it for the countdown deal. If in three months from now this issue, in all its forms, is cleared up, I can try the countdown deal with newsletter site promos.

edited to add: and yes, I'm aware I should likely kill the affiliate-linked links to my books in my signature, too. But if the "mistake" really stemmed from the click-farm accounts targeting prawn authors that recently advertised elsewhere I still think I can get away with that.


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## k.j.simmill (Jun 18, 2016)

I have joined specifically to reply to this thread.

Please check your bank account for any fraudulent transactions. This sounds so much like what happened to me. The only difference being I have fraud teams already behind me and a reference for not only identity theft and but a corresponding an attempt on my bank account that fit with the royalty payments that would have been made had Amazon not negated them. Go over your bank with a fine tooth comb this could be a whole new type of fraud, and it is not only terrifying but soul destroying. Honestly screw the money, these people are destroying dreams and careers,and for what?

I wrote a blog post about what happened and shared it on FB groups, someone in the group posted a link to this thread, and another group posted a link to a different author with the same issue too. I'm not sure if either yours or this other person's banks have also been targeted like in my case, but it is something you need to check. When I gave Amazon all the details of the fraud and investigation they sided with me due to the evidence. I've detailed my experience here, perhaps it can help. I am trying to spread the warning as far as possible. I was lucky.

https://darrienia.com/2016/06/18/authors-beware-a-new-danger-for-ku-authors/


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

k.j.simmill said:


> I have joined specifically to reply to this thread.
> 
> Please check your bank account for any fraudulent transactions. This sounds so much like what happened to me. The only difference being I have fraud teams already behind me and a reference for not only identity theft and but a corresponding an attempt on my bank account that fit with the royalty payments that would have been made had Amazon not negated them. Go over your bank with a fine tooth comb this could be a whole new type of fraud, and it is not only terrifying but soul destroying. Honestly screw the money, these people are destroying dreams and careers,and for what?
> 
> ...


Welcome to KBoards, KJS, and thanks for sharing your experience.

Betsy


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

k.j.simmill said:


> https://darrienia.com/2016/06/18/authors-beware-a-new-danger-for-ku-authors/


That is so screwed up, I don't have words for it. I use 2 step verification or codes via text for most things. I wish KDP had 2-step.


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## PermaStudent (Apr 21, 2015)

k.j.simmill said:


> https://darrienia.com/2016/06/18/authors-beware-a-new-danger-for-ku-authors/


That's a whole new brand of messed up. Especially after threads on suspicious advertising ventures and phishing the last few months. (<--and by this, I don't mean any advertisers mentioned in this thread so far, because I use many of them regularly and without issue.)

I'm off to change my passwords...


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

you mean my normal customer account?


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

arven said:


> Yes, if that's the same account/login details you use for KDP.


Cool, that's done. I can use a text or the google authenticator I use for Mailchimp. Thanks


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

k.j.simmill said:


> I have joined specifically to reply to this thread.
> 
> Please check your bank account for any fraudulent transactions. This sounds so much like what happened to me. The only difference being I have fraud teams already behind me and a reference for not only identity theft and but a corresponding an attempt on my bank account that fit with the royalty payments that would have been made had Amazon not negated them. Go over your bank with a fine tooth comb this could be a whole new type of fraud, and it is not only terrifying but soul destroying. Honestly screw the money, these people are destroying dreams and careers,and for what?
> 
> ...


That's chilling, and no, I don't believe the attempt at withdrawal on the day the fraudulent reads would have paid out is a coincidence, either.

I see your book is still in KU, though you say above that you want out of it. That's as simple as removing it from Select. You won't be able to publish it elsewhere for the remainder of the 90-day Select term you signed up for (unless they give you permission,and in this case I would hope they do), but as long as you only have it available for purchase on Amazon, you're fulfilling the exclusivity requirement.

I assume that your author name is your legal initials/name, otherwise the connection between the bank account and publishing escapes me. I guess my obvious question to the OP would be if her name is her real name or a pen. I'm guessing not a pen, so this situation adds another reason to the list of why pseudonyms might be a good idea.

I feel confident that if the OP truly did nothing wrong, the account will be reinstated and everything will work out. I don't personally know of any cases where permabans were leveled and stuck against truly innocent account holders. Somehow I missed the bit about the row with the wife of an Amazon employee until it was mentioned far into the thread, so that may be an extenuating circumstance in this case.

It does rile me a bit that we watched the same very obvious scammers operate for two or three months and not lose their accounts yet they pull the trigger so quickly on something like this. It riles me, but does not surprise me.


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

statoun said:


> And maybe if enough people (like me) are scared off from ever trying KU by it they'll think twice. I thought it would be a good idea to at least start my book in KU until I saw this. No more. And I'm starting to look at buying from other stores, too. It's made me realize just how helpless we'll all be if Amazon becomes the only game in town- as they're well on their way to being.


It would be nice, but it's not going to happen. For every person who reads about this here and elsewhere, there are probably dozens of people who'll never see it and happily follow some SEO site telling them that KU is the greatest thing since white bread.



> I agree Amazon can be a little fast on the ban hammer. However, I also see an account that was purged a couple of weeks ago because the author was keyword stuffing titles and stuffing in the same unrelated bonus books into each of their titles (including translations and military and shifter and erotic and clean romance as bonuses in historical romance titles). Nothing about the books was changed, yet the titles all got reinstated a few days ago. I can't even begin to understand the criteria Amazon is using to do its clean-up sweeps.


It seems that again, the scammers get away with their little schemes, while others are legitimately concerned they're going to get hit for something they haven't done. I would think one day of high page reads would stand out as something aberrant, not a plan to gain a few bucks from page reads. And Amazon knows whose accounts "read" those books, and also that the OP and others haven't been gaming the system. It's ridiculous.

And yes, they need real live human beings checking Select and KU for the scammers. Bots just won't cut it. I don't believe in the apparent thinking on Amazon's part that a little collateral damage is acceptable. Livelihoods are at stake here, and better methods need to be worked out.


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## Donna White Glaser (Jan 12, 2011)

she-la-ti-da said:


> It seems that again, the scammers get away with their little schemes, while others are legitimately concerned they're going to get hit for something they haven't done. I would think one day of high page reads would stand out as something aberrant, not a plan to gain a few bucks from page reads. And Amazon knows whose accounts "read" those books, and also that the OP and others haven't been gaming the system. It's ridiculous.


But what's to stop the scammers from following, say, Bookbub emails and using their offerings to cloak their activity? Pauline was able to point to an aberrant spike but those with actual promos may miss the signs.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

LSMay said:


> I'm not saying there aren't risky advertising sites out there, but are people even reading this thread? The OP has modified her first post to clarify she had run _no promos at all_ on the book that had the spike which caused her account to be deleted. She had run promos on other books. This incident is not related to promos - what would a promo site have to gain from directing a bunch of click-farm traffic to a book they weren't asked to promote?


Let's keep in mind that we don't *know* the spike-event triggered the account closing. It seems like a reasonable guess, but who can say for sure? That's part of the larger problem, I think: so far as we know, Amazon hasn't provided Pauline with any specific information about what led to their decision. So, we're left guessing.


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## Someone (Dec 30, 2011)

All bots - good or bad - follow links

Pauline - are there any questionable books in the affected book's Also-Boughts now or any that you can remember?
( yeah, I gasped at the thought too )


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## Allyson J. (Nov 26, 2014)

I think there were people on other forums who had this same email, but they said they did no promos and saw no spike in sales/rank...yet they received the ban from Amazon. Sadly, Amazon did not ever reinstate their account. I feel very sorry for folks who may not have the wealth of information and support from kboards. They were forced to basically abandon their self publishing career through no fault of their own.


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## RedAlert (May 15, 2015)

Wow, just wow.  I read the last link given, and it, too, is a scary story.

I think someone hacked Amazon's accounts, and we just haven't heard about it yet.  The blogger had her identity stolen, AND they knew she is an author.  They pumped up her bank account, and then attacked her bank, kind of like a money laundering scheme.  Now, Amazon is fighting back.  Talk about collateral damage.

I want to know how far reaching the (assumed) hack went.  I do not have a KDP account, because I am not there yet, but I do have a regular customer account.  I LOVE buying online from Amazon.  It has been a pleasant customer experience.  We are an effective team (he he.)  But, now I am going to double check all my connections.

Instead of asking about individuals, we should be asking about the wider picture.  One thing's for sure:  no one should ever be using their personal bank account for their Amazon pay day.


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## Nicksm28 (May 16, 2016)

This is pretty unsettling.  From what I understand this sort of thing is the result of a few authors manipulating the system early on, paying for dozens or hundreds of reviews, creating fake accounts, etc.  So now if there is any sign at all of what may be manipulation- this happens, whether or not its warranted.  Hopefully this changes, at least they are looking into it for you.


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## CrissyM (Mar 14, 2012)

arven said:


> If you log into your account on the main amazon website you can set up a 2-step verification under 'change account settings' - in the password/username section. The 2SV will then apply whenever you sign into KDP as well.


That's awesome! Done. I did not know Amazon had a two step verification process.


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## RedAlert (May 15, 2015)

It's a freaky world.  If you do something that results in sales or borrows, you risk losing your account and all your money.  If you write a popular book and get a bunch of 5-stars,  you will be accused of manipulation.  If you beat the odds and win big, you can look forward to drive bys from jealous competitors.  And still you write on.

Is it better to be a mediocre, middle-of-the road hack with a few bucks coming in slowly but surely with no problems, or a brilliant, productive author who inevitably finds Jeff Bezos' number on his/her digital speed dial?    Decisions have to be made.


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## Mylius Fox (Jun 2, 2014)

Shelley K said:


> I assume that your author name is your legal initials/name, otherwise the connection between the bank account and publishing escapes me. I guess my obvious question to the OP would be if her name is her real name or a pen. I'm guessing not a pen, so this situation adds another reason to the list of why pseudonyms might be a good idea.


Hacking her Amazon account would've provided all of this information, from the bank account to the payout date and how much payment to expect to receive.
If this same thing is happening to others, it might suggest someone has access to Amazon's servers and is narrowing down the easiest targets (a certain bank that they can exploit more smoothly, etc.).


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## Kessie Carroll (Jan 15, 2014)

There's all kinds of people scamming Amazon right now. Somebody managed to get my husband's email and address, called Amazon, claiming to be him, provided the address and email. They then claimed to have never received a couple items that he had, in fact, received. Amazon refunded the money as a gift card, which the scammer immediately used to buy a 300 pair of shoes. 

My poor hubby got up that morning, checked his email, and went, "Huh?" So he called Amazon and his case was given to "a team of specialists who work on these cases". It was resolved in a few days, but it freaked us out. If this scammer could get my hubby's account robbed this way, what else might they do?


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## dianapersaud (Sep 26, 2013)

Kessie Carroll said:


> There's all kinds of people scamming Amazon right now. Somebody managed to get my husband's email and address, called Amazon, claiming to be him, provided the address and email. They then claimed to have never received a couple items that he had, in fact, received. Amazon refunded the money as a gift card, which the scammer immediately used to buy a 300 pair of shoes.
> 
> My poor hubby got up that morning, checked his email, and went, "Huh?" So he called Amazon and his case was given to "a team of specialists who work on these cases". It was resolved in a few days, but it freaked us out. If this scammer could get my hubby's account robbed this way, what else might they do?


They had to mail the shoes somewhere, right? Seems like it would be easy to catch the criminal that way.

How did the person know what your husband had ordered? In order to claim that the items weren't received they had to know what he had ordered.


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## Kessie Carroll (Jan 15, 2014)

I'm not sure. He had like fifty garglemesh emails from unknown email addresses, then emails from Amazon with refund amounts. So there was some kind of bot hacking server shenanigans going on.


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## SomeoneElse (Jan 5, 2016)

Becca Mills said:


> Let's keep in mind that we don't *know* the spike-event triggered the account closing. It seems like a reasonable guess, but who can say for sure? That's part of the larger problem, I think: so far as we know, Amazon hasn't provided Pauline with any specific information about what led to their decision. So, we're left guessing.


From the OP's letter:
"We are reaching out to you because we have detected that borrows for your books are originating from systematically generated accounts."

Honestly, I don't think Amazon were being vague or difficult here - that's what they detected, and so they assumed the OP was hiring scam accounts. Sure, they could have broken it down into books and pages and dates, but it seems like a waste of time on their end. Granted there's a tiny chance the spike might have been legit and Amazon is picking up on other borrows, but 25 000 pages read in a day for an author who usually get 2 000 pages read a month and is running no promos? It's way too much of a coincidence for me.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Allyson J. said:


> I think there were people on other forums who had this same email, but they said they did no promos and saw no spike in sales/rank...yet they received the ban from Amazon. Sadly, Amazon did not ever reinstate their account. I feel very sorry for folks who may not have the wealth of information and support from kboards. They were forced to basically abandon their self publishing career through no fault of their own.


This saddens me more than anything. Why oh why oh why do people think that Amazon = self-publishing career? Why do people LET it get to that stage?


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## Sarah Shaw (Feb 14, 2015)

dianapersaud said:


> They had to mail the shoes somewhere, right? Seems like it would be easy to catch the criminal that way.
> 
> How did the person know what your husband had ordered? In order to claim that the items weren't received they had to know what he had ordered.


It _is_ relatively easy to investigate- but as I discovered when my credit card was used to by motorcycle parts, which were sent to New Jersey (where I have never lived and know no one) most companies simply won't bother. They get reimbursed by their insurance- and all of us pay for their insurance. If fraud increases, our prices increase, but it's no real skin off the company's nose.

I was very tempted to call the police department in the town to which the parts were sent, but the credit card company told me not to. Of course, it might very well not have been possible to do anything anyway. The way these things typically work is the fraudsters are in cahoots with someone who owns or lives near an empty apartment. The items are sent, the fraudsters pick it up from the door, and no one is the wiser.


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## celadon (Sep 12, 2015)

Boyd said:


> 20k a month from KU?!


Yeah, what am I missing? A lot of people here make a tidy sum each month thanks to their sales on Amazon (.com and the International ones). Take that away and there's still Kobo, etc. but the Amazon income is nothing to sneeze at.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Boyd said:


> 20k a month from KU?!


Look, if you're a big seller, you should have your smarts and have weighed up the risks and acted accordingly. You probably have a big mailing list. Also if you're a big seller, you probably have the readership to survive (poorly, but OK) without Amazon until you get stuff sorted out. ALSO, if you're a big seller, this is unlikely to happen to you, and if it does, it's not going to take as long to reinstate, but mostly it just won't happen because any scam activity will be well-buried in other sales.

This happens to people who are not big sellers and have allowed themselves to become totally dependent on one source of publicity-generating and income.


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## Wirton Arvel (Jun 18, 2016)

I read Becca Mills' post on her blog 'the active voice' and I decided to sign up to kboards to write here too.

I see more than 4k share on fb only of that blog post, but I'm afraid Amazon will change that decision only if Select subscription renewals will start to decrease immediately during these days and many authors will write to kdp support telling why they are taking their books out of KU.

Personally I'll do it because it happens something like that to me too, and already two times! With Google Play and Amazon Affiliate .com and I'm wondering to do something else, to help you as much as possible, even if I didn't know you at all before reading that article; what about a petition? (sorry if it's not a new idea, I didn't read all comments to this thread yet)

Anyway if Amazon will not re-activate your kdp account soon I hope you'll find a different way to publish your book on amz again, like via an aggregator like smashwords (you can talk to them even if they usually don't publish on amz so easily anymore). But if they'll say no, so far there are many others you can try (usually taking 10% of the revenues). I did the same to publish again my books on Google play (sorry again if it's not a new idea, as said I didn't read all comments to this thread yet).

Or if you don't find any other better way, I'll available to do it for you, with your name of course (and with a written no profit agreement), and showing you kdp reports once in a while via remote desktop.

Meanwhile, let me know if there is anything I can do.


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## S.B. Williams (Jul 24, 2012)

Boyd said:


> I know what you mean. I really feel for what peeps are going through. I'm doing my own independent research on stuff, because overall there seems to be a pattern and because Amazon isn't great at sharing info with the vendors and I can only get a vague idea.


This. I'm doing my research too and will be keeping a close eye on my account, but pulling out of KU? No way. I'd have to go back work.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

Patty Jansen said:


> This saddens me more than anything. Why oh why oh why do people think that Amazon = self-publishing career? Why do people LET it get to that stage?


Because by the time my new billionaire romance serial had been up a month, the three 99 installments I had up on Amazon were generating more money by themselves than the entire catalogs of both of my pen names were making wide. If Amazon banned my account, 80% of my income would go away overnight. At that point I'd probably quit. There wouldn't be enough financial incentive to put in all of the work to keep going. I'd still write - I just wouldn't bother publishing it.

I'm on B&N, All Romance, Kobo, Google Play, iTunes, and all the smaller stores you can get to through Smashwords, D2D, and Streetlib. As much as I hate KU with the blinding fury of a thousand suns, I *know* that I can make more money by pulling down my books that are wide and putting them in KU. What's more, even without enrolling in KU the other stores make up a steadily decreasing percentage of my sales each month. The only sales venue where I'm actually growing is Amazon.

This is why people are in Select - even the ones who are quite well aware of the risks. It sucks, but for most of us Amazon really is the only game in town.


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## 75814 (Mar 12, 2014)

KelliWolfe said:


> Because by the time my new billionaire romance serial had been up a month, the three 99 installments I had up on Amazon were generating more money by themselves than the entire catalogs of both of my pen names were making wide. If Amazon banned my account, 80% of my income would go away overnight. At that point I'd probably quit. There wouldn't be enough financial incentive to put in all of the work to keep going. I'd still write - I just wouldn't bother publishing it.
> 
> I'm on B&N, All Romance, Kobo, Google Play, iTunes, and all the smaller stores you can get to through Smashwords, D2D, and Streetlib. As much as I hate KU with the blinding fury of a thousand suns, I *know* that I can make more money by pulling down my books that are wide and putting them in KU. What's more, even without enrolling in KU the other stores make up a steadily decreasing percentage of my sales each month. The only sales venue where I'm actually growing is Amazon.
> 
> This is why people are in Select - even the ones who are quite well aware of the risks. It sucks, but for most of us Amazon really is the only game in town.


^ This. It's easy to say go wide when you're doing well on the other platforms, but what works for some doesn't work for all. Do what's best for your business and let others do what's best for theirs.


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## 3rotic (Mar 28, 2013)

Yeah, not to go off too deeply on the KU vs Wide tangent, but...

Amazon is the only player in the game who actually knows how to sell books. I've had books available in numerous genres on every vendor out there, but Amazon sales have always provided the lion's share of royalties for me. Some have done very well going wide, though it seems to me that most hardly see any results outside of Amazon. I don't doubt that a foothold can be gained on some vendors. But to what end? Nook is on its last legs and has been limping to the grave for ages now. Google Play has the muscle to compete with the Zon but doesn't seem interested. iTunes? Better buy a Mac if you wanna go direct! Etc. None of these vendors offer me half the value that Amazon does-- as a reader OR a writer.

I'm making enough cash in KU now to quit my day job. That's a big deal, and years of going wide never allowed me that. Now, I *do* understand that there's some risk in tossing all of one's eggs into a single basket, and I hope to someday diversify my offerings across a number of vendors. But for now? KU is working for me, and it's working INCREDIBLY well.

Gotta weigh the risks. I'm just tired of people trotting out the "WHY ARE YOU EXCLUSIVE WITH AMAZON, YOU DUMMY?" meme, when they themselves would probably make a buttload more cash if they enrolled their books in KU.

For those who want to take fewer risks and NOT make Amanda M. Lee money-- sure, go wide.


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## The one with all the big dresses on the covers (Jan 25, 2016)

k.j.simmill said:


> I have joined specifically to reply to this thread.
> 
> Please check your bank account for any fraudulent transactions. This sounds so much like what happened to me. The only difference being I have fraud teams already behind me and a reference for not only identity theft and but a corresponding an attempt on my bank account that fit with the royalty payments that would have been made had Amazon not negated them. Go over your bank with a fine tooth comb this could be a whole new type of fraud, and it is not only terrifying but soul destroying. Honestly screw the money, these people are destroying dreams and careers,and for what?
> 
> ...


I've just read your blog post and wow! This is an intense situation!

I guess I'm a bit concerned/confused by the take away for other authors though - you recommend that anyone who sees an uptick in activity/interest on their book _including after a promo_ should contact Amazon  
Wouldn't that be every single author who does a promo, every single time they do a promo though? I'd be concerned if I did a promo and didn't see any increased activity on my book. Are we just supposed to stop promoting and accept that wherever our book naturally falls on release is as good as it's going to get?

Please note, this is not a criticism of you or your conclusion to this scary situation - this is just me expressing my own concerns. Being an author is already such a roller coaster of emotions - now apparently instead of being happy when we run a successful promotion that increases visibility for our book, we have to spend the next however many weeks nervously waiting to see if actually someone was illegally borrowing it so they can steal from us!

On that note, I noticed you said that while you were waiting to hear back from Amazon regarding your account closure, the royalty pay date arrived and then the attempted fraud on your bank happened. Does this mean that you were only contacted by Amazon a couple of months after the suspicious activity? (Since we're paid 2 months later.) If so, for how long had the increase in page reads lasted?

Thanks for sharing your experience with us!


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## G.L. Snodgrass (Aug 12, 2014)

Scott W. said:


> This. I'm doing my research too and will be keeping a close eye on my account, but pulling out of KU? No way. I'd have to go back work.


This


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## rex kusler (Feb 12, 2010)

Mylius Fox said:


> Hacking her Amazon account would've provided all of this information, from the bank account to the payout date and how much payment to expect to receive.
> If this same thing is happening to others, it might suggest someone has access to Amazon's servers and is narrowing down the easiest targets (a certain bank that they can exploit more smoothly, etc.).


It could be someone who works at Amazon. In 2010, while my book was in the top 100, the spelling of my name changed. I emailed KDP and got a response from somebody in India telling me to go into my account and spell it right. I explained that it was spelled correctly in my account. Someone had obviously changed the spelling in the database. Finally somebody understood the problem and put a lock on it. I changed the price of the book and it happened again, so I must have broken the lock. Eventually that book was re-published by Amazon Publishing. On the release day in 2011, I checked it and the release date had been changed to 20 years from that date. I couldn't contact anyone, because they were all in New York at the Book Expo and I didn't have access to email. The next day that problem got fixed I noticed. I never mentioned that to anybody at Amazon Publishing and they never said anything to me about it. I've had other problems that I can't go into. Amazon is huge. Book sales are only a tiny part of their revenue. If you think they care much about self-published authors, that would be wishful thinking.


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## lilywhite (Sep 25, 2010)

Shelley K said:


> It does rile me a bit that we watched the same very obvious scammers operate for two or three months and not lose their accounts yet they pull the trigger so quickly on something like this. It riles me, but does not surprise me.


Same. Unless there's something we don't know about the details (which is possible, I suppose, but the OP seems to have shared everything she knows), this is a hell of an overreaction.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

3rotic said:


> Yeah, not to go off too deeply on the KU vs Wide tangent, but...
> 
> Amazon is the only player in the game who actually knows how to sell books. I've had books available in numerous genres on every vendor out there, but Amazon sales have always provided the lion's share of royalties for me. Some have done very well going wide, though it seems to me that most hardly see any results outside of Amazon. I don't doubt that a foothold can be gained on some vendors. But to what end? Nook is on its last legs and has been limping to the grave for ages now. Google Play has the muscle to compete with the Zon but doesn't seem interested. iTunes? Better buy a Mac if you wanna go direct! Etc. None of these vendors offer me half the value that Amazon does-- as a reader OR a writer.
> 
> ...


My books are wide, but that's because I can afford to be (have a day job). It's hard to argue with the mathematics of Amazon's controlling 65-74% of the ebook market. It's simply not the case that all of us can sell three-quarters of our books to one-third of the market, the way Patty does. One runs up against numerical impossibilities, here. It seems to me the average gone-wide author will make a little more than one-third (because KU removes some competition) of their sales to one-third of the market.


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## Secret Pen Pal (Dec 27, 2013)

Sorry this happened to you. Thanks for posting. 

All the other issues aside, it's a shock. I know how I'd feel if it happened to me. I hope you're finding good ways to take care of yourself and discharge some of the stress while this ill-aimed witch hunt runs its course. I hope to see a good outcome here with your books reinstated. It's gutsy and challenging to go public with such a difficult situation. Brava to you for that.


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

Donna White Glaser said:


> But what's to stop the scammers from following, say, Bookbub emails and using their offerings to cloak their activity? Pauline was able to point to an aberrant spike but those with actual promos may miss the signs.


Nothing? It's what I'd do, if I were running a scam. Hide in plain sight, as it were.

I'm sure that the scammers have mostly been lucky, or just smarter, and chose people who have enough KU pages that it doesn't show up. Maybe those who've gotten these emails were just unlucky enough to have gotten on the dumber scammers' radar and the massive downloads look like a neon sign to Amazon, who is well-known for dropping a nuke without proper targeting.


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## mach 5 (Dec 5, 2015)

I contacted Amazon a couple weeks ago about having a second publishing account (so two active accounts), clarifying it would be through an LLC with a EIN (although still single member) and its own bank account. I'm also getting a PO box for it and maybe a second line. Their response was that this was okay as long as it had its account under an email separate from the one I use presently (again, both accounts active).

So, for the people worried about losing the entirety of their account - a second account that is KU only is an option. I think you'd want to do it only with new titles you want to keep in for a good while. And don't cross-pollinate titles (taking titles that are in a "troubled" account and putting them into the "clean" account). For me, I'm not even cross-pollinating the pen names.

It is a pain in the butt to set up if, like me, you hate administrative tasks and paperwork. But it is not that hard or time consuming really. And you'll need to leave yourself a month at least before you have to have the books up live because you'll need stuff from the state regarding your LLC in order to open the bank account.


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

Not read the last few pages, so I don't know if this has been covered.

Not regards this case. 

Just wondering that if someone had quite large mailing list, it could be that a good % of them are signed up for Kindle Unlimited. Send them notification of a new release with a copy & paste of your long link from your own search of the book, without deleting everything from after the assin number, and I guess it could produce the same sort of email and action from Amazon. Or possibly have a review not accepted because of a perceived link to the author. 

Obviously such a mail shot could get similar sorts of page reads in one day, or more, and all linked to an indvidual author search link. That could be enough to raise a red flag.


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## horrordude1973 (Sep 20, 2014)

I think something with borrows vs sales that could trigger something. I have around 30 titles. I get around 5000-10000 total page reads a day and 30-50 sales a day across all titles give or take. My newest title usually has 1500-2500 page reads per day with 10-20 sales sometimes more. A few times a title has taken off and I have like 5000+ page reads per day and 50-100 sales in one day for a newer title (I know these aren't NYT list numbers but it all adds up for me)

Anyway, I've ahd a couple titles that did better than that on both fronts with no problems from amazon. Heck I wasn't even running any promos at the time. 

so I wonder if she had 25,000 page reads one day with 0-5 sales (I don't know how many sales she had) I can see where that would trigger something from Amazon. I have a ton of readers still who don't or won't use KU only use it to find new authors and buy books from authors they like. So this could be another possibility.


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## LeonardDHilleyII (May 23, 2011)

Mark E. Cooper said:


> That is so screwed up, I don't have words for it. I use 2 step verification or codes via text for most things. I wish KDP had 2-step.


 I agree.


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## mach 5 (Dec 5, 2015)

LeonardDHilleyII said:


> I agree.


Leonard, just in case your response means you don't think Amazon has it, instructions were given on where to find it just a few posts below what you were quoting (to help you find the post with the instructions)


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## SomeoneElse (Jan 5, 2016)

Decon said:


> Not read the last few pages, so I don't know if this has been covered.
> 
> Not regards this case.
> 
> ...


I think if someone had a huge mailing list like that, they'd get a lot of page reads and sales anyway, plus they'd typically email their list around a launch, before Amazon knew what the 'typical' behaviour of the book was.

Honestly, I keep coming back to the line in the OP's original letter, where Amazon say they've linked borrows of her books to scam accounts. Surely they wouldn't say that if it weren't true. I expect they detected a stack of scam reader accounts and then deleted the accounts of authors whose books were 'read' by the accounts.

I really don't think Amazon are going after people with sales spikes, because it seems others who've had this letter didn't have spikes, and Amazon wouldn't have said outright that they'd linked scam reader accounts.

I absolutely think it's scary how anyone could do this to any author, but I don't think we need to panic about promos and spikes alone. It's the scam readers that are causing account deletion.


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## Guest (Jun 19, 2016)

LSMay said:


> Honestly, I keep coming back to the line in the OP's original letter, where Amazon say they've linked borrows of her books to scam accounts. Surely they wouldn't say that if it weren't true. I expect they detected a stack of scam reader accounts and then deleted the accounts of authors whose books were 'read' by the accounts.


That's not what the OP said, just the speculation many others have heaped on. What KDP told the OP was that her specific borrows were not only suspicious, but after further review were deemed to come from "systematically generated accounts." That's pretty clear.


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## SomeoneElse (Jan 5, 2016)

lillian4 said:


> That's not what the OP said, just the speculation many others have heaped on. What KDP told the OP was that her specific borrows were not only suspicious, but after further review were deemed to come from "systematically generated accounts." That's pretty clear.


I was using 'scam reader accounts' synonymously with 'systematically generated accounts.' I'm not sure where you're getting the 'suspicious' and 'further review' stuff from, though. The first line of the letter that the OP gives is: "We are reaching out to you because we have detected that borrows for your books are originating from systematically generated accounts."


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## Moist_Tissue (Dec 6, 2013)

I think the OP received a form email from the KDP team. That email is probably used for a range of termination/suspension reasons. Just because she received an email that was similar to an email sent to someone creating fake accounts, does not mean they received the same email for the same reason.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Locking while I review.  Thanks.

EDIT:  Reopening.

Warning:  while I realize speculation is the Internet's lifeblood, making unfounded accusations against a member is not allowed.  Posts have been removed.

Let's move on, people.

Betsy


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Speaking in general, not in specific reference to the deleted post, of course it's true that all we know about this situation is what Pauline has told us. So, you know, sure, our support could be misplaced. We're taking her word for what happened because she's a known member of our community. That seems worthwhile to me. One doesn't want to be stubbornly naive, but in general, I'd rather assume the best of people.

For me, the most troubling aspect of the whole situation is how much we don't know. And that's the case for everything that goes on inside our main business partner -- how it's making decisions, who (or what) is making those decisions, how our sales environment might change in the near future, and so forth. Do folks with books in KU have reason to worry that a glitch or accidental targeting will kill their account, or do they not? Is Amazon being careful and responsible when it brings down the ban-hammer, thus destroying someone's career, or is it not? The fact that Amazon shares so little information leaves us guessing, trying to put together the whole picture out of scraps of info gleaned here and there. We keep doing it because it's so important to know what's going on, and trying to build some understanding of where we stand, even if it's incomplete, seems better than knowing nothing. Hopefully we'll mostly be right, but sometimes we'll be wrong. It's inevitable.

But you know what? There's a cure for wrongness. Amazon could talk to us. Don't want a bunch of authors getting spooked about KU? Talk to us. Don't want us assuming the worst of the company when it's actually doing a good job? Talk to us. Don't want negative PR? Quit being such a friggin' closed box all the time. Devote some time and personnel to liaising with indie authors. I know we're a diverse and amorphous community, but there are venues through which Amazon could reach out to us. This is one of them. The Passive Voice is another. How about a Goodreads author group? Or the professional organizations that are now admitting indie authors, such as SFWA and RWA. Or major authors' blogs. Think what a difference it would make if Amazon reacted to this situation by using that silly KDP newsletter to explain exactly what "systematically generated accounts" are and to assert that account banning is always the result of a managerial-level decision made by real people who look holistically at the situation. The idea that Amazon would communicate with us that way seems ridiculous, but it shouldn't. We've just gotten the habit of thinking no communication between business partners is a normal state of affairs.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

Becca Mills said:


> For me, the most troubling aspect of the whole situation is how much we don't know. And that's the case for everything that goes on inside our main business partner -- how it's making decisions, who (or what) is making those decisions, how our sales environment might change in the near future, and so forth. Do folks with books in KU have reason to worry that a glitch or accidental targeting will kill their account, or do they not? Is Amazon being careful and responsible when it brings down the ban-hammer, thus destroying someone's career, or is it not? The fact that Amazon shares so little information leaves us guessing, trying to put together the whole picture out of scraps of info gleaned here and there. We keep doing it because it's so important to know what's going on, and trying to build some understanding of where we stand, even if it's incomplete, seems better than knowing nothing. Hopefully we'll mostly be right, but sometimes we'll be wrong. It's inevitable.
> 
> But you know what? There's a cure for wrongness. Amazon could talk to us. Don't want a bunch of authors getting spooked about KU? Talk to us. Don't want us assuming the worst of the company when it's actually doing a good job? Talk to us. Don't want negative PR? Quit being such a friggin' closed box all the time. Devote some time and personnel to liaising with indie authors. I know we're a diverse and amorphous community, but there are venues through which Amazon could reach out to us. This is one of them. The Passive Voice is another. How about a Goodreads author group? Or the professional organizations that are now admitting indie authors, such as SFWA and RWA. Or major authors' blogs. Think what a difference it would make if Amazon reacted to this situation by using that silly KDP newsletter to explain exactly what "systematically generated accounts" are and to assert that account banning is always the result of a managerial-level decision made by real people who look holistically at the situation. The idea that Amazon would communicate with us that way seems ridiculous, but it shouldn't. We've just gotten the habit of thinking no communication between business partners is a normal state of affairs.


Except that Amazon sees no reason to do so. They *want* their vendors perpetually on edge and scared. They treat the vendors who sell physical goods in the storefront the exact same way. It's the same approach that Walmart takes with their vendors. They want to remind you at every turn that they can shut you down and wreck your entire business in a heartbeat so that you keep your mouth shut and keep playing the game by their rules, without question.

And there is absolutely no business reason for them to behave otherwise. For all practical purposes they're the only game in town, and they know it. The odds of anyone being able to pull in a six figure income from the other ebook distributors is vanishingly small.


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## Zaitsev (Feb 21, 2016)

Becca Mills said:


> But you know what? There's a cure for wrongness. Amazon could talk to us. Don't want a bunch of authors getting spooked about KU? Talk to us. Don't want us assuming the worst of the company when it's actually doing a good job? Talk to us. Don't want negative PR? Quit being such a friggin' closed box all the time. Devote some time and personnel to liaising with indie authors. I know we're a diverse and amorphous community, but there are venues through which Amazon could reach out to us. This is one of them. The Passive Voice is another. How about a Goodreads author group? Or the professional organizations that are now admitting indie authors, such as SFWA and RWA. Or major authors' blogs. Think what a difference it would make if Amazon reacted to this situation by using that silly KDP newsletter to explain exactly what "systematically generated accounts" are and to assert that account banning is always the result of a managerial-level decision made by real people who look holistically at the situation. The idea that Amazon would communicate with us that way seems ridiculous, but it shouldn't. We've just gotten the habit of thinking no communication between business partners is a normal state of affairs.


I can't see Amazon being willing to 'talk' to authors, mostly because I think they don't give a damn -- particularly about indie authors. I don't know what percentage of Amazon's overall sales are books, but can't see how pissing off a bunch of writers would be anything to give them much concern. I really think they don't care.

I feel sorry for the OP -- hope it works out for her. The whole thing is scary.


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## 75814 (Mar 12, 2014)

Becca Mills said:


> Speaking in general, not in specific reference to the deleted post, of course it's true that all we know about this situation is what Pauline has told us. So, you know, sure, our support could be misplaced. We're taking her word for what happened because she's a known member of our community. That seems worthwhile to me. One doesn't want to be stubbornly naive, but in general, I'd rather assume the best of people.
> 
> For me, the most troubling aspect of the whole situation is how much we don't know. And that's the case for everything that goes on inside our main business partner -- how it's making decisions, who (or what) is making those decisions, how our sales environment might change in the near future, and so forth. Do folks with books in KU have reason to worry that a glitch or accidental targeting will kill their account, or do they not? Is Amazon being careful and responsible when it brings down the ban-hammer, thus destroying someone's career, or is it not? The fact that Amazon shares so little information leaves us guessing, trying to put together the whole picture out of scraps of info gleaned here and there. We keep doing it because it's so important to know what's going on, and trying to build some understanding of where we stand, even if it's incomplete, seems better than knowing nothing. Hopefully we'll mostly be right, but sometimes we'll be wrong. It's inevitable.
> 
> But you know what? There's a cure for wrongness. Amazon could talk to us. Don't want a bunch of authors getting spooked about KU? Talk to us. Don't want us assuming the worst of the company when it's actually doing a good job? Talk to us. Don't want negative PR? Quit being such a friggin' closed box all the time. Devote some time and personnel to liaising with indie authors. I know we're a diverse and amorphous community, but there are venues through which Amazon could reach out to us. This is one of them. The Passive Voice is another. How about a Goodreads author group? Or the professional organizations that are now admitting indie authors, such as SFWA and RWA. Or major authors' blogs. Think what a difference it would make if Amazon reacted to this situation by using that silly KDP newsletter to explain exactly what "systematically generated accounts" are and to assert that account banning is always the result of a managerial-level decision made by real people who look holistically at the situation. The idea that Amazon would communicate with us that way seems ridiculous, but it shouldn't. We've just gotten the habit of thinking no communication between business partners is a normal state of affairs.


All of this is spot-on. Not only do we not really know what's going on here and I think people are jumping too fast to conclusions one way or the other, but Amazon also should find a better way to let us know what's what.


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## celadon (Sep 12, 2015)

Zaitsev said:


> I can't see Amazon being willing to 'talk' to authors, mostly because I think they don't give a damn -- particularly about indie authors. I don't know what percentage of Amazon's overall sales are books, but can't see how p*ss ing off a bunch of writers would be anything to give them much concern. I really think they don't care.
> 
> I feel sorry for the OP -- hope it works out for her. The whole thing is scary.


It IS very scary.

The only thing I can think is that Amazon may not like the bad PR. It is sobering to see how many scammers are out in the open on Amazon, banking on Kindle, buying fake reviews, buying substandard ghost-written drek and foisting it all upon us consumers. And then to top it off, authors who are producing REAL, quality content are getting the ban-hammer for no good reason? While the scammers seem to get away scot-free? The more the regular public hears about this, the better. I honestly didn't know how blatant and open some of these scammers are. They are muddying up the whole Kindle atmosphere with their garbage.

Amazon needs some bad PR for this, and not just for the scammers, but for removing legitimate authors who are what's _right_ about the Kindle system.


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## Guest (Jun 20, 2016)

Pauline's account was targeted by Amazon because she had already been suspended for using affiliate links in her newsletters. There is no reason to scare writers, and believe me, they are plenty scared. People, please read Pauline's posts (early May) and you'll find your reason for the Amazon hammer.



Pauline Creeden said:


> It is against Amazon Assoc TOS to use them in your email or newsletters - or any other "offline" activity. My account was suspended for just that reason - fair warning


I still hope they let her off the hook.

Update: I removed a sentence that was not adding to the discussion. Thank you.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Book Club Promotion said:


> Pauline's account was targeted by Amazon because she had already been suspended for using affiliate links in her newsletters. There is no reason to scare writers, and believe me, they are plenty scared. People, please read Pauline's posts (early May) and you'll find your reason for the Amazon hammer.
> 
> I still hope they let her off the hook.


A KDP account is NOT an Amazon affiliates account. Please stop digging for dirt.

_Edited quoted post. --Betsy_


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Zaitsev said:


> I can't see Amazon being willing to 'talk' to authors, mostly because I think they don't give a damn -- particularly about indie authors. I don't know what percentage of Amazon's overall sales are books, but can't see how p*ss ing off a bunch of writers would be anything to give them much concern. I really think they don't care.


You're probably right. But honestly, it makes me sad to think so. I know growth and, one day, profit is the point. And we do contribute to that. But setting it aside, Amazon has created something wonderful, here. Not only are many people able to support themselves through writing who could not do so before, but even people like me, who aren't at supporting-ourselves levels, are able to be creative and share the product of our creativity with others. If Amazon had any sense, they'd take a 30-second break from planning to take over the world and feel proud of what they've done in this little corner of their empire.


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## Guest (Jun 20, 2016)

I've found two other accounts that were closed or suspended for this same reason and both of them talk about promoting on Facebook and that that may have something to do with the ban.

https://kdp.amazon.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=295107&tstart=1

"I wrote back in an email to say that I had submitted my books to KU readers lists on Facebook (via marketeers) and not aware of such issues. Will try to get an explanation from the marketeers, but i don't know how that is going to help."

https://kdp.amazon.com/community/thread.jspa?messageID=977134&tstart=0

"I was not paying anyone for any service but I shared link of my books to my facebook page which I guess one of my facebook friends did such scam or violation."

A writer told me that he couldn't sleep, because he feared that Amazon might close his account. He was running a promotion. It broke my heart. We need more information and less fear mongering. That is the only way we can help Pauline keep her account. Peace and Love to everyone.


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## 75814 (Mar 12, 2014)

Patty Jansen said:


> A KDP account is NOT an Amazon affiliates account. Please stop digging for dirt.


Unless you're using a separate email address, they're all linked. When I signed up for both a KDP and an affiliate account, Amazon asked me to sign in with the email and password from my main Amazon account.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Perry Constantine said:


> Unless you're using a separate email address, they're all linked. When I signed up for both a KDP and an affiliate account, Amazon asked me to sign in with the email and password from my main Amazon account.


Yes, but they're still not the same. I bet they're even handled by two entirely separate entities within Amazon.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Folks,

All we really know is what Pauline said was in the original email she received.  Speculation that links that action to other actions is just that, speculation.

We're still reviewing this thread.

Betsy
KB Mod


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Book Club Promotion said:


> Pauline says in reaction to a question where to advertise to attract KU readers:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


But the phrasing here indicates Pauline had not used the groups herself ("don't know how effective they are"). So, is just knowing that these groups exist evidence of wrongdoing? Also, I'm not familiar with Fb KU reader groups. Are we sure there's something wrong with them? Maybe these are just sites where authors can alert readers that their books are available in KU, similar to the many Fb sites where you can post your permafree books to alert those looking for free reads.

It seems perfectly reasonable to reassure people, like your friend, who are running promotions with well vetted sites like Bknights. There's nothing to suggest that good promo sites caused any problem, here. It's important not to fear-monger, yes, but it's also important to understand what's being said and not to overreact.


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## PhilipColgate (Feb 11, 2016)

Diversification has always been a key to making *long-term *investments profitable. If you want a long career in self-publishing, then it might be worthwhile to forego larger profits in the short-term. Take advantage of KU visibility by launching in KU but then take it wide after 90 or 180 days. Also, capture your own reader intel by starting a mailing list from Day 1. If Amazon bans you, then you have direct access to your fans via a mailing list. Would you rather go wide today and slowly build a readership or wait until a potential Amazon Apocalypse where you're forced to go wide at the same time as many others?


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

PhilipColgate said:


> Diversification has always been a key to making *long-term *investments profitable. If you want a long career in self-publishing, then it might be worthwhile to forego larger profits in the short-term. Take advantage of KU visibility by launching in KU but then take it wide after 90 or 180 days. Also, capture your own reader intel by starting a mailing list from Day 1. If Amazon bans you, then you have direct access to your fans via a mailing list. Would you rather go wide today and slowly build a readership or wait until a potential Amazon Apocalypse where you're forced to go wide at the same time as many others?


This would be my advice. Diversify. Use KU for new projects but take them wide when you can back it up with some promotion to help gain traction on the other retailers. As amazing as Amazon is, and it is Amazing, it is in business for itself. You have to be in business for yourself and ensure you do what will build your brand and build your audience for the long term.


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## RedAlert (May 15, 2015)

I see a lot of honest people here just trying to understand what behaviors will get them blown out of the Amazon waters.  You can make a move and not even understand what "horrible" thing you did.  I can see the day where "buy my book" gets you banned if you say it to some group that the Zon forbids.  

I don't like being suppressed.  I didn't like the email that the OP received regardless of any other thing that she may or may not have done.  I don't think she received enough information.  That's why we are trying to sus out the truth.


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## 555aaa (Jan 28, 2014)

"Well-vetted" sites like bknights. I saw that and it made me cringe a little.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

555aaa said:


> "Well-vetted" sites like bknights. I saw that and it made me cringe a little.


You scared me for a moment there: if I'd accidentally hyphenated it, I would've cringed as well. 

But sure, I see what I'm guessing is your point. "Vetted" isn't the right word, since we're not sending inspectors over to look at his tax returns and comb through his email list. Replace it with "thoroughly reported on for a long time, with no red flags."


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## mach 5 (Dec 5, 2015)

Authors have gotten their affiliate account closed/suspended without it affecting their Amazon account. Technically, if your blog has an RSS feed and you use affiliate links on your blog, that violates TOS and can get your account suspended.

Maybe it is viewed as collected strikes, but I rather doubt the different arms of Amazon communicate with one another.


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

I was hoping to read that Pauline had sorted this out and got her account back by now. 

If the Associates account is linked to the kdp account, why is it that I can get my royalties paid straight into my bank from the US, but I have to have my Associates commission in gift vouchers or cheques?


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Doglover said:


> I was hoping to read that Pauline had sorted this out and got her account back by now.
> 
> If the Associates account is linked to the kdp account, why is it that I can get my royalties paid straight into my bank from the US, but I have to have my Associates commission in gift vouchers or cheques?


I know you can pick how you get associate fees--whether as gift cards or money--and mine are put in my bank account. But I'm in the US, which may make a difference in the Affiliate program.

Betsy


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> I know you can pick how you get associate fees--whether as gift cards or money--and mine are put in my bank account. But I'm in the US, which may make a difference in the Affiliate program.
> 
> Betsy


There is no difference, except the gift cards are useless outside the US, so the option is cheque only, unless you want the gift cards to give away to other (US-based) people.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Patty Jansen said:


> There is no difference, except the gift cards are useless outside the US, so the option is cheque only, unless you want the gift cards to give away to other (US-based) people.


Yeah, I was more addressing that Doglover said having money go directly to her bank account wasn't an option--but it is for me, but I'm in the US, so maybe that's the difference?

Betsy


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Yeah, I was more addressing that Doglover said having money go directly to her checking account wasn't an option--but it is for me, but I'm in the US, so maybe that's the difference?
> 
> Betsy


That's right. I can have a cheque but it has a minimum $100 value and since I don't do much in associate fees, I would get nothing. I recently had two gift vouchers accumulated which came to $37 and I used them to buy copies of my own paperbacks that I wanted. I can buy from the US store but only physical stuff like that. For kdp my royalties can just go straight into my bank account.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Interesting that the option to have it paid directly to the bank account exists for us in the US but not for those outside, even though you can get your royalties that way. . There's a minimum amount in the US, I believe, to get the deposit--I think $15? Or there used to be, anyway. Once I accumulate enough, I get a deposit.

EDIT: found the pertinent page--but it still doesn't explain why, if one can get direct deposit of KDP royalties, one can't for affiliate fees, of the billing address is outside the US.

https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/help/topic/t3/a2

Betsy


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## batmansero (Oct 10, 2014)

I get paid in gift cards. Free ebooks for me!


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

batmansero said:


> I get paid in gift cards. Free ebooks for me!


I use my gift cards to give away promotional things like a Kindle Oasis. I did that recently. It went down VERY well with my list


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## Gentleman Zombie (May 30, 2011)

I don't get all the weird tangents people are going on.

The title of the thread and the notification the OP posted clearly state this is related to borrows.



> We are reaching out to you because we have *detected that borrows for your books are
> originating from systematically generated accounts.* While we support the legitimate
> efforts of our publishers to promote their books, attempting to manipulate the Kindle
> platform and/or Kindle programs is not permitted. *As a result of the irregular borrow
> ...


It's quite clear. Amazon believes that she used systemically generated accounts (i.e computer generated accounts) to inflate her KU borrows and page reads. Obviously she's not a scammer and this has nothing to do with affiliate links. Here's to hoping she gets this resolved.


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## 555aaa (Jan 28, 2014)

Becca Mills said:


> You scared me for a moment there: if I'd accidentally hyphenated it, I would've cringed as well.
> 
> But sure, I see what I'm guessing is your point. "Vetted" isn't the right word, since we're not sending inspectors over to look at his tax returns and comb through his email list. Replace it with "thoroughly reported on for a long time, with no red flags."


I ran a BKnights promo recently, no sales, and got a refund. I know it's a widely used operation. But it/he/they only have 4,800 readers and there are a few hundred books promoted there every month, and no vetting. To me, the ratio of readers to books to successful promos seems high for an unvetted (meaning the books aren't screened beforehand) site. But I have no info to say anything nefarious is being done there.

The whole anonymity-business thing with fivver bugs me. If you do business with me, you'll know my real name, my real business address, etc. We'll probably chat on the phone (or Skype). That's my basic expectation when I do business with others. But people nowadays seem to trust a well-designed website (or fivver page) more than a real person or business.


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## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

According to the OP her reads went from her normal of 66 per day or 2000 a month to 25,000 reads per day. Makes sense it triggered an Amazon Bot Reflex. Of course they also know where and when these clicks come from which are coming in at about 1000 clicks per hour and with no major promo happening. Fishy? The numbers make no sense except nonsense. 

I've only skimmed this thread so I may have missed something intrinsic.


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## Jane Killick (Aug 29, 2014)

Doglover said:


> I was hoping to read that Pauline had sorted this out and got her account back by now.


I popped by with the same hope ...


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## Gentleman Zombie (May 30, 2011)

Not sure if this has been posted already but:

http://www.thepassivevoice.com/2016/06/dangers-for-prawny-authors/



> I researched the KU Scams extensively for months, but you don't have to do that to figure out what's happening. Bot driven KU accounts are hired by click-farms. Just like with Adsense and other such click schemes, how do they obfuscate that they are bot driven?
> 
> They download a random real book and make sure to do the same to that one. By doing it enough times interspersed with the books they're hired to click-farm, they make it hard to figure out they're a click farmer at first glance.
> 
> Unfortunately, now that Amazon has responded to the click farming, they are hammering the innocent victims of the click farmers attempts to hide what they are.


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## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Zombie yes. Occam's Razor.


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## dianapersaud (Sep 26, 2013)

Gentleman Zombie said:


> Not sure if this has been posted already but:
> 
> http://www.thepassivevoice.com/2016/06/dangers-for-prawny-authors/
> 
> ...


The solution seems simplistic to me. 
1. They obviously know which accounts are "systematically generated"
2. Remove all the pages read from those accounts.
3. The effect? Innocent authors will have some pages removed but their account will be fine. The scammers will have most, if not all of their pages read removed. They don't get paid. They will move on.

It's all about how easy it is to make a quick buck. If they're not making the $, they will move on.

As I mentioned previously, they know how long a (customer) Amazon account has been "live". When I log in to my account, I can see exactly which year I first joined Amazon (as a customer). I have a long history of purchases. Compare that to someone who just signs up (they must input a cc, no?), joins KU for the free month then closes the account.

Should be a simple search to find those accounts.

Takes some work but it can be done. Certainly better than using an axe. Especially since their axe technique might be missing the actual scammers.


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## CassieL (Aug 29, 2013)

dianapersaud said:


> The solution seems simplistic to me.
> 1. They obviously know which accounts are "systematically generated"
> 2. Remove all the pages read from those accounts.
> 3. The effect? Innocent authors will have some pages removed but their account will be fine. The scammers will have most, if not all of their pages read removed. They don't get paid. They will move on.


Problem with this approach is that the scammers do still get paid. The borrows by the click farms move the books up in the ranks and uninvolved customers buy or borrow and are later disappointed by their bad reading experience and the scammers still get paid for those buys/borrows that weren't generated by the click farms. Unless Amazon nukes the whole account. If they become known for nuking accounts that are tied up in anything obviously suspicious, that activity will go elsewhere. Add to that how it makes Amazon look horrible to have all those scam books up there in the rankings. They have to clear out those accounts and books.

Sorry for the OP that she got caught up in it. And it is scary to think that a nasty person could use something like this to take a rival down. But maybe a human intervention after the initial nuke to get those few good authors caught up in the mess back on Amazon is the best approach from a corporate standpoint rather than the soft approach up front.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Gentleman Zombie said:


> Not sure if this has been posted already but:
> 
> http://www.thepassivevoice.com/2016/06/dangers-for-prawny-authors/


The problem is that Pauline's experience doesn't make sense as click-farm trying to disguise itself.

Let's say I'm a click-farmer running 70 KU accounts. A scammer puts up 10 books, then hires me. I use my 70 accounts to borrow the 10 books and "read" them. The scammer cashes in -- $1.80/book-read for a total of $1,260 -- and I see a little of that love, say, $.10/book-read. (I live in a developing nation, like Pakistan or the Philippines, where making $70/day provides a nice living.) Rinse and repeat, day after day.

Now, to keep this racket going, I have to not get noticed. Amazon could notice me in a couple ways. First, if I keep opening new KU accounts to take advantage of the free month, that'd be a big tip-off. But let's say I'm smart enough not to do that. So, I keep my accounts and pony up $10/month for each. Safe. Scammers know you have to spend a little to make a lot.

But Amazon might notice that my accounts are all following the same pattern: every single one of them borrows Book A, Book B, Book C, etc., and reads all them completely right away. Normal accounts don't behave that way. Normal accounts borrow books and leave them sitting there unread for days or weeks. Normal accounts read 20 pp. of a book and then quit. Normal accounts don't have exactly the same borrowing history as other accounts. Here's a way I can get caught.

So, if I wanted to disguise these red-flag patterns, I'd need to make my accounts look more like normal accounts, right? Diverse borrows, partial reads, delays, etc. The way NOT to do that would be to have all 70 of my accounts borrow the same book the same day and read it through. That's just more of the same red-flag pattern I'm trying to disguise.

But that's what seems to have happened to Pauline: 70 accounts (more or less ... depends on her KENP) borrowed one of her books and read it through immediately, all on the same day. If this was a click-farmer trying to disguise himself, he's firmly in TSTL territory. He did the *opposite* of the kind of thing he should've been doing to weaken his blip on Amazon' radar.


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## A.D. Collins (Aug 19, 2013)

I just wanted to say I'm so sorry this happen to you, Pauline.


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## lyndabelle (Feb 26, 2015)

This has been such a compelling topic, I had to write up a blog post about it. I know we don't have definite answers yet, but just getting the word out the different ways that accounts are getting closed is news other authors want to know. I mean, we're all trying to be legitimate authors making a buck. We all follow the rules. To have this come up is something that needs to be watched and addressed. I hope it all works out for Pauline. Seriously, when the Zon is on the warpath to clean house, it's best to try to figure how to stay out of its path.

https://lyndabelle.com/2016/06/20/promotions-facebook-affiliate-links-affecting-author-accounts-with-closure/


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## AllyWho (May 16, 2015)

Patty Jansen said:


> There is no difference, except the gift cards are useless outside the US, so the option is cheque only, unless you want the gift cards to give away to other (US-based) people.


This isn't true, or are you talking about transferring gift cards to someone else? I'm outside the US and receive gift vouchers that I apply to my account. I don't earn a lot through affiliate links, but it's enough to keep me in books and DVDs


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## AllyWho (May 16, 2015)

jackz4000 said:


> According to the OP her reads went from her normal of 66 per day or 2000 a month to 25,000 reads per day. Makes sense it triggered an Amazon Bot Reflex.


I disagree that it was the spike that triggered the email. I suspect it was the lack of tail.
I had a Bookbub promo and my page reads went from an average of 10-20k/day to over 100k/day. That was a much bigger spike than what Pauline experienced. But after my promo, page reads took a solid month to slowly drift back down to their pre-promo average of 10-20k/day. A sudden spike with zero tail is what would look suspicious as that's not "normal" behaviour.


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## Donna White Glaser (Jan 12, 2011)

I would think there would need to be a corresponding spike in sales as well as borrows. Any promo that I can think of is for sales, not borrows so a spike in borrows only would be a warning sign.


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## C. Rysalis (Feb 26, 2015)

AliceWE said:


> I disagree that it was the spike that triggered the email. I suspect it was the lack of tail.
> I had a Bookbub promo and my page reads went from an average of 10-20k/day to over 100k/day. That was a much bigger spike than what Pauline experienced. But after my promo, page reads took a solid month to slowly drift back down to their pre-promo average of 10-20k/day. A sudden spike with zero tail is what would look suspicious as that's not "normal" behaviour.


Agreed, and besides, most people aren't going to finish a book in a day. 25K in one day and then almost nothing does look like those 'readers' insta-clicked to the end of the book.


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## 555aaa (Jan 28, 2014)

Donna White Glaser said:


> I would think there would need to be a corresponding spike in sales as well as borrows. Any promo that I can think of is for sales, not borrows so a spike in borrows only would be a warning sign.


A spike in borrows is weird. Also, I thought borrows only came from Prime members, not KU members. Can KU members access KOLL (the lending library)?


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

C. Rysalis said:


> Agreed, and besides, most people aren't going to finish a book in a day. 25K in one day and then almost nothing does look like those 'readers' insta-clicked to the end of the book.


You'd be surprised how many of us readers can read a book a day. There are lots of voracious readers subscribed to KU. And really, KU caters much more to voracious readers in general.

But that doesn't really have anything to do with the issue here. And I don't know if they can actually see the difference of me reading a book a day, or someone clicking a link to the end. They should, but who knows.


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## Donna White Glaser (Jan 12, 2011)

I'm sorry, 555aaa. I meant a spike in Pages Read. There's no way to know if you have a huge spike in borrows, unless maybe your rank suddenly and significantly drops with no recorded sales.


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## AllyWho (May 16, 2015)

Book Club Promotion said:


> I've been trying to find out what is going on and it seems Amazon is on the warpath against everyone, not just against Pauline. Does anyone know if this comment is true regarding reviewers being axed and book sites being closed...


Reviews being deleted and reviewers being banned is old news and has been on going for months now. Many bloggers had their accounts banned, possibly due to use of affiliate links on the blogs.

Shame that many legit book promoters are being affected while obvious scam ones are still taking money from naive authors


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## mach 5 (Dec 5, 2015)

555aaa said:


> A spike in borrows is weird. Also, I thought borrows only came from Prime members, not KU members. Can KU members access KOLL (the lending library)?


Kindle Unlimited is all about borrows. If you are not a KU member but a prime member, you get one borrow a month and that may still be only to a Kindle device rather than the phone or computer app.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

mach 5 said:


> Kindle Unlimited is all about borrows. If you are not a KU member but a prime member, you get one borrow a month and that may still be only to a Kindle device rather than the phone or computer app.


Yep, KOLL is only for kindles, e-ink and fires. No apps and no computer. KU borrows can be read on anything from kindles to apps.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Book Club Promotion said:


> I've been trying to find out what is going on and it seems Amazon is on the warpath against everyone, not just against Pauline. Does anyone know if this comment is true regarding reviewers being axed and book sites being closed:
> 
> Customer Discussions > Top Reviewers forum - Reviews deleted by Amazon? Here's why
> 
> ...


We've had many, many threads on lost reviews. Here's one from a few months ago that reflects an apparent escalation: reviewers being permanently blocked from reviewing. That wasn't linked to affiliate matters at the time, so far as I know.

Amazon cracked down just last week on affiliate income for promo sites. The changes led to the closing of eReaderIQ and Pixels of Ink.


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## PermaStudent (Apr 21, 2015)

Becca Mills said:


> The problem is that Pauline's experience doesn't make sense as click-farm trying to disguise itself.
> [...]
> He did the *opposite* of the kind of thing he should've been doing to weaken his blip on Amazon' radar.


Unless disguising the borrower accounts wasn't the goal. Given that this appears to have happened a few times and to multiple authors, I'm wondering if some industrious scammer noticed that Amazon botted the process to shut down associated author accounts and decided to muddy the waters by involving random legitimate authors. This would make Amazon remove the bot and force a group of humans (likely easily overwhelmed with proper volume) to go case by case and decide who hired click farms and who didn't--it's like buyer protection for anyone purchasing the click farm service because an author could always claim ignorance and innocence as to where those clicks came from.

Like others, I'm thinking the next iteration in Amazon's response is to create a flag on suspicious borrower accounts. The flag would prevent paying page reads and rank increase coming from known scam borrower accounts, but I wouldn't overtly shut them down. That way, any borrower account that is mistaken for a scam can keep paying for and receiving service, and the only authors that are going to miss those pages/rank increases are the ones paying to get them. Bonus: Amazon keeps collecting on any account that pays, and it will likely drive up scammers' costs if they have to constantly dump all accounts and make new ones because they don't know which ones count in the system.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

PermaStudent said:


> Unless disguising the borrower accounts wasn't the goal. Given that this appears to have happened a few times and to multiple authors, I'm wondering if some industrious scammer noticed that Amazon botted the process to shut down associated author accounts and decided to muddy the waters by involving random legitimate authors. This would make Amazon remove the bot and force a group of humans (likely easily overwhelmed with proper volume) to go case by case and decide who hired click farms and who didn't--it's like buyer protection for anyone purchasing the click farm service because an author could always claim ignorance and innocence as to where those clicks came from.


That would be a truly evil and impressively devious tactic. 

I don't think it'll work for them, though. Amazon seems to be willing to pay the price for draconian policies (which is that every so often you screw up, get bad PR, and have to fix something).

Your KU account-tagging solution to Amazon's problem is ingenious -- effective and very low on potential damage, so far as I can see. And I bet they could do it fairly easily, since they already have a system in place that IDs Bookbub-inspired downloads and saps their impact on ranking.


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## Guest (Jun 21, 2016)

k.j.simmill said:


> I have joined specifically to reply to this thread.
> 
> Please check your bank account for any fraudulent transactions. This sounds so much like what happened to me. The only difference being I have fraud teams already behind me and a reference for not only identity theft and but a corresponding an attempt on my bank account that fit with the royalty payments that would have been made had Amazon not negated them.
> 
> https://darrienia.com/2016/06/18/authors-beware-a-new-danger-for-ku-authors/


This post caused a lot of anxiety among writers. But I'm sorry to say that I think something is off about this story. According to the writer the scammers inflated her KU reads, hacked her bank account and then waited almost 3 months for Amazon to deposit the money to get to the money.

It is clear that there were KU reads which Amazon disapproved of and that her bank account was hacked. The reason she gives for putting these two facts together into the story she told was the fact that the bank hackers tried to get to the money when they thought the Amazon money would be on her bank account.

Amazon transfers money to bank accounts at the end of the month. Like 99 percent of employers. Every bank hacker knows a bank account is fullest at the end of the month. Wages have been added, rent has not been subtracted yet. I do not see a link between the illegal KU reads and the bank hack. Sorry. I am happy that Amazon reinstated her KDP account, but all the anxiety on this board about Kindle Unlimited was not necessary.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Book Club Promotion said:


> This post caused a lot of anxiety among writers. But I'm sorry to say that I think something is off about this story. According to the writer the scammers inflated her KU reads, hacked her bank account and then waited almost 3 months for Amazon to deposit the money to get to the money.
> 
> It is clear that there were KU reads which Amazon disapproved of and that her bank account was hacked. The reason she gives for putting these two facts together into the story she told was the fact that the bank hackers tried to get to the money when they thought the Amazon money would be on her bank account.
> 
> Amazon transfers money to bank accounts at the end of the month. Like 99 percent of employers. Every bank hacker knows a bank account is fullest at the end of the month. Wages have been added, rent has not been subtracted yet. I do not see a link between the illegal KU reads and the bank hack. Sorry. I am happy that Amazon reinstated her KDP account, but all the anxiety on this board about Kindle Unlimited was not necessary.


I agree that one shouldn't jump from noticing a temporal correlation to assuming a linkage between events. The connection is a possibility, not a certainty. But given what we know -- that Amazon is currently protecting KU very aggressively -- and, more importantly, how much we _don't _know, I think the concern authors are articulating about being enrolled in KU makes a lot of sense.


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## SomeoneElse (Jan 5, 2016)

PermaStudent said:


> Unless disguising the borrower accounts wasn't the goal. Given that this appears to have happened a few times and to multiple authors, I'm wondering if some industrious scammer noticed that Amazon botted the process to shut down associated author accounts and decided to muddy the waters by involving random legitimate authors. This would make Amazon remove the bot and force a group of humans (likely easily overwhelmed with proper volume) to go case by case and decide who hired click farms and who didn't--it's like buyer protection for anyone purchasing the click farm service because an author could always claim ignorance and innocence as to where those clicks came from.
> 
> Like others, I'm thinking the next iteration in Amazon's response is to create a flag on suspicious borrower accounts. The flag would prevent paying page reads and rank increase coming from known scam borrower accounts, but I wouldn't overtly shut them down. That way, any borrower account that is mistaken for a scam can keep paying for and receiving service, and the only authors that are going to miss those pages/rank increases are the ones paying to get them. Bonus: Amazon keeps collecting on any account that pays, and it will likely drive up scammers' costs if they have to constantly dump all accounts and make new ones because they don't know which ones count in the system.


I hope that they do work out something to block this sort of problem by working on the reader end, but assuming they don't, the far less ruthless solution in ambiguous cases is merely to kick authors out of KDP select (i.e. the KU program) and leave their accounts open to sell.


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

555aaa said:


> A spike in borrows is weird. Also, I thought borrows only came from Prime members, not KU members. Can KU members access KOLL (the lending library)?


Borrows don't only come from Prime members. Kindle Unlimited is a lending library, the only difference being that readers can have ten books at a time on their device. They can borrow as many in a month as they like, as long as they never have more than ten at once. That is what 'unlimited' means. That is where all the borrows come from. KOLL doesn't do a lot for indie publishers and the results are not separated in the reports from KU borrows.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Folks: Book Club Promotions has a vendor thread. If you have questions about the service that's where you should ask them. This thread is not the proper place.  Posts have been removed.


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

Book Club Promotion said:


> Pauline's account was targeted by Amazon because she had already been suspended for using affiliate links in her newsletters. There is no reason to scare writers, and believe me, they are plenty scared. People, please read Pauline's posts (early May) and you'll find your reason for the Amazon hammer.
> 
> I still hope they let her off the hook.
> 
> Update: I removed a sentence that was not adding to the discussion. Thank you.


It's not that Amazon targeted her, but anyone who has problems with their account is probably put on a watch list, with further TOS violations grounds for termination. Whether it's justified or not. Perhaps the sudden jump in page reads was the "three strikes and you're out" sign, and Amazon acted because it was some click farmer trying to hide their actions. It's not fair to the author, but as we know, Amazon nukes first, and treats the radiation burns -- or not -- afterwards.

I can't say. I only know that Pauline isn't the only author going through this, the only one to have received the same bot email. It's happened to others, and perhaps more who don't yet know about the indie communities where they can post about it -- or they don't want to post about it. Out of shame, or because they've gotten caught with their hand in the cookie jar? I know a lot of "authors" are merely people scamming the self-publishing money machine. LOL Those people won't be sharing about their accounts closing, they'll just be regrouping and going on.

Whether it's an author being shady, an SEO scammer, or whatever else it could be, it seems obvious that Amazon is taking our concerns about the KU issues seriously and they are doing something about it. Legitimate people are always part of the fallout, which isn't right but I guess it's just how it goes. I know if I see something really off in my account I'm going to be screaming at the top of my voice that something is wrong and it's not on my side.

I'm not trying to imply that any of this was Pauline's fault, nor that of anyone else. Just putting out thoughts and ideas about the situation. I hope this gets worked out, and she can get her account back. And I hope the scammers get their hands slapped really hard and move on to find something else to make "easy" money.


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## Sarah Shaw (Feb 14, 2015)

Becca Mills said:


> I agree that one shouldn't jump from noticing a temporal correlation to assuming a linkage between events. The connection is a possibility, not a certainty. But given what we know -- that Amazon is currently protecting KU very aggressively -- and, more importantly, how much we _don't _know, I think the concern authors are articulating about being enrolled in KU makes a lot of sense.


Indeed. And as people have pointed out up-thread, it's the very fact that we _don't_ know how any of this works or what is going on that causes the anxiety.

All any of us can do is take whatever measures we can to avoid having our own accounts being terminated in the same way. Until we know more, the only completely safe thing to do seems to be to avoid KU altogether.


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

statoun said:


> Indeed. And as people have pointed out up-thread, it's the very fact that we _don't_ know how any of this works or what is going on that causes the anxiety.
> 
> All any of us can do is take whatever measures we can to avoid having our own accounts being terminated in the same way. Until we know more, the only completely safe thing to do seems to be to avoid KU altogether.


I would say that three quarters of my income comes from KU, so I am not about to abandon it. I would like to ask though, if anyone knows, is it allowed to borrow and read one's own books or will that cause alarm bells to ring? And do we get paid for reading our own pages? I just joined KU on the free trial and I have downloaded my own boxed set to read again. Now I am worried.


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## M.D. Massey (Dec 3, 2013)

LSMay said:


> I hope that they do work out something to block this sort of problem by working on the reader end, but assuming they don't, the far less ruthless solution in ambiguous cases is merely to kick authors out of KDP select (i.e. the KU program) and leave their accounts open to sell.


Agreed. And, it removes the profit-motive as well, making it less attractive for scammers. Although, I'm sure some scammers will just find a way to spoof a new identity and open a new KDP account. That being said, losing KU would completely tank many indie authors.


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## DanaG (Feb 13, 2011)

Arrgh, I keep checking back here hoping to see that she has her account re-instated! And it's not!  I really, really feel for the OP. This has gotten a ton of publicity, blogs are posting about it, I know that multiple people have emailed Amazon support about this issue...and STILL NOTHING How horrible.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Doglover said:


> I would say that three quarters of my income comes from KU, so I am not about to abandon it. I would like to ask though, if anyone knows, is it allowed to borrow and read one's own books or will that cause alarm bells to ring? And do we get paid for reading our own pages? I just joined KU on the free trial and I have downloaded my own boxed set to read again. Now I am worried.


I wouldn't think it would be a problem, given that each account can only read a book once. What I mean is, if I borrow a book and read it, and then return it, and then borrow it again and read it again -- the second read through doesn't count.

Or I could borrow it and read it through 5 times -- only one read through counts.

I could put it on 3 different devices and read it through on each one -- only one read through counts.

Even if I have 10 people on my account and all 10 of us read it while I have it borrowed, only one read-through will count. At least, that's the way I understand it.

So if you borrow your own book, at most you're giving yourself one read-through. Same as if you buy your book -- you can't buy multiple copies for yourself; the system only lets you buy each ASIN once.


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## amdonehere (May 1, 2015)

This issue continues to scare me, and I don't even participate in the Amazon Affiliates program. Frankly I don't understand what it is and how it works. But I'm in KU and I'm afraid God knows what might happen and one day they'll slam shut an account. I think it's very easy for anyone (say, psycho ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend) to mess with your page reads that way and cause you to lose your account.

Plus now I'm all confused whether you can use link shorteners to link to your own ebooks. Does anyone know?


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

This thread continues to baffle and scare me because of all the tangential nonsense conspiracy theories that people will come up with (and believe!) in the absence of information.

This is the only thing we know (and likely the only thing Pauline knows):

Her account was banned for having seen "too many borrows from fake accounts".

That's it, people!

Nothing to do with affiliates. Nothing to do with bank accounts. Nothing to do with Pauline. Just with some Amazon bot spitting out her account as suspicious. It could happen to all of us.

I am convinced of the following:

1. Amazon, being a behemoth company, and like all behemoth companies, is fragmented in its responses. The right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. Think going to your Telco with a billing complaint. Multiply incompetence of individual employees times ten.
2. Amazon is no angel and no villain. It's just a big, cumbersome company trying, and occasionally failing, to automate stuff
3. I'm sure that once Pauline gets onto the right person, she will get this resolved, stressing though it will certainly be for her


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## Taking my troll a$$ outta here (Apr 8, 2013)

AlexaKang said:


> This issue continues to scare me, and I don't even participate in the Amazon Affiliates program. Frankly I don't understand what it is and how it works. But I'm in KU and I'm afraid God knows what might happen and one day they'll slam shut an account. I think it's very easy for anyone (say, psycho ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend) to mess with your page reads that way and cause you to lose your account.
> 
> Plus now I'm all confused whether you can use link shorteners to link to your own ebooks. Does anyone know?


Link shorteners & Amazon Associates participation rules are a different issue than the OP's problem with Kindle Select author participation & KU page reads/borrow spike. If you're not in AA and you're using link shorteners on your website or where ever, you're fine. AA participants have restrictions on how they can use links and/or link shorteners, such as not being allowed to use AA links inside Kindle books or for a certain amount of Free book traffic (80% off traffic or 20K books, I believe) in which the Amazon Associates will pay advertising fees on.

The OP received this notice & her KDP account was shut down:


Pauline Creeden said:


> _"We are reaching out to you because we have detected that borrows for your books are
> originating from systematically generated accounts. While we support the legitimate
> efforts of our publishers to promote their books, attempting to manipulate the Kindle
> platform and/or Kindle programs is not permitted. As a result of the irregular borrow
> ...


It's been a very long thread, so sorry to repeat previous info. It's just that I've been answering a ton of emails from authors in my promos over this mess. *Amazon Associates* is a separate program from *Kindle Direct Publishing(KDP)* (and the optional program within Kindle Direct Publishing, which is *KDP Select* through which readers can borrow your books.) All of the programs (KDP, KDP Select, and Amazon Associates) have their own rules. Any vendor/individual can have Amazon Associates account to earn advertising fees; having a KDP account does not auto-enroll you in AA.

The OP's KDP was shut down over a spike in Kindle Unlimited borrows/page reads that appeared (to Amazon) to be some sort of manipulation of the program.

I am hoping to hear an update from Pauline soon. This is very scary, indeed, and I hope this gets sorted out for her. This really, really sucks, because as authors, we can't control who downloads or buys our books. It's ridiculous that the authors are being penalized without any sort of discussion with Amazon, and that the accounts (scam accounts) borrowing all these books are still active.


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## Taking my troll a$$ outta here (Apr 8, 2013)

Patty Jansen said:


> This thread continues to baffle and scare me because of all the tangential nonsense conspiracy theories that people will come up with (and believe!) in the absence of information.
> 
> This is the only thing we know (and likely the only thing Pauline knows):
> 
> ...


Bahahah we must have been reading/posting at the same time....except you're much more succinct than me


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

Patty Jansen said:


> This thread continues to baffle and scare me because of all the tangential nonsense conspiracy theories that people will come up with (and believe!) in the absence of information.
> 
> This is the only thing we know (and likely the only thing Pauline knows):
> 
> ...


Thank you for that dose of much-needed sanity.

Don't get me wrong. I enjoy a good bout of the following as much as the next guy...










... but it's a little disturbing 15 pages in.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Patty Jansen said:


> This thread continues to baffle and scare me because of all the tangential nonsense conspiracy theories that people will come up with (and believe!) in the absence of information.


Well, there's really a lot to keep straight. Those of us who are here on KB daily absorb the info slowly, as it comes out. That makes it easier. Imagine instead encountering a bunch of new info all at once. That can lead different issues to get connected in people's minds. This event is magnifying that tendency because it's reaching so many people. (My blog post on this has surpassed 20,000 views, now.) Also, the news about the crackdown on sites relying on affiliate income came out at about the same time, which makes it easy to conflate the two things under a larger "hard-ass Amazon" umbrella.

But yeah, human beings like to explain things. We like our effects to have causes. That's how we learn, so that we don't run into the same problems over and over. Being left with no explanation for what happened to Pauline is both frustrating and scary. So we try to push things into that void, fill it up.


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## lyndabelle (Feb 26, 2015)

I think besides what happened to the OP, there are the other closed accounts situations being considered at the same time. And everyone is trying to put it all together so we can all avoid a nuke to our accounts. I'm guessing why this is so popular now is everyone is trying to avoid the same thing happening to them. Most of us in KU don't want to loose that money stream, and we're trying to think smart. I mean, it could be construed to be a panic, but it's not a outlandish thought to want to avoid the same thing happening to you. It's what the hive mind on the board does so well, figure out stuff. 

It may take some time to figure out what is really happening. Some are figuring to ignore KU all together, but some of us that do make legitimate money, writing real stories, aren't running quite yet. I'm mostly avoiding what might be triggers, Facebook group posts(which was already a problem at Facebook with people getting accounts closed there), the Affiliates Program(which I can't do since I live in California. Some states have been banned by Amazon for this program due to sales tax laws passed in the state), possible Fiverr or other author promo sites, and just sticking to author cross-promos. Sometimes it is good to lay low while Amazon goes through it's purging sieges. Always good to avoid the burn if you can. This board tends to be on top of the issues in most cases, and I've gotten good avoidance advice here. The OP did us all a favor bringing attention to the issue. Make fun of the panic, but it might be a way we finally figure out an answer.


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## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

After seeing 'reads' on my books that could be seen by Amazon as suspicious, I asked KDP to look into my account and check everything was okay. They answered thus:



> Hello Philip,
> 
> I've checked your account and can confirm that your account and books are in good standing.
> 
> ...


The part I bolded is somewhat reassuring.


----------



## Guest (Jun 21, 2016)

Patty Jansen said:


> This is the only thing we know (and likely the only thing Pauline knows):
> 
> Her account was banned for having seen "too many borrows from fake accounts".
> 
> That's it, people!


We know more than that. We know Pauline's Amazon affiliate account had been suspended already.



Patty Jansen said:


> This thread continues to baffle and scare me because of all the tangential nonsense conspiracy theories that people will come up with (and believe!) in the absence of information.


For me it's easier to believe that Amazon banned her KDP account after her affiliate account had been suspended for violating Amazon's TOS than to believe that some poltergeist is lurking in the dark sprinkling KU reads on writers' KDP accounts to get them banned.

I hope they let Pauline off the hook. But something tells me they won't buy a poltergeist defense, when they have access to her other accounts.

Update: changed banned into suspended


----------



## Donna White Glaser (Jan 12, 2011)

Book Club Promotion said:


> For me it's easier to believe that Amazon banned her KDP account after her affiliate account had been banned for violating Amazon's TOS than to believe that some poltergeist is lurking in the dark sprinkling KU reads on writers' KDP accounts to get them banned.


"Poltergeist" seems a little disingenuous to me. There are certainly scammers out there who have embroiled innocent people in their scams, and there are disturbed people--readers and writers, alike--who have used underhanded ways to retaliate against others for slights they've felt or imagined, or even just to attack somebody else's success. Does it happen often? Thankfully, no. But it's not unheard of and it's not ridiculous for folks to want to be cautious of running afoul such things.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Book Club Promotion said:


> We know more than that. We know Pauline's Amazon affiliate account had been banned already.
> 
> For me it's easier to believe that Amazon banned her KDP account after her affiliate account had been banned for violating Amazon's TOS than to believe that some poltergeist is lurking in the dark sprinkling KU reads on writers' KDP accounts to get them banned.
> 
> I hope they let Pauline off the hook. But something tells me they won't buy a poltergeist defense, when they have access to her other accounts.


Her affiliate account was suspended, not banned, for the offense of using affiliate tags in emails, which is something lots of people were doing until recently -- either because of misunderstanding the TOS or because Amazon wasn't enforcing the rule. If that apparent slap on the wrist is the first strike in an unstated two-strikes-you're-out policy, we have great cause for concern.

It also leaves completely mysterious what the second strike was.


----------



## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

Patty Jansen said:


> This is the only thing we know (and likely the only thing Pauline knows):
> 
> Her account was banned for having seen "too many borrows from fake accounts".
> 
> ...


Is there *evidence* that actions taken against Pauline's affiliate account are related to her issues concerning her KU status?


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## AllyWho (May 16, 2015)

Book Club Promotion said:


> We know more than that. We know Pauline's Amazon affiliate account had been banned already.


Please link to your evidence of this.

I can see where the OP stated her affiliate account was *suspended*, and she received a warning. I can not find anywhere, where she stated it was *banned*.


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## Pauline Creeden (Aug 4, 2011)

Hi everyone! Thanks for your thoughts, prayers and many letters to Amazon. Tonight my KDP account has been restored and soon my books will be back online! 

I've been lurking but staying silent through the rough stuff because I hate being argumentative. So those who continued to show support and good faith in me, I thank you again from the bottom of my heart.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## TheLemontree (Sep 12, 2015)

YAY!!!!!!!!!


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## lilywhite (Sep 25, 2010)

Pauline Creeden said:


> Hi everyone! Thanks for your thoughts, prayers and many letters to Amazon. Tonight my KDP account has been restored and soon my books will be back online!


Yay!


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## over and out (Sep 9, 2011)

1


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## BookwormT (Dec 4, 2015)

Pauline Creeden said:


> Hi everyone! Thanks for your thoughts, prayers and many letters to Amazon. Tonight my KDP account has been restored and soon my books will be back online!


That's so awesome to hear! I'm relieved for you!


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)




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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

This is the very best news, and not just for the OP, but for everyone else losing sleep over the possibility of this happening to them. It's so good to know that this problem CAN be resolved and that Amazon DOES listen.

Welcome back!


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## JB Rowley (Jan 29, 2012)

Pauline Creeden said:


> Hi everyone! Thanks for your thoughts, prayers and many letters to Amazon. Tonight my KDP account has been restored and soon my books will be back online!
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


Fantastic news! All the very best. I sincerely hope Amazon considers taking a different approach in similar circumstances in the future.


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## Queen Mab (Sep 9, 2011)

Very glad to hear it!


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## Cactus Lady (Jun 4, 2014)

Great news! Very happy for you, and hopefully Amazon will start handling this sort of thing better.


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## My Dog&#039;s Servant (Jun 2, 2013)

That's great news, indeed.  But  (brief indulgence in fantasy here) did they tell you what it was that set them off and how they resolved it?


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## MartaT (Jun 20, 2016)

Good news indeed. Still, very scary, and thus something a lot of authors should know more about how to handle. So much about this situation appears beyond an author's control at this point. It seems like Amazon should be revising its policy to avoid abuse of the system they've set up.


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## Someone (Dec 30, 2011)

Pauline,
I am so happy to hear your good news. Thank goodness


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## celadon (Sep 12, 2015)

Yay! So glad to hear this! Please give us more detail about how this all transpired!


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## amdonehere (May 1, 2015)

ebbrown said:


> Link shorteners & Amazon Associates participation rules are a different issue than the OP's problem with Kindle Select author participation & KU page reads/borrow spike. If you're not in AA and you're using link shorteners on your website or where ever, you're fine. AA participants have restrictions on how they can use links and/or link shorteners, such as not being allowed to use AA links inside Kindle books or for a certain amount of Free book traffic (80% off traffic or 20K books, I believe) in which the Amazon Associates will pay advertising fees on.
> 
> The OP received this notice & her KDP account was shut down:
> It's been a very long thread, so sorry to repeat previous info. It's just that I've been answering a ton of emails from authors in my promos over this mess. *Amazon Associates* is a separate program from *Kindle Direct Publishing(KDP)* (and the optional program within Kindle Direct Publishing, which is *KDP Select* through which readers can borrow your books.) All of the programs (KDP, KDP Select, and Amazon Associates) have their own rules. Any vendor/individual can have Amazon Associates account to earn advertising fees; having a KDP account does not auto-enroll you in AA.
> ...


Thank you EBBrown!! You have no idea how much I appreciate your explanation. I was really really worried about whether the whole affiliates thing was affecting me and how I might run afoul of something, all the while I'm not even a part of that program (that I know of).

Pauline, great that your account is restored and thanks for letting us know. Seriously, these last two days I started getting worried about running promos because we often get spikes in KU reads after running one. I started wondering if someone gets a Bookbub and as a result got a huge spike in reads beyond normal, would that lead to Amazon thinking suspicious activity was going on.

Anyway, awesome news. Good luck to you.


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## Guest (Jun 22, 2016)

I'm happy to hear the good news. We can all go back to reality. I don't think you ever told us which book had the problem.


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## Alpaca Lou (Mar 14, 2016)

Pauline!! I'm _so_ happy to hear your great news! 

I hope that other innocent authors will get the same result, too. I'm still torn on weather KU is safe for prawny authors, but I'm strongly leaning towards "not safe." At least for the time being.

Anyway, it's time for you to get back to writing!


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

Pauline Creeden said:


> Hi everyone! Thanks for your thoughts, prayers and many letters to Amazon. Tonight my KDP account has been restored and soon my books will be back online!
> 
> I've been lurking but staying silent through the rough stuff because I hate being argumentative. So those who continued to show support and good faith in me, I thank you again from the bottom of my heart.
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


So pleased, Pauline. I have been hoping for this news all the way through. I hope you get up and running against asap.


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## Vinny OHare (May 3, 2013)

Glad to see you got your account back.


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## TheLass (Mar 13, 2016)

That's wonderful news Pauline, so relieved for you.  Such an awful experience to have to go through.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Yay, Pauline.

Thanks for letting us know.

Betsy


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Folks,

Let's keep this thread, at this point, on Pauline. BCP's vendor thread is locked right now and we're discussing it in the smoke-filled Admin caves.

Betsy

_
eta: We think, at this point, that this thread will stay locked -- Pauline has reported a positive resolution and there's not a lot of value in continued discussion. Also, some wildly off topic sniping has been removed. 

Glad things got sorted for you, Pauline! If you have any additional relevant information you'd like to share you think would be useful for others, let us know -- Ann

eta again: On further consideration, we've decided to allow this thread to continue but will be ruthless about pruning OT discussions. Sorry for confusion. -- Ann_


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## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

That's great news, Pauline!  So happy to see a positive result.  Did the Amazon emails give you any insight into what happened?

Philip


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## I&#039;m a Little Teapot (Apr 10, 2014)

Hooray, Pauline! So happy for you!


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## Sarah Shaw (Feb 14, 2015)

Pauline Creeden said:


> Hi everyone! Thanks for your thoughts, prayers and many letters to Amazon. Tonight my KDP account has been restored and soon my books will be back online!


Whew! That's so good to hear!

Still wondering if I want to risk starting out in KU... I gather you didn't get any explanation from them?


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

Fantastic news.


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## horrordude1973 (Sep 20, 2014)

This is great news. I wonder if it was an automated trigger that got fixed once an actual person had a chance to review it.

I also hope everyone who blogged about this or did articles on it updates their pieces.


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## Gina Black (Mar 15, 2011)

So glad this has been resolved to your benefit, Pauline.


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## Maysage (Feb 18, 2016)

Pauline Creeden said:


> Hi everyone! Thanks for your thoughts, prayers and many letters to Amazon. Tonight my KDP account has been restored and soon my books will be back online!
> 
> I've been lurking but staying silent through the rough stuff because I hate being argumentative. So those who continued to show support and good faith in me, I thank you again from the bottom of my heart.


That's a huge relief. 
Your experience has definitely been enlightening and frankly, it has completely changed my plan for the next six months. Terminating your account rather than suspending it pending investigation or something like that was just wrong. *hugs* 
I can't afford to think that something of that sort _could_ happen to any of us anytime. New priority: going wide by the end of the year.

Out of curiosity... are you staying in KU?


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## PhilipColgate (Feb 11, 2016)

This is great news for OP and for all of us.  It's nice to hear that the mysterious Amazon has some sort of due process when it comes to this stuff.


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## LeonardDHilleyII (May 23, 2011)

Pauline Creeden said:


> Hi everyone! Thanks for your thoughts, prayers and many letters to Amazon. Tonight my KDP account has been restored and soon my books will be back online!
> 
> I've been lurking but staying silent through the rough stuff because I hate being argumentative. So those who continued to show support and good faith in me, I thank you again from the bottom of my heart.
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


Great news!!!


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## Daizie (Mar 27, 2013)

Great news, Pauline! I'm glad they reinstated you. Thanks for sharing the outcome. This has been terrifying.


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## LauraLeeLenhoff (Sep 3, 2014)

Mods ~ Thanks for your efforts. Y'all keep these forums relevant.

Pauline ~ I'm so relieved for you. When I saw this thread had grown another few pages overnight I was afraid things had gone further down the rabbit hole. I'm so glad your account has been reinstated. Highfives!


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## MCwrites (May 26, 2016)

Glad all is ok!


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## writemore (Feb 3, 2016)

Glad to hear this new Pauline!  I was obsessively checking this thread.  Yay!

BUT to other authors:  What happened is still terrifying!  Look how long it took Amazon to resolve this!!  NOT OK.


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## Pauline Creeden (Aug 4, 2011)

Thanks for all the well wishes everyone! For those curious, Amazon did not apologize or explain what happened. They simply stated that after their review they decided to reinstated my account with the warning that if this happens again they will close my account. I already in-ticked all the boxes on my KU books, and will get out of KU  as soon as possible. 




Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## Jeff Sproul (Dec 21, 2014)

Pauline Creeden said:


> Thanks for all the well wishes everyone! For those curious, Amazon did not apologize or explain what happened. They simply stated that after their review they decided to reinstated my account with the warning that if this happens again they will close my account. I already in-ticked all the boxes on my KU books, and will get out of KU as soon as possible.
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


I'm glad you at least got your account back. It's unfortunate things worked out the way they did.


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## C. Rysalis (Feb 26, 2015)

Huzzah! Three cheers for Pauline! I'm glad to hear you finally got the good news.


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## AgnesWebb (Jan 13, 2013)

SO GLAD you were reinstated! Ugh, crazy.


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## Taking my troll a$$ outta here (Apr 8, 2013)

So glad to hear the news!


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Pauline Creeden said:


> For those curious, Amazon did not apologize or explain what happened. They simply stated that after their review they decided to reinstated my account with the warning that if this happens again they will close my account.


Color me infuriated. I mean, in the statement "if this happens again they will close my account," what does "this" mean? How are you supposed to avoid doing a naked pronoun?


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## EmmaS (Jul 15, 2014)

I'm so relieved to hear you're back in! Wishing you nothing but the best, smoothest, easiest ride from here on out.


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## A Woman&#039;s Place Is In The Rebellion (Apr 28, 2011)

Becca Mills said:


> Color me infuriated. I mean, in the statement "if this happens again they will close my account," what does "this" mean? How are you supposed to avoid doing a naked pronoun?


I had the same thought. How can you not do 'this' again if you aren't told what 'this' is?


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## Pauline Creeden (Aug 4, 2011)

Sorry all for the confusion! To clear things up as much as possible, here's my letter from KDP: 

Hello,
Thank you for your email.

After reviewing your response, we have reinstated your account to enable you to continue 
publishing on the KDP platform.

Please be advised that you may re-enroll books previously removed from KDP Select into 
the program.

Upon reinstating your account, your titles will once again be made available for sale in 
the Kindle Store. Please note, however, that if further manipulation of the Kindle 
platform and/or Kindle programs is detected, your account will be terminated and 
outstanding royalties withheld.

You're welcome to promote your book through third-party websites and other services, but 
we encourage you to keep a close eye on the tactics they use to promote your books. You 
are responsible for ensuring that no tactics used to promote your book manipulate the 
Kindle platform and/or Kindle programs. We advise against using any sites that 
"guarantee" a return on your investment.

Best Regards,


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## Pauline Creeden (Aug 4, 2011)

I'm also considering unpublishing my KU books until my enrollment expires just to be safe... Do y'all think that's extreme?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## Donna White Glaser (Jan 12, 2011)

First off, HUZZAH!!!!!!  So happy for you, Pauline. That would have been a truly scary experience, and frankly some aspects of this thread probably made life more unpleasant for a bit. I want to thank you again for letting this community know about what happened to you. It opened you up to some criticisms that were undeserved, but the information for the rest of us is invaluable. Thank you for toughing it out.

I share Becca's consternation that Amazon won't specify what the problem was. Yes, they say it involved "manipulating the platform" but what exactly? That's so mystifying. I don't blame you for pulling out of KU.


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## Sarah Shaw (Feb 14, 2015)

Pauline Creeden said:


> I'm also considering unpublishing my KU books until my enrollment expires just to be safe... Do y'all think that's extreme?


It certainly seems that's the safest thing- although it's hard to tell anything from that extremely vague letter.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Pauline Creeden said:


> Sorry all for the confusion! To clear things up as much as possible, here's my letter from KDP:
> 
> Hello,
> Thank you for your email.
> ...


After putting you through all that, they send *another* form letter? I just cannot even. 

Well, I'm very glad Pauline is back up and running, but we're left with no solid information about what caused this and, therefore, what to avoid. I hesitate to hypothesize too specifically because I'm afraid of giving people bad ideas.


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## A past poster (Oct 23, 2013)

I'm so glad your account was reinstated. What happened to you should make all of us reconsider our options. Thank you for sharing.


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## Alpaca Lou (Mar 14, 2016)

Pauline Creeden said:


> I'm also considering unpublishing my KU books until my enrollment expires just to be safe... Do y'all think that's extreme?
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


I don't think that's extreme; after what you've been through it makes perfect sense to avoid KU.


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## Gentleman Zombie (May 30, 2011)

Pauline Creeden said:


> I'm also considering unpublishing my KU books until my enrollment expires just to be safe... Do y'all think that's extreme?
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


Honestly, if this happened to me I would be very sour toward KU. No apology from them at all. No compensation for the lost income from the books. Not even an offer of a free credit for advertising to help you regain your ranks. *And still the implication that you did something to cause this issue. After you pointed out that the book in question was never part of any promotional efforts. *

I am glad you got your account back! That's something, at least.


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## Jake Kerr (Aug 6, 2014)

Looks like they gave a pretty big hint with the "guaranteed" comment. Did you work with any site that offered a guaranteed return?


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## rex kusler (Feb 12, 2010)

Pauline Creeden said:


> Sorry all for the confusion! To clear things up as much as possible, here's my letter from KDP:
> 
> Hello,
> Thank you for your email.
> ...


They're saying they still assume you were involved in the manipulation of borrows, but they're giving you one more chance. This is bad. I'm getting out of KU even though nearly all of my income comes from it.


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## Guest (Jun 22, 2016)

Pauline Creeden said:


> I'm also considering unpublishing my KU books until my enrollment expires just to be safe... Do y'all think that's extreme?


Are they still in? The way that email sounds, they pulled it from Select and while they are letting you republish, they didn't reinstate the books themselves to their previous state?

If they did go ahead and put them back in Select, I'd ask if they could remove them from KU all together since you don't know what happened and it seems safer than taking the risk.

If they won't, then yeah, I think unpublishing them makes sense. No other way to protect yourself, sadly :-(


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## Taking my troll a$$ outta here (Apr 8, 2013)

Pauline Creeden said:


> Sorry all for the confusion! To clear things up as much as possible, here's my letter from KDP:
> 
> Hello,
> Thank you for your email.
> ...


I really, really wish Amazon would have shared _exactly_ which service it was that they have narrowed down to being shady. In the past, they have sent warning notices to members of KBoards for using a specific service (which I don't want to name) and warned authors that using that specific service would lead to termination of the author KDP account.
Besides it being extremely helpful to all of those who have followed this thread, it would certainly help the OP avoid doing the same thing again. 

-- and it would be good to know if it was a service the OP actually hired, or if it was some scammer that just picked her book at random. 
Ugh.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

jakedfw said:


> Looks like they gave a pretty big hint with the "guaranteed" comment. Did you work with any site that offered a guaranteed return?


It's an unadapted form letter. The boilerplate about sites that guarantee results is copied and pasted from here, word for word. Since everyone receives this same language, it has no clear or specific bearing on anything Pauline did. Upthread, she listed the promo sites she's used. They're the ones we all use and have not been having problems with, so far as we know.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Pauline Creeden said:


> I'm also considering unpublishing my KU books until my enrollment expires just to be safe... Do y'all think that's extreme?


Thinking it through ... the fundamental vulnerability of KU is that Amazon, instead of readers, pays us when people borrow and read books. If a book is not in KU and not permafree, then the only way a reader can get it is to pay for it with their own money. That book seems to me not vulnerable to the kinds of manipulation that would p*ss Amazon off -- however a reader gets the book, Amazon won't be out any money and will, in fact, get its 30-65% cut. So, even if this happened to you because of personal targeting (seems unlikely, but I suppose it's possible), it doesn't seem necessary to me to keep the books unpublished so long as you're able to keep them out of KU.

Am I thinking that through right??

If putting them back on sale means they'll automatically go back into KU, with no option to get out, I might be tempted to keep them off sale entirely.

Considering what's happened to you, KDP might be willing to let you end your KU period early. Dunno. One sort of doesn't want to poke the rabid hyena (too vicious. grumpy gorilla? naw, too sentient. narcoleptic cow?), now that it's decided you're okay and has gone back to sleep.


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## CassieL (Aug 29, 2013)

I would probably unpub until they were out of KU, esp. given some of the discussion in this thread about authors doing that deliberately to one another and the letter saying one more strike and you're out.  Up to you whether you ask them to let you out now.  If you're out in a couple weeks, I'd let it lie.  If it's two and half months?  That's a long time to sit out.


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## RedAlert (May 15, 2015)

I am happy that Pauline is back in business, but what did she win?  She's leaving KU, and she still doesn't know what the heck she did.  Why couldn't Amazon have personalized the reinstatement and told her, or apologize for making a mistake and taking her profit?  Some human with wet ware is involved, but hiding.  Still not good PR.  

But, all things considered, she won.  Hurrah!!


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## LadyG (Sep 3, 2015)

Pauline, what about payments you earned before the kerfuffle but hadn't received yet? Do you know if Amazon still plans on paying you? And what about money you lost in sales during the time that your books were unavailable -- Has Amazon made any kind of statement about that?


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## Secret Pen Pal (Dec 27, 2013)

Pauline Creeden said:


> I'm also considering unpublishing my KU books until my enrollment expires just to be safe... Do y'all think that's extreme?


It would be worth asking them to cancel your KU enrollment. I did that with many of my books after KU2, at a point beyond the get-out-of-jail free period they'd allowed. I wasn't sure my request would fly, but it did. I just explained clearly and politely why I wanted to cancel. They might not do it, but under the circumstances, it might work. That way you could continue earning on those books without the stress that something beyond your control could result in a permanent loss of your account.

BTW, in my KU cancellation email I gave the links to all the books I wanted to remove so the person handling my request had everything needed to proceed. In my experience, it's most effective to be brief, specific, thorough -- and to use simple language.

Thanks for the update and the details. Brava to you for handling this with grace under pressure. The lack of compassion and outright unkindness showed by some people in this thread reflects on those individuals and not on you.

I wish you the best with the process of regrouping.

Thanks, Betsy and all the mods, for all your work here.


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

Pauline, glad your account is back, but gosh. Another form letter? No apology. No explanation. That's kind of insulting, considering you've lost income due to this.

And you're now on strike two.


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## ThePete (Oct 10, 2013)

> I'm also considering unpublishing my KU books until my enrollment expires just to be safe... Do y'all think that's extreme?


I understand being skittish, especially after something like this, but I'd suggest grabbing the bull by the horns. These people f- you over big time. I'm just popping in and haven't read the whole thread, but from what I understand, your books were down for a couple of weeks?! That must have devastated your salesrank. If I were you, I'd demand restitution. Sure, you probably won't get what you deserve, but fighting should net something. So don't just run away... make a stink. Kick, scream, holler and use up a bunch of their time. Open ticket after ticket until they make some effort to fix things.

One thing I'd suggest, and seems to be a reasonable compromise, is demand that they let you republish your books under a new ASIN, but with all your old reviews added. A clean salesrank slate is the least they could do.

There's some loosely similar precedence, for example authors getting extra free promotion or Countdown deal days after technical glitches messed up their scheduled promos. I'm sure if you raise enough of a fuss they could do something.

In the immortal words of Patrick Swayze in Roadhouse: "Be nice, until it's time not to be nice."

For my two-cents, I'd say it's time to stop being calm and tolerant and start making a scene.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

ThePete said:


> For my two-cents, I'd say it's time to stop being calm and tolerant and start making a scene.


I don't think this is good advice when you're dealing with an entity that holds 100% of the power. We sell at Amazon's pleasure. They can close any of our accounts anytime for any reason. If you're a very major author, you might get away with some foot-stamping and demand-making, though I suspect the answer will be an eye-roll and a bored "no" unless you're J. K. Rowling, or something. The average prawn might have much worse luck.


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## A past poster (Oct 23, 2013)

Becca Mills said:


> I don't think this is good advice when you're dealing with an entity that holds 100% of the power. We sell at Amazon's pleasure. They can close any of our accounts anytime for any reason. If you're a very major author, you might get away with some foot-stamping and demand-making, though I suspect the answer will be an eye-roll and a bored "no" unless you're J. K. Rowling, or something. The average prawn might have much worse luck.


Becca is right. You don't threaten and stomp your feet at the entity that has all the power. If it were me, I'd get out of KU as fast as I could. It's a minefield. You want to get out with your life intact. You've had a terrible setback, but you can recover. You can't recover if you p*ss them off and they permanently close your account, which they can do with a single click.


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## Dale Ivan Smith (Oct 13, 2015)

Very glad to learn Amazon restored Pauline's KDP account. This has made me reconsider going into KU, especially since others have apparently run afoul of click bots. To be fair, philosophically I like the idea of my works being available on multiple platforms, so this only added more weight to that.


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## horrordude1973 (Sep 20, 2014)

I'll be staying in KU. I don't use promo sites and KU makes up about 1/3 of my royalties. I had no sales at all on other sites when I went wide but my genre is much more niche with a lot of KU subscribers too. I'm still curious what amazon is going to roll out/change on July 1st lol


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Pauline Creeden said:


> Hi everyone! Thanks for your thoughts, prayers and many letters to Amazon. Tonight my KDP account has been restored and soon my books will be back online!
> 
> I've been lurking but staying silent through the rough stuff because I hate being argumentative. So those who continued to show support and good faith in me, I thank you again from the bottom of my heart.
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


Thank God! You did not deserve the anxiety this must have caused you, and having known you for over six years as a fellow writer, through other forums and groups, I'm so glad the matter was resolved.

Edited: 
Having read their response back to you, which is not applicable since you did not promote the book that had all the downloads; I wonder if you pointed this out, so they could investigate what did happen. Of course, I do understand if you want to drop the matter, and just keep books out of KU. I'm certainly glad I unenrolled all mine ages ago.


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## ThePete (Oct 10, 2013)

Becca Mills said:


> I don't think this is good advice when you're dealing with an entity that holds 100% of the power. We sell at Amazon's pleasure. They can close any of our accounts anytime for any reason. If you're a very major author, you might get away with some foot-stamping and demand-making, though I suspect the answer will be an eye-roll and a bored "no" unless you're J. K. Rowling, or something. The average prawn might have much worse luck.


Perhaps, but on the other hand, what does she have to lose? I used to work in a tech support call center and I'm just trying to imagine some 3rd party contracted help desk that doesn't care, of course not, but has certain SLA's (service level agreements) to maintain. They sympathize with the customer, but have to follow protocol. And when protocol is busted and the customer keeps coming back, you kick the issue up to management. They'll then offer at least some token fix to make this annoying contact go away and quit messing up the company's stats.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

ThePete said:


> Perhaps, but on the other hand, what does she have to lose? I used to work in a tech support call center and I'm just trying to imagine some 3rd party contracted help desk that doesn't care, of course not, but has certain SLA's (service level agreements) to maintain. They sympathize with the customer, but have to follow protocol. And when protocol is busted and the customer keeps coming back, you kick the issue up to management. They'll then offer at least some token fix to make this annoying contact go away and quit messing up the company's stats.


This encapsulates the level of "care" Amazon has for writers better than anything.

I think that even upthread, people are still assuming that:

1. Amazon is a singular entity
2. Amazon will remember what it said in a single letter
3. Amazon even means what it says in a single letter

At high level, they probably care, but they pass the face-to-face interactions off to hired call centres who have protocols to adhere to (and individual staff who don't often get the protocols right) and who fundamentally don't care.

What would scare me most is that some of the "services" that will trigger a chain reaction like this pick up books without them being submitted. That's probably OK if you sell really well, but if you're a midlist to low seller, it can land you in really hot water, because the spikes stick out and trigger alarms.

As far as I can see, Amazon has handed these "services" a FANTASTIC tool with Select, and, unless you sell really well, you're probably much safer out than in, for a great variety of reasons.


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## Randi (Oct 21, 2014)

Pauline Creeden said:


> ...
> 
> Please note, however, that if further manipulation of the Kindle
> platform and/or Kindle programs is detected, your account will be terminated and
> ...


Correct me if I'm wrong - but didn't you say that you did not run an ad on this book? So how are you supposed to stop something you didn't authorize in the first place?


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## celadon (Sep 12, 2015)

The more I think of it, the more that going wide looks attractive.

I have one book wide, one book in KU, both are for the same genre. The book that is wide is doing okay (comparatively) with Draft2Digital. I will see if the other book (currently in KU) will do the same. I might even make more money this way. We shall see!

I have a Google Adsense account (which used to earn me a nice income, but after mobilegeddon, not so much) and one of the BIG big Fears every Adsense publisher has is someone putting a bunch of "false clicks" on their Adsense ads. A competitor could click on someone else's ads, which could trigger Google into alert, and they'd think "fraud!" and you could lose your account and all your income. A lot of Adsense publishers lived in fear (and probably still do) of this happening. I believe someone else on this thread mentioned Google Adsense and how it bears some similarity to this situation.

KU sounds like it's the same kind of worry as with Adsense. Constant fear and worry that someone could do something that could risk you your account. Who needs this kind of stress? 

I may put my new book in KU for the first 3 months to enjoy the extra promotions and so forth, but after that, going wide sounds prudent.


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## Vinny OHare (May 3, 2013)

Even though it is a form letter does anyone else think that the "Guaranteed Result" part is meant to help the upcoming Goodreads promotion service they are launching. Just food for thought.



celadon said:


> The more I think of it, the more that going wide looks attractive.
> 
> I have one book wide, one book in KU, both are for the same genre. The book that is wide is doing okay (comparatively) with Draft2Digital. I will see if the other book (currently in KU) will do the same. I might even make more money this way. We shall see!
> 
> ...


I use to live in fear of this also with my adsense account but only allowing your own urls in settings to run ads the adsense team can look at it and see it wasn't you by the ip addy. I have met with the adsense people in person and asked them this very question.


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## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

Doesn't Bookbub offer "guaranteed results"?  At least within a certain range?

Philip


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## Vinny OHare (May 3, 2013)

Philip Gibson said:


> Doesn't Bookbub offer "guaranteed results"? At least within a certain range?
> 
> Philip


No they just say what can be expected.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Vinny OHare said:


> Even though it is a form letter does anyone else think that the "Guaranteed Result" part is meant to help the upcoming Goodreads promotion service they are launching. Just food for thought.


I suspect that's aimed directly at FBS, which so far (wisely) doesn't have any packages aimed at generating KU borrows.


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## Pauline Creeden (Aug 4, 2011)

Emailed the KDP executive rep that contacted me during this debacle - to ask what I need to do to get my books back online (since I'm still waiting) and to see if it's possible to remove my books from Select before the term runs out...

We'll see what she says...


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## BookwormT (Dec 4, 2015)

Pauline Creeden said:


> Emailed the KDP executive rep that contacted me during this debacle - to ask what I need to do to get my books back online (since I'm still waiting) and to see if it's possible to remove my books from Select before the term runs out...
> 
> We'll see what she says...


My fingers and toes are crossed for you. Hopefully they'll let you of Select so you don't have to worry.


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## martyns (May 8, 2014)

First Pauline, I'm so glad you got your account back.

I've found this whole thread terrifying. I've read it start to finish, but I missed the removed posts.

I just checked and my most recent payments for KU/KOLL vs sales were UK £14.25 vs £138.48, US $86.33 vs $410.08

Similar pattern for other countries. I stand to lose out on probably £100 per payment period for remaining in KU. I DO use select promotions from time to time! Do I pull the plug? Remove everything from Select and KU/KOLL? It's really tempting I have around 70 titles listed, removing them from Select would be a fair bit of work and I'd be losing out to do it, but I like my second salary. I really don't get anything like my Amazon royalties from other distributors!

What are your thoughts people? Is everyone pulling their books from KU/KOLL and Select?

Someone mentioned a Union for Authors or something and I DO wonder if something like this wold be a good thing. 

It struck me one thing that hasn't been mentioned regarding the spike is reader group on goodreads. If a massive reader-group agrees on a book to read that month, and they are mainly KU members, you will see an insane spike in borrows/reads. I have to say, I like the idea of KU and KOLL but in reality I worry that it's too open to being scammed and therefore too open to being dragged into a scam by having YOUR book borrowed to hide the tracks....

I'm really torn on this now, I have no clue what to do!


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## A past poster (Oct 23, 2013)

martyns said:


> First Pauline, I'm so glad you got your account back.
> 
> I've found this whole thread terrifying. I've read it start to finish, but I missed the removed posts.
> 
> ...


I didn't think about large reader groups on Goodreads. There are also active reader groups on Yahoo. Any of them could cause an insane spike in borrows/reads. This could be a real headache.


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## Thisiswhywecan&#039;thavenicethings (May 3, 2013)

Not really. It was not a spike of borrows/page reads that caused the problem, it was the accounts they originated from that were not on the up and up. A spike resulting from a Goodreads or Yahoo group would be coming from regular people's accounts, not bots or other suspicious ones. 

Congrats to Pauline for getting her account back.


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## martyns (May 8, 2014)

ReGina W said:


> Not really. It was not a spike of borrows/page reads that caused the problem, it was the accounts they originated from that were not on the up and up. A spike resulting from a Goodreads or Yahoo group would be coming from regular people's accounts, not bots or other suspicious ones.
> 
> Congrats to Pauline for getting her account back.


What do you think though? IS KU/KOLL worth the risk?


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## 60169 (May 18, 2012)

martyns said:


> What do you think though? IS KU/KOLL worth the risk?


Of course, it depends on your tolerance for risk. My titles are in KU and will stay there until I believe I can generate more sales (eventually) by going wide. This doesn't deter me from being in KU.

I will say, if I notice a huge (10,000%) jump in page reads, I am going to immediately contact KDP and start the conversation. It will, of course be met with a form letter, but if I have to eventually kick it up higher, it will be very helpful.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

martyns said:


> Someone mentioned a Union for Authors or something and I DO wonder if something like this wold be a good thing.


As non-employees, we can't unionize, at least by U.S. law. But I would recommend joining a professional organization, if you qualify for one. RWA and SFWA both accept indie authors now, based on income levels. At this point, I think it's the only way for us to speak collectively.


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## DanaG (Feb 13, 2011)

Pauline Creeden said:


> I'm also considering unpublishing my KU books until my enrollment expires just to be safe... Do y'all think that's extreme?
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


I don't think it's extreme at all. I think it's thoroughly justified given the grief they gave you, how hard it was to get any answers, how long it took for them to get back to you...it's really making me re-think being in KU at all.


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## D-C (Jan 13, 2014)

I can't believe your books are STILL unavailable. WTH are Amazon playing at?


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

D-C said:


> I can't believe your books are STILL unavailable. WTH are Amazon playing at?


She may still be trying to sort out whether she wants to republish them, and whether KDP will let her keep them out of KU.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

ReGina W said:


> Not really. It was not a spike of borrows/page reads that caused the problem, it was the accounts they originated from that were not on the up and up. A spike resulting from a Goodreads or Yahoo group would be coming from regular people's accounts, not bots or other suspicious ones.


Well, except for the Goodreads, Facebook and Yahoo groups that are all just circle-jerks, borrowing each others' books and 1-clicking their way to the end of each. Amazon is likely setting (or has already set) anti-scam detection bots in place to distinguish between normal club-reading behavior and behavior instituted to scam the KU program. The more of this behavior they can verify, the better the bots will become at sniffing it out. At least, that's what we can hope.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

I listened to Patty Jansen's podcast and she said she once had her account closed for two weeks over some administrative mistake. It's why she chooses to stay wide Amazon is just making some scary mistakes lately, but i'm glad the OP got it worked out.


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## K&#039;Sennia Visitor (Jan 14, 2014)

I'm still a micro-fishy, and a shorts writer, so what works for me doesn't really apply to most writers on here - but I have un-enrolled everything from KU. I won't be free until Sep. But my newest short I didn't put in KU at all and the money has been amazing! For me, anyway. $20, for most authors would prolly be considered not selling anything, but for me I feel incredibly rich, and I know had I stuck it in KU, those would all be reads and I'd have made like $2.00. 

  But if I was a novelist and I was making thousands of dollars from KU, leaving would be a much harder choice. Technically, selling anything on amazon is dangerous, since they have their, "we can kick you out at any time for any reason," contract, so I'm not sure that KU is really any more dangerous than just selling on amazon. 

  Though it is currently the easiest way for scammers to get you in trouble. And becoming dependent on one behemoth for your daily bread is really the most dangerous part of all because bad things do happen. A glitch could occur in the system, and suddenly you're out, a scammer could target you, a false dmca notice could be filed on you - amazon could suddenly change it's rules and kick you out for violating them without any notice of the rules change. The more money you make, the more you have to lose. 

  Of course, it's not like, if you did get suddenly kicked out, you couldn't just go wide then. It would be a long and annoyingly painful process of trying to start over from scratch, but you could do it. And of course, if you have a mailing list those readers can never be snatched away from you. 

  I tend to agree with Patty's posts though, and am in the camp of "being wide is the wisest and bestest business decision, especially for authors who are making tons of money.*  But I understand authors who are doing amazing in KU, right now, wanting to just stay in until the goldrush dries up. And hoping fervently it never does. 

  TLDR: Not putting all your eggs in one basket is wise, but if you choose to stay where the money is now, and your basket breaks, it will only be a short term disaster and you could eventually put your career together again - and no one knows if or when the basket will break, though history tells us it is will almost certainly happen eventually. Nothing good lasts forever. Ask the shorts writers!


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## Pauline Creeden (Aug 4, 2011)

D-C said:


> I can't believe your books are STILL unavailable. WTH are Amazon playing at?




I'm still waiting on KDP. the bookshelf says they are live but they are not, and when I Changed the price on a couple to see if I needed to do something, it just goes into publishing for 24 hours then says live with unpublished updates. I contacted KDP about it, but it takes days for them to do anything before, so...

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## Pauline Creeden (Aug 4, 2011)

When I contacted the executive rep that I talked to before, she said she put in a ticket to the title submission department for me. Also she says she's going to remove them from KU for me, too


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Pauline Creeden said:


> When I contacted the executive rep that I talked to before, she said she put in a ticket to the title submission department for me. Also she says she's going to remove them from KU for me, too


Good news!


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## PityPityPity (Apr 10, 2016)

Pauline Creeden said:


> Thanks for all the well wishes everyone! For those curious, Amazon did not apologize or explain what happened. They simply stated that after their review they decided to reinstated my account with the warning that if this happens again they will close my account. I already in-ticked all the boxes on my KU books, and will get out of KU as soon as possible.


So glad to hear that you're reinstated even if you didn't get any answers.


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## 75814 (Mar 12, 2014)

martyns said:


> What do you think though? IS KU/KOLL worth the risk?


Given that I make more in a month in KU than I made in four years on the other platforms combined, I'd say it's worth it. I'd like to be wide, but until the other platforms solve the discoverability problems on those platforms, I'm going to take the risk. Making a single sale every other month on the other platforms won't really cushion the blow in any significant way if Amazon shuts down my account.

Maybe if I were more convinced it were as big a risk as people are making it out to be, I would be more worried. But far as I've seen, this doesn't seem like a very common situation.

But that's me. Everyone has to decide what's best for their own business.


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## Pauline Creeden (Aug 4, 2011)

My books are finally live in the Kindle store. I finally feel like I can relax! Ok! Off to write some words today!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## Donna White Glaser (Jan 12, 2011)

So glad!


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## Nathan Elliott (May 29, 2012)

Perry Constantine said:


> Given that I make more in a month in KU than I made in four years on the other platforms combined, I'd say it's worth it. I'd like to be wide, but until the other platforms solve the discoverability problems on those platforms, I'm going to take the risk. Making a single sale every other month on the other platforms won't really cushion the blow in any significant way if Amazon shuts down my account.
> 
> Maybe if I were more convinced it were as big a risk as people are making it out to be, I would be more worried. But far as I've seen, this doesn't seem like a very common situation.
> 
> But that's me. Everyone has to decide what's best for their own business.


It really has little to do with how weak or strong other venues are. Even if you don't put the book up for sale anywhere but Amazon, you still might consider avoiding KU so that your account doesn't get banned leaving you with *no* further income from Amazon at all, ever. The balance is between KU borrows and improved sales rank on one hand versus less danger of an undeserved ban on the other hand. You still may not view it as a big risk, but IMHO you should not be considering the other stores in this. If Amazon is king of the hill for you, then that arguably makes keeping your KDP account safe even more important, not less. But yes, so far this is a rare occurrence and staying in may make sense for you if you find KU to be a big help on top of the level of Amazon + other sales you'd get if you were wide.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Pauline Creeden said:


> My books are finally live in the Kindle store. I finally feel like I can relax! Ok! Off to write some words today!


Woo-hoo! I'm so glad!


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## 75814 (Mar 12, 2014)

Nathan Elliott said:


> It really has little to do with how weak or strong other venues are. Even if you don't put the book up for sale anywhere but Amazon, you still might consider avoiding KU so that your account doesn't get banned leaving you with *no* further income from Amazon at all, ever. The balance is between KU borrows and improved sales rank on one hand versus less danger of an undeserved ban on the other hand. You still may not view it as a big risk, but IMHO you should not be considering the other stores in this. If Amazon is king of the hill for you, then that arguably makes keeping your KDP account safe even more important, not less. But yes, so far this is a rare occurrence and staying in may make sense for you if you find KU to be a big help on top of the level of Amazon + other sales you'd get if you were wide.


It has nothing to do with the other stores. A large portion of my sales are directly related to enrollment in KDP Select, which mandates KU enrollment. Last month, about half my income was because of KU. I'm not going to leave money on the table over an isolated incident. So only being on Amazon but not enrolling in Select would make even less sense than going wide.

I've seen the evidence that exists. I've gone wide and it didn't work. KU is helping me boost my income and my visibility slowly but surely. Every month, I do a little bit better than the previous month. Throwing all that away because a few writers whose situations I don't know got banned out of the thousands who haven't is to me like refusing to swim in the ocean because someone got attacked by a shark.

Also, no further income from Amazon at all, ever? That's pretty hyperbolic given that Pauline just got through saying her books are back on Amazon.

Again, do what's best for your business and let everyone else do what's best for theirs.


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## horrordude1973 (Sep 20, 2014)

I have around 30 titles and generate around 200,000 page reads per month give or take across all 30 titles so I'm keeping them in. My new releases tend to have more borrows and sales than the older ones but its all pretty consistent. This incident has been concerning but we are seeing ONE person that this has happened to and she now has her account back. Not like thousands of authors all had their accounts nuked over suspicious borrows. So I'm not panicking. I'm more concerned with what new thing Amazon will be doing on July 1st lol


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## Nathan Elliott (May 29, 2012)

Perry Constantine said:


> It has nothing to do with the other stores. A large portion of my sales are directly related to enrollment in KDP Select, which mandates KU enrollment. Last month, about half my income was because of KU. I'm not going to leave money on the table over an isolated incident. So only being on Amazon but not enrolling in Select would make even less sense than going wide.
> 
> I've seen the evidence that exists. I've gone wide and it didn't work. KU is helping me boost my income and my visibility slowly but surely. Every month, I do a little bit better than the previous month. Throwing all that away because a few writers whose situations I don't know got banned out of the thousands who haven't is to me like refusing to swim in the ocean because someone got attacked by a shark.
> 
> ...


Okay. Sounds likes like a good decision then. I took your sentence



> Given that I make more in a month in KU than I made in four years on the other platforms combined, I'd say it's worth it


to mean that you were for some reason weighing other vendors against KU to make this decision. I just didn't think that was the right thing to be weighing. But absolutely if the choice is divide your income in half to play it safe vs stay in KU, then that's probably the wise choice. And if that is the way you came to the decision, then I totally agree.


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## 75814 (Mar 12, 2014)

Nathan Elliott said:


> Okay. Sounds likes like a good decision then. I took your sentence
> 
> to mean that you were for some reason weighing other vendors against KU to make this decision. I just didn't think that was the right thing to be weighing. But absolutely if the choice is divide your income in half to play it safe vs stay in KU, then that's probably the wise choice. And if that is the way you came to the decision, then I totally agree.


I weigh everything when I make my decisions. When people talk about pulling out of KU, it's almost always in the context of also going wide, because pulling out of Select but remaining exclusive to Amazon gets you the worst of both worlds--you get neither the benefits of Select nor the benefits of being wide.

The lack of sales on the other platforms is just one reason I won't let this incident scare me out of pulling out of Select. Increased visibility and sales are two others. Of course performance on the other platforms is something to be considered when thinking about whether or not to pull out of Select, especially if you're leaving money on the table out of a fear that an isolated incident could happen to you.

I don't let fear make my decisions for me. Car accidents don't stop me from driving, shark attacks don't stop me from swimming in the ocean, and one person getting banned on Amazon won't stop me from using KDP Select to my advantage. If it happens, it happens. But I'm not going to leave money on the table based on that unlikely possibility.


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## celadon (Sep 12, 2015)

I will only be able to see if going wide is best by going wide.

I have one book (smaller, shorter, cheaper) wide. It makes about as much (on its Draft2Digital earnings) as my other book (the bigger, more expensive one in KU) does for borrows. So what I'm thinking is, if the smaller cheaper book can earn about as many in sales (through D2D) as a more expensive book earns through borrows in KU, then that's a good sign that perhaps if the bigger more expensive book could make even _more_ through D2D. Both books are non-fiction, and the sales have always been more than the borrows. Not that I'm discounting the borrows in helping ranking and so forth. If it doesn't work out, I'll go back to KU. But I don't make that much yet, so a few bucks more or less for three months isn't going to kill me. If I was risking thousands, I might pause.

We each have to look at our numbers and our unique situations and make decisions based on that. But I do think that going wide is more prudent, IF it is financially feasible, because we are vulnerable with Amazon. A false copyright claim or this hinky business with KU looms, and it's unnerving. It's not just about doing the work and earning your just rewards. It's all dependent on the whims of a big company who may or may not listen to you when you assure them that you're honestly not trying to scam them. Scary.


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## Pauline Creeden (Aug 4, 2011)

Niebieski said:


> Excellent! Coming out of deep lurkdom to say "whew" and so sorry this happened to you. Also to say I'm off to go buy some of your books right now!


Wow! Thanks 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

Perry Constantine said:


> The lack of sales on the other platforms is just one reason I won't let this incident scare me out of pulling out of Select.


This is a very common position and totally understandable because it's founded in fact. The real problem is the facts will never change for you while you're in Select, so it all becomes circular and self-fulfilling. It takes AGES to get any traction outside of Amazon. That is fact. But I am now 45% Amazon because I am outside too.

Would I make more money in KU? Probably.

I know it's weird, but money isn't my only goal in life. I want stress free security, or as close as I can get, so I can write in peace. Wide goes a long way to providing that for me. In the end, all I can say is do both. Run KU on series that work the best, and put everything else wide to start that traction engine. It's really old and doesn't fire up on the first keyturn. It coughs and splutters along, but it will get you from A-B. It just takes longer.


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## 75814 (Mar 12, 2014)

Mark E. Cooper said:


> This is a very common position and totally understandable because it's founded in fact. The real problem is the facts will never change for you while you're in Select, so it all becomes circular and self-fulfilling. It takes AGES to get any traction outside of Amazon. That is fact. But I am now 45% Amazon because I am outside too.


That's very true and it's something I've also considered. I do plan on eventually being wide again, but I want to be in a better place as far as sales and visibility on Amazon first. That way, when I go wide, I'll (hopefully) have more clout and can email say the KWL team and see if I can have some assistance.

Another issue is also the fact that most of the stuff I'm writing at the moment isn't exactly in hot, marketable genres. My Myth Hunter series is kind of difficult to classify. Vanguard might have better luck being a superhero series, but that's still a relatively young and niche genre in terms of prose fiction (neither Kobo nor iTunes even has a category for it). But I plan on launching some more marketable series in 2017 and if they rank really well in the first 90-180, I might consider putting them wide.


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## lyndabelle (Feb 26, 2015)

Pauline Creeden said:


> My books are finally live in the Kindle store. I finally feel like I can relax! Ok! Off to write some words today!
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


Good to see this all got sorted and you got your account back Pauline. Don't blame you for leaving KU. I'm wondering whether to still stay in myself. But as far as visibility, it still helps with that. I still think being in KU is a genre specific choice. Some genres do better than others. Still going to hang in there with my titles in KU and keep writing more. More titles seem to do better.

Updating my blog post with your good news. Still wish the mystery of what third party promotion site might have messed things up was a little clearer. Even with a form letter, it still seems to point to this. Otherwords, they would have sent you another form letter. And it also seems to go along with what Amazon is purging right now, third party sites using the affiliate codes in their emails. Sometimes you have to read between the lines, even with a form letter.


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## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

When Amazon track down the accounts which generate fake borrows, what action can/will they take?

Are they able to / Do they ban 'readers' accounts in the same way they ban author accounts?  Presumably, those accounts have been paid for by someone/something.


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## VirginiaMcClain (Sep 24, 2014)

Pauline Creeden said:


> My books are finally live in the Kindle store. I finally feel like I can relax! Ok! Off to write some words today!
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


So glad to hear this! I had been returning periodically to this thread just to see if/when this would happen. YAY! And I'm glad she took you out of KU when you asked as well.


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## martyns (May 8, 2014)

Queen_of_Shorts said:


> I'm still a micro-fishy, and a shorts writer, so what works for me doesn't really apply to most writers on here - but I have un-enrolled everything from KU. I won't be free until Sep. But my newest erotica short I didn't put in KU at all and the money has been amazing! For me, anyway. $20, for most authors would prolly be considered not selling anything, but for me I feel incredibly rich, and I know had I stuck it in KU, those would all be reads and I'd have made like $2.00.


Hmmm, are you who I think you are? I didn't realise you were on here too!

How have sales been on that story I helped you knock into shape? Had any reviews yet?


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## K&#039;Sennia Visitor (Jan 14, 2014)

martyns said:


> Hmmm, are you who I think you are? I didn't realise you were on here too!
> 
> How have sales been on that story I helped you knock into shape? Had any reviews yet?


 Yep, it's me. "giggles"

I used to be Flights of Fantasy, but then I changed my name when I was going to be a full time short story writer. Now I on a "survival niche" kick.

But the story you helped me with has done really well. So far I've made $25.18. Which is more than I've made on the other 9 books since 2013. hahaha So thank you very muchly, couldn't have even done this well without you!

*She laughs instead of cries* Though it's not like I'm writing novels and spending thousands of dollars on editing and cover art. If I was doing those things and still doing this badly I'd have a right to cry, but since I do all my books for free, and they're short and quick to write, and obviously not very good, I don't really have a right to complain.

No reviews, as far as I know. I don't usually check since I never get any, and the books I have had reviews on, the reviews haven't made any difference.

*except for the one where I got a 1 star for being good, but too short, and then never seeing a single sale or borrow after, but I don't know if the two things are related or not. Could have just been timing. *


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## BarbEWade (Jul 20, 2016)

As a new author to Kindle, thank you for sharing this. You have my sympathy and I hope you can work this out well.
Barbara


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## jaydax (Sep 2, 2012)

I didn't see this back in June when it was posted but did a little research looking for others who have had similar problems. It seems there are lots of authors who are getting this stock letter and suddenly finding their Amazon income has dried up completely. Yet they all profess they did nothing wrong. Being of a devious nature I took a look at how this might work.
1. An unscrupulous person (who doesn't deserve the title 'author') produces several long books mostly filled with pages plagiarised from all over the place. They register these in KU.
2. They create multiple KU reader accounts using 'borrowed' credit card data, all of which are free for the first month.
3. Using the fake KU reader accounts they 'read' multiple copies of the bogus books. Probably in the past they just skipped to the last page - KU apparently recorded that as a full book read in the past but perhaps their Page Flip software has stopped that. Now they probably use some hardware and software combination to click and move on to the next page at short random intervals.
4. To make the fake KU reader accounts more believable they also 'read' genuine KU author books causing a momentary spike in that author's page count.
5. The unscrupulous person reaps the rewards in their KU payments.
6. Amazon eventually spot what is happening and close the KU author account and KU reader accounts but they also close the accounts of those authors who were used to make the fake KU readers seem more genuine. Hence lots of very unhappy genuine authors all of who don't have a clue what went wrong.
Until Amazon find some way of stopping this, KU seems a very risky program now to any author.


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## martyns (May 8, 2014)

Queen_of_Shorts said:


> Yep, it's me. "giggles"
> 
> I used to be Flights of Fantasy, but then I changed my name when I was going to be a full time short story writer. Now I on a "survival niche" kick.
> 
> ...


I'm so glad it worked out and you got a few sales off it. You should check Goodreads. That genre gets more attention there than Amazon I think. To be honest, you were really on the right track. You should try for another of these, I'll gladly help you knock it into shape once you've got the bones down!


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