# [Updated] Anyone Had A Book Blocked On KDP?



## Zenferno (May 29, 2013)

I've written a few short stories (erotica) over the last couple of months, all published with no problems but my latest upload was "Status: 'Blocked'" before it ever went live.  The reason stated was a content violation.  I've sent a couple of messages through their support system, the first receiving a stock reply that didn't say anything useful or specific, other than linking me to their guidelines page which I'd already read.  Still waiting for a second reply in which I again ask if they could be more specific.

So I was just wondering if any of you guys have had a book blocked and how you got through it?  Without Amazon telling me what the problem is I'm at a loss as to what to change.  If it was just the title, great, 2 minute job.  Cover?  Great, 5 minute job.  Text?  Not the end of the world.

I feel a bit depressed about all this, mainly because it's a reminder of how stuffed I'd be if Amazon unceremoniously shut me down if this were to happen a number of times.  I try to be careful with everything - blurb, keywords, title, text, cover etc but without knowing what I did who's to say the same thing wouldn't happen again?  Now I have a permanent reminder of the blocked book on my Bookshelf as there appears to be no way to get rid of it.

As for their support system via contact us, surely it wouldn't be too hard for them to implement a system for giving us a crumb of information on what we did.  As opposed to sending several messages back and forth trying to get to the bottom of the issue.

Will update this thread if I managed to get it sorted out.

Anyone know how their review system works?  Is it just bots reading all the data and scanning the images we submit or do they have people who actually look everything over?


----------



## David Adams (Jan 2, 2012)

I've had three erotica shorts booked on publish before, all at once since that's how I published them. It happened because I had my "unspecified age" characters in high school. In Oz, most high school kids are 18, but apparently that's not universal or clear enough.

I search/replaced "high school" with college, had them all state their ages (18 or over), hit publish, and all three went through. Apart from "super nasty stuff", that's the only thing I've seen them crack down hard on.

...

huh huh huh, hard on.


----------



## gswright (Aug 7, 2013)

I just had something similar happen. I just changed the price of my erotic bestseller to a lower price point to promote it again. It has been out for over a year and is a pseudo-taboo title. It ended up on the blocked list. All I did as change the price! That's really going to hurt my monthly sales.... At least Kobo, B&N, etc. still love it.


----------



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

They will reject books if they contain underage characters or rape (and FWIW here in the US high school means 14-1 or real incest.

They have also been blocking books based on how lurid the title, description, and cover are. They are telling people that they don't care about the actual content other than the above, it's the presentation. It's largely about someone looking for something innocent and being presented with a cover and tittle that are hardcore. A year and change ago, the explosion of erotica started and you really had to porn up your titles and parentheticals to compete. That era is over. Tone things down.


----------



## Sophrosyne (Mar 27, 2011)

The other thing I've noticed some erotica writers doing -- and I'm not surprised if their books get shut down for this -- is put a very sexually explicit excerpt in their book description. Since kids access Amazon, parents would be all over it if their kids were reading erotica, just from reading the book description. I've run into that a few times now, and it always surprises me.


----------



## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

I had one blocked about a year ago.  They never tell you what the violation is, since in reality, any type of porn is in violation of their TOS - they just happen to let most of it go.

Amazon is currently in the process of contacting (by phone) some erotica authors and telling them to tone down the covers and titles.  It's not a problem of content, but what their customers are seeing in search results.  I've also heard that lots of stuff they allowed in covers and titles up until last week are now no-nos for new books.

An author who talked to one of the Amazon reps was told that Amazon isn't looking to ban authors or further restrict content. They want to work with the authors to fix the problems.

So while they're in this phase, the folks checking the books during publishing are probably going to be overly sensitive and bounce more than usual.


----------



## Avis Black (Jun 12, 2012)

They blocked one of mine under my pseudonym, Monique Raimbaud, which had a cover as clean as a whistle--no people on it at all, just a pattern--and which wasn't any more risque in content than hundreds of traditionally published books in its genre. It's still for sale on B&N and Kobo, which is pretty much the only alternative. Amazon can be extremely prudish. What's really ridiculous is that it's still my best-selling title, despite the ban.


----------



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

Avis Black said:


> They blocked one of mine under my pseudonym, Monique Raimbaud, which had a cover as clean as a whistle--no people on it at all, just a pattern--and which wasn't any more risque in content than hundreds of traditionally published books in its genre. It's still for sale on B&N and Kobo, which is pretty much the only alternative. Amazon can be extremely prudish. What's really ridiculous is that it's still my best-selling title, despite the ban.


Looked quickly. That one is easy. Kidnapping and non-consent. They consider that rape.


----------



## Austin_Briggs (Aug 21, 2011)

Katie Elle said:


> Looked quickly. That one is easy. Kidnapping and non-consent. They consider that rape.


Um, I would, too.

No comment on the actual text, of course.


----------



## Just Browsing (Sep 26, 2012)

Katie Elle said:


> They will reject books if they contain underage characters or rape (and FWIW here in the US high school means 14-1 or real incest.


Well, the age thing is unclear. I graduated high school at 17. So did my kid. So ... if you wanted to mention a high-school aged person, I think you'd have to state in big bold letters somewhere that the person was 18 (as was everyone involved with that person).

I don't put anything explicit in my book descriptions. Not so much because I'm worried about browsing children, but because, well, it's just not where you expect to see explicit stuff right off that bat. The Look Inside is more problematic. I feel a little uncomfortable sometimes knowing that the hard-core stuff might turn up there, but then in some genres of erotica, it would be a little odd to be completely 'clean' for the first 10% of your book.

What I hate about the Amazon dungeon isn't that it exists--it's that it's applied, if I may say so, willy-nilly. I like Smashwords' system, where you opt-in to be able to see the explicit works, and then all of them are filtered that way. I wish Amazon had an adult-only portion somehow, and then put all the erotica there. So if you wanted to shop for those kinds of books, you could go there. And if you didn't, the rest of Amazon would have nil willies.


----------



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

Austin_Briggs said:


> Um, I would, too.
> 
> No comment on the actual text, of course.


The thing is that dubious consent is one of the most popular women's sexual fantasies and is a staple of erotica. The key is to tone it down and remove words like "kidnapping" from the blurb. It has to be like taken or ravished or something like that and make it clear that eventually there's a consent, sort of like in the above example, once it was made clear the characters were over 18 it was fine.

Amazon only has cracked down on dubious consent in last year and I suspect it had to do with the number of well publicized gang rapes like the Stuebenville football rape case.


----------



## Virginia Wade (Sep 4, 2011)

Another major crackdown on erotic content is happening now. Some authors have received phone calls from Amazon giving them the "heads up" that they will be reviewing erotic titles again.

I'm hearing about lots of books being blocked. Fun, isn't it?


----------



## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

Virginia Wade said:


> Another major crackdown on erotic content is happening now. Some authors have received phone calls from Amazon giving them the "heads up" that they will be reviewing erotic titles again.
> 
> I'm hearing about lots of books being blocked. Fun, isn't it?


Good news, Amazon is phoning ya!

Bad news, it's about taking down yer books.


----------



## Deena Ward (Jun 20, 2013)

1001nightspress said:


> What I hate about the Amazon dungeon isn't that it exists--it's that it's applied, if I may say so, willy-nilly.


Agreed. I too support keeping erotica out of underage (or unwanted) sight, but not when the filtering system is, as you wrote, applied willy-nilly. The third book in my ERom series was censored for the cover (hand/flower panties, wide coverage and more demure than most mini-kinis you see out there, but whatever). My sales weren't hurt much by the dungeon thanks to the book's position in the larger series keeping it discoverable. I eventually changed the cover because of the dropped Also-Bought positions.

I was lucky not to lose everything in the dungeon, but others aren't so fortunate. They're unfairly forced to compete against titles which have not been shoved to the bottom dregs of keyword searches, haven't had to change valuable parentheticals, titles and covers that impact reader discovery. You either get lucky, or you don't, apparently. My mama always told me no one ever said life was fair. She was right, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.


----------



## Zenferno (May 29, 2013)

OP here, thanks for all your responses, very interesting, and some scary.  It seems like covers/titles are being clamped down on which I can deal with.  I just hope they leave the existing sub-genres alone so far as writing in them goes.  

Still waiting for a response from Amazon about my blocked book.  I've had some great suggestions though about how to tweak my book/cover/blurb etc if need be, via PM from a fellow KBoarder, who would like to remain anonymous.  Thanks again to you.


----------



## Zenferno (May 29, 2013)

Just a quick update for anyone who's interested.  I received a response from support which narrows down the problem regarding my blocked book:

"During our review process, we found that your book’s cover image, title, and/or product description are in violation of our content guidelines."

They also unblocked my book and set it to "Status - Draft" so I can go back in and make the necessary changes before publishing.  I have to send a message to a special email address once I'm ready to try publishing again so fingers crossed.


----------



## DarkScribe (Aug 30, 2012)

David Adams said:


> I've had three erotica shorts booked on publish before, all at once since that's how I published them. It happened because I had my "unspecified age" characters in high school. In Oz, most high school kids are 18, but apparently that's not universal or clear enough.
> 
> I search/replaced "high school" with college, had them all state their ages (18 or over), hit publish, and all three went through. Apart from "super nasty stuff", that's the only thing I've seen them crack down hard on.
> 
> ...


Most Australian High School kids are eighteen? Try thirteen to seventeen - unless they started late or repeated a year. All my kids bar one started Uni at eighteen. (The exception graduated HS at twelve and started Uni at thirteen.)


----------



## Herrig (May 25, 2017)

Speaker-To-Animals said:


> Looked quickly. That one is easy. Kidnapping and non-consent. They consider that rape.


Maybe that is why I had book blocked.. but many erotic books have kidnapping and rape.

And you tell med I am not allowed to write about kidnapping and rape? Where should I host an erotic novel then which includes that?


----------



## Laran Mithras (Nov 22, 2016)

They also block books for covers that look like genitalia. I had one cover (a set of facial lips) that I reworked. Darkened it a little so it wasn't glaring as the first. Resubmitted and the cover was blocked. My editor said it might have been mistaken for female genitalia.

On another book that got blocked, the picture was a planet with a swirling asteroid field, title: Cat Shifted. I reworked that cover, and used a different font. The F in "Shifted" sort of looked like a T. They blocked the book.

Apparently, they refuse to work with authors about correcting minor mistakes like these. They absolutely refused to let me submit new covers (interior content was unchanged). There's some real customer service for you...


----------



## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

Herrig said:


> Maybe that is why I had book blocked.. but many erotic books have kidnapping and rape.
> 
> And you tell med I am not allowed to write about kidnapping and rape? Where should I host an erotic novel then which includes that?


No need to bring up a three year old thread to ask a question.

Books with kidnapping and rape won't be allowed in the erotic category on Amazon. Maybe B&N, since they'll publish actual incest. You can write what you want, but stores have the right to not sell it. You might want to do a web search about erotic content. Or look at a forum on Reddit called erotica authors. You can find out lots of stuff about what content is allowed, ask questions of people who are making money everyday from erotica.

List of stuff Amazon doesn't allow:

incest
dubious consent (to include mind control, drunk or drugged participants and the like)
non-consent (rape)
underage (all participants must clearly be 18 or beyond, safer to not be in high school)
bestiality (werewolves and other shapeshifters must be in human form)
scat

Covers mustn't be too "sexy", with models looking underage, no nudity, no bondage, so sexual positions. Be careful writing the book descriptions, as certain things can trigger a review (like, in pseudo incest, don't mention family relation -- stepfather, stepbrother, and so on -- but rather use "code words" like, the man of the house, the boy she grew up with).

Do some books get away with things? Yes. Usually it's not for long. Educate yourself about current things to avoid, which you can do with research and membership of a forum where erotica authors hang out.


----------

