Why I Got Kicked Out of Kindle Unlimited & Lost $50,000 Overnight | Derek Murphy
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ส.ค. 2024
- Update: after making a big fuss about this, posting some articles and mailing my email list, I got Amazon to back down and restore my account. More details here:
www.creativindi...
Here's the original post:
I had one old book in my KDP account I thought wasn't on any other platform, so I put it in KDP Select.
2 days later I got an email saying that book was found on Google Play (no idea how it got there, but might have done it years ago).
SO they are going to kick ALL my books out of Kindle Unlimited for one year - which means the $200+ in page reads I've gotten consistently for the past 3 months will disappear in a few days.
I made 8K on Kindle last month and would have broken through 10K this month - and should have been able to continue that for the rest of the year with new releases. Without KU, my income will go from $300 a day to $100 a day (From $10K to $3K a month... so I'll actually probably lose much more than $50K over the next year.)
IF I'm really being kicked out, and I can't beg my way back in, I'll need to spend the next few months taking my books wide and doing tons of promotion to build up non-amazon streams to try and replace the KU income I'm losing.
I'd rather NOT do that, because it's a pain in the ass, and I've been a loud advocate of new authors going all in with KU. It sucks they're booting me out for a mistake that lasted two days (the book on Google Play was taken down immediately, by the way and they know it - so that's not the issue).
But I also understand they're a huge company dealing with tens of thousands of authors and employees probably all have to follow a strict rulebook. This is exactly why people say not to go all in with Amazon, and I get that (but I don't think you should limit your earnings today based on what theoretically could happen tomorrow).
This isn't a cautionary tale warning you against Amazon. I still seriously think new authors will see better results going all in with KU. Only a few authors make money wide, but it's harder and you really need to know what you're doing, have a big backlist, and have a platform of followers.
PS) What I think might have happened, is I had the book on Smashwords years ago, and unchecked all the options, and since they've added a Google Play option so it was automatically enrolled (or I just didn't worry about that at the time..., not entirely sure). I haven't been using Smashwords for the last few years, but I should have checked to make sure before putting the book in KU.
Hey there - I'm Derek Murphy. I'm a fine artist who became a book cover designer, then started writing young adult scifi and fantasy. I've spent almost 20 years living abroad, have a PhD in comparative literature (revolutionary politics in Paradise Lost), and have been featured in CNN for renting castles to use as writing retreats. Although I'm not working with clients anymore, I've built a ton of resources to help indie authors write, design and publish bestselling books.
On this channel, I talk about writing, publishing and creating personal freedom with unconventional business strategies and providing value. My videos are unpolished and a little raw, because we travel full-time and I focus on content, not production quality.
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I really really appreciate your honesty and sharing your journey.
It's the end of June 2017 and A) This clown's books are up on Kindle Unlimited and B) This clown has not taken down this 'woe is me, big bad Amazon is screwing me" vid so ... no, "honesty" is not a word I'd associate with this guy.
@Gui, prolly he has kissed amazon ass as he promised in the video so the great dictator king human flesh feeder billionaire Amazon-Jeff Bezos spared his life and his books are present as of now.
Kudos for the Video clip! Apologies for chiming in, I am interested in your thoughts. Have you heard about - Tarbbatigan ebook master Tip (do a google search)? It is a good one of a kind guide for learning how to create an ebook minus the normal expense. Ive heard some pretty good things about it and my m8 at very last got excellent results with it.
Books are just a gateway to get customer acquisition costs down for Amazon, they don't give a flying (you know what) about authors, which means you really need to cover your behind and play by the rules... obviously you know this, but I'm writing this for most anyone else who may happen to read it. If you're going to jump into publishing on Amazon, follow the rules or you're going to get slapped... HARD! :)
I think they just can't give a #### about vendors in general. I've heard horror stories from people selling other items. Amazon is just so big that people making them tens thousands of dollars a month are meaningless to them.
I'm terribly sorry to hear this, Derek. I hope you get an awesome Amazon associate that is reasonable and understanding regarding your situation.
Derek, I hope they understand your situation and allow you to stay on Kindle unlimited. We have so many of us in your groups , the guerrilla publishing group on Facebook Etc, that depend on you and your information. Like other commenters on this video, my sales have improved dramatically since I started following you. I know I even shared some of my sales charts with you at one time in an email and you were kind enough to respond. I think I speak for everyone here when I say that I really really appreciate your openness and your helpfulness to other authors. Best wishes and I will continue to follow you online (not like in a stalking way) 😇
Hi Derek, really sorry for this. I've been selling more books since I start following you. Please share your future experience on the new ways you will found to sell/promote your books so we can also beneficiate on that.
Sorry for my English. Kisses from Portugal and good luck.
I repeat the question why would anybody want to self publish a book.?
what books do you write
There is also Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, and unless something has changed, does not have the expected exclusivity. With Kindle Unlimited Amazon has robots that search for other copies even on your own website which is not permitted. They also search for plagiarism. Some have done webinars teaching how to use copyright-expired public domain books which some "publishers" like Smashwords do not even permit.
Your contract is a legal document.
Is kdp select worth it?
Wow! That is really bad. I'm so sorry that happened to you. As a Scripturient in the making, I am learning from your experience. I think Kindle should hire you and pay you well just to teach, you explain everything so clearly, honestly and patiently. I will pray for you.
Maria Montesino iil
I'm so sorry! I hope it all gets worked out.
This is a huge obstacle, but you are a smart guy and I have confidence you will work it in your favor.
Sorry to hear about your experience. I hope you go from strength to strength. You deserve it.
Derek, I'm really sorry for your loss! That really sucks. I feel for you. It's a really cruddy situation and I hope you can resolve it. You are a great marketer and you really have a lot of know how. I truly believe that you'll figure a way to make this work for you instead of against you. Praying for your success man!
PLEASE DEREK,
take your money out of Amazon as quick as you can before any other accidents happen. Stay on the platform but make sure your money is in YOUR bank and not in THEIR ACCOUNT still. Amazon WILL take your money if its still in their system if you accidently broke a rule. I know of a similar situation of someone losing money and 50 000 is ALOT to lose in one full swoop. thats a years pay for alot of people I know.
Of course!! :-D If I get 50K... I would live with them minimum 5 years!!! :-D
Stay strong! Keep up that "OK, I'll adapt" attitude. That's the key to everything. Like you say, this experience will only make you more powerful and more knowledgeable about how to survive various obstacles.
i will keep my fingers crossed that they give you a break even though you may have made a mistake. also, it can't hurt to point them towards your creativindie blog and your youtube channel to show them how much you help indie authors. and i'm sure you'll be more diligent in the future.
Everything for a reason.... making you stronger.
Dude keep hassling them for sure! Take it as far as you can. Best of luck for what comes next, wishing you the best!
I hope the best for you. You've been cranking a lot of great content on youtube so maybe that will help smooth the financial bumps.
Its not a setback or roadblock ....Its a lesson to learn. My personal opinion.... Others "Few or most other Authors not making ANY money" You have options this is great. Was this a fake story we would like an update ?
One book a month for three months? Bro... You're an animal. Subscribed and bell-ed just for that, and I'm not even a writer. LOL
Hope it gets resolved in your favor. You've been honest. Appreciate your channel.
What a treasure trove of information. Thanks.
oh man, that sucks. I'm sorry, Derek. I hope you get someone nice!
Thanks for telling us. It must have been tough and I really appreciate your honesty and letting us know so we can make better decisions. All the best
You have a great attitude. Lots of authors (your followers) are watching to see how this turns out with Amazon.
It sucks when a giant corporation stonewalls and doesn't recognise that individual cases have mitigating circumstances. A company with any nous would see that they will probably miss out on royalties by suspending your KU account. Who knows? Maybe you'll find that going wide proves more lucrative than KU!
Derek, I really appreciate you and your generous sharing on this channel.
Sorry that it happened to you. Keep at it. There are a lot of places to sell books in the meantime, and then hit them back in a year worse case scenario. Best wishes!
Thanks for this video. An author I know had an issue with Amazon on Kindle Unlimited where they thought he was spoofing the normalized pages. They wiped out everything he had on amazon, which was years worth of platform building. The thing is, his page count was probably actually being spoofed by a shady marketer he hired. His reaction was to beware Kindle Unlimited, mine was to learn to do my own marketing.
There's a problem now with scammers republishing books without permission on Apple, so the authors get in trouble for breaking KU terms. It's nice Amazon is trying to clean up the cheaters, but it's inevitable they sweep up some legit authors in the purge.
Since Createspace merged with KDP merged, it's nearly impossible to update a book. It keeps getting rejected as 8.5x11, when I uploaded a 6x9.
I can not see where to put my book as permanently free
You can put it up on draft2digital for free and get KDP to price match it - but not if it's in KU.
This is why I'm averse to putting all my eggs in one basket. The basket gets too much power over you and it hurts when it bites you in the ass.
Maybe going wide you'll open other opportunities you wouldn't have had. It might turn into a win in the long run.
Sorry to hear this. That's the problem with Amazon...i've had other issues... like verified reviews being pulled out for no reason whatsoever, with no explanations...and other authors told me they had this issue too. So I don't bother so much with reviews now. With so many authors and books going into Amazon we should possibly expect more of these types of things happening.
Let me get this straight. You paid for the book on Google Play but you got Kindle unlimited and you're not allowed to have a book that you paid for end Kindle unlimited. Even though you paid for their service. That would be like me buying two books and then getting kicked out for buying two books. I'm pretty sure if someone went to court over this they win a lawsuit because they paid with their own money.
Don't be afraid to drink some water while talking. You could edit it out. It's better than constantly trying to re-hydrate your mouth with saliva.
Derek,
What does "going wide" mean?
Thanks
when you publish on all ebook platforms, rather than being exclusive with KDP/amazon
Sorry to hear that. I'm a month or so away from finishing edits and launching my book. It's painful to hear that even in self-publishing you're still at the mercy of the distributors.
Did you get it sorted out in the end? @PabloAmarna
Here is some advice. Launch you book with a traditional publisher and forget self publising
Glad to hear that you were able to resolve this. At least Amazon communicate with their users. Unlike Facebook.
I subscribe to KU and also buy books from time to time. I didn't like when you said you added 30 pages (probably just mush) to increase your page-reader payments. WE, as readers, have to suffer through repetitive BS within an already great book. I also am tired of Kindle books that are replete with grammatical errors, misspelled words, missing words, typos, etc. I suspect all an author has to do is upload a raw manuscript that hasn't been proof-read at all to get it on Kindle. I seriously doubt this could be done with a standard publisher of hard and soft cover books on the first shot if submitted in the same manner as Kindle books.
You are doing great...look at this as an big, big, big opportunity for you to grow and expand. Go wide, establish yourself for a year, then go back in a year to kindle and return to your original plan, and you will have doubled your size in less time than you originally anticipated. do not push to go back in. forcus your energy on going wide now... wait a year, establish yourself, then you can help others follow your lead...
Yeah more like it's a mistake that should be illegal for them to even go after you for because it shouldn't be considered a mistake if you paid for a book
If it was me that would be a lawsuit
I know you will overcome this, you are a great person and sometimes we make mistakes. I believe in your work. Don´t worry everything will be okay :)
You have a great attitude. I was listening to The Creative Penn Podcast and Joanna said her fiction titles sell well on Kobo but not non-fiction. Maybe going wide might not be a bad thing for you. 😃📚
Derek, I sure hope it all works out with Amazon. Hopefully, they can understand the mix-up and see it as an honest mistake. On the subject of kindle/ebooks - what do you recommend for creating an epub file?
I hope everything will work out in your favor!
I hope that they take into consideration that this was an honest mistake. You did remove it immediately once you realized the error.
yup I got kicked out recently too...same reason. one of my books was on Google...
Derek, Great Video. Can you tell me who this Somewhat Mysterious, Honolulu Polkadot everyone is talking about all of the sudden? Is this a book or a movie or what? Is he an author or what?
is there a chance to retail for ibooks, kindle and all the other platforms without any exclusivity
jeez that's brutal. did you also receive the email stating that they think you may be manipulating reviews?
no I haven't gotten one of those; but I'm careful to use clean links
sorry to hear
Dude, please drink some water before doing these videos.
Hi how cant I contact you? Thanks!
how many books do you have ?
amazon has a search section. duh
Invest in your own platform.
Why would anybody want to self publish a book? If you can write you can get a literary agent and a real publisher, do book signings, get on the talk shows and be somebody. Self publishing is for people who cannot write and need to see their name on the cover of a book.
I've made $35K in the last six months. I write an hour a day and travel full time, and I have about 10,000 people waiting for my next release. It's a pretty amazing way to make a living. I don't need to "be somebody" and getting on talk shows doesn't actually sell books (plus, big famous authors are probably making less than I am, because they only keep a fraction of book sales). The vast majority of traditionally published authors do not make a living with their writing.
I wouldn´t touch self publishing with a ten foot pole
Your loss Gary The poo face
You should it know better. Is your mistake and yours alone. Learn from it or you will make it again. Besides, you suppose to be a profession at this.
That sucks. Thanks for the info maybe your experience will help others.