My cover story

Writing my first book, Wake, has been an enriching experience. On a personal level, it’s cathartic and therapeutic. I was so burned out from medicine and writing helped me rediscover my purpose and stay grounded. Along the way, I also learned a lot about the business side of self-publishing and marketing. But one of the most valuable lessons was my experience with Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), which is the self-publishing branch of Amazon.
I admit that when the writing was first finished, I was carried away by the amateur enthusiasm to quickly publish. The manuscript was still pretty raw, and the formatting was not up to the industry’s recommendations. The images inside the book were not created specifically for the stories. Nonetheless, I rushed to google “self-publishing platform” and KDP prominently presented itself at the top of the search results. I completed the signup and read the terms of service — no apparent red flags.
I uploaded my manuscript to KDP on August 17, 2022. KDP offered a database of “free images” for the book cover. I chose an image of a magic wand as it most closely represented the content of the book. There was a “72-hour review process” that in actuality took less than 48 hours. Everything went through KDP’s review without a glitch — no concerns or warnings about the content being plagiarism or in violation of copyright infringement. The Kindle version of the book appeared first, and the paperback was listed on Amazon the following day.
A week later, I received an email from KDP stating that I used “materials freely available on the internet” and they suspended my account and all the titles in my catalog. I inquired for more details, but none were given. Since the content of the book was originally composed by me and it had not been offered for free elsewhere, my best guess was the issue was the book cover.
There was a major problem. I had no access to the suspended account and wouldn’t have been able to correct whatever wrongdoing KDP accused me of. I sent KDP an email pointing out the bind they’d put me in. They sent me a tepid response with no helpful solutions. Eventually, KDP informed me the only way to restore my account was to send back a sworn statement saying I recognized my wrong and would not repeat the mistake again.
Before we move on to what happened next, there are a couple of things to understand about KDP’s inner workings.
First, KDP heavily uses bots and algorithms to screen published work in their database. Many authors are blindsided by this as almost everyone flies through KDP’s pre-publication review, only to be hunted down by bots on the back end. The bots are notorious for over-accusation, hence get things wrong quite frequently. But that’s not KDP’s problem. The burden of proof is on the authors who must then deal with the KDP representatives.
That leads me to the second “wish-I-had-known” quirk about KDP. Responding to KDP’s allegations would not be so excruciatingly frustrating if the representatives were consistent, detail-oriented, and allowed to critically think. Sadly, all the KDP reps are located throughout the world. Every KDP email I received came from a different agent, even though it’s the same email thread on the same subject. It was explained to me that this is by Amazon’s design so they can minimize human subjectivity. To further de-personify their reps, KDP assigns them very limited templates of verbiage. The reps cannot deviate from the scripts and cannot really elaborate more on any details. Almost all communications are vague and often downright misleading. A lot of authors I know tried to correct their mistakes based on ambiguous feedback from KDP, only to be slapped in the wrist for more allegations because of their attempts to rectify original offenses.
Now that we know how the KDP machine works, let’s pick up where we left off.
For a few days, I resisted sending back the sworn statement of guilt. KDP’s accusation was completely unfounded and unilateral. And it was unfair that I was offered no explanation and no chance for remedy. But after a while, I relented and sent the sworn statement back to KDP. The account was restored but the book remained unavailable on Amazon. I was under the impression that the cover was the problem, so I changed the cover to an image of a man expressing his freedom on the mountaintop. (Imagine he’s doing a “Y” in the Village People’s “YMCA”.) The image had been purchased from Shutterstock and it came with a license to use freely online and up to 250,000 copies in print. I sent KDP the proof of image purchase and use license. That seemed to appease them, and Wake was live on the Amazon website again.
In September, an editor suggested that the YMCA man on the cover did not really speak to potential buyers who might be looking for a children’s book. I purchased a new image from Shutterstock and changed the book cover. It’s a picture on an open book with words and magic popping up from the pages.
That was a huge mistake.
The new cover triggered the bots. And within 2 days, the bots struck, and KDP hit me simultaneously with emails from their 2 different departments. The content review team accused me of using materials freely available on the internet. The account team, on the other hand, claimed that I used the materials to which I did not have the rights. Imagine my confusion. What was the real offense here? Was it the free stuff on the web or other people’s intellectual property I was in trouble for?
Based on the prior interactions, I replied to both KDP teams with proof of image purchase and license. In addition, I also sent them my copyright for the content and artwork of Wake. The interactions, this time around, contained much more threatening language (still scripted though). I figured this was because my account had been suspended, and I was considered a repeat offender who deserved no leniency. That part was understandable, but the mistreatment also included carelessness in their review process. The content review team falsely claimed that the names on the documents did not match and shut down the account.
I exchanged a few more emails with KDP and tried to explain to them that the names on the copyright and image license indeed matched everything on their file. Unfortunately, the good reps at KDP would not listen to reasons and common sense. They sent me a “final communication” saying they would not offer further insight or action on the matter.
So, there I was. After 40 days on KDP, my account was terminated on September 26. I learned later that because KDP still held distribution rights to the book, even though they would not sell it on Amazon, I would not be able to take my manuscript to another distributor. My book was held hostage in Amazon KDP forever. And because my account was shut down by KDP in bad standing, no other distributor would accept my future work. I was officially a blacklisted author!
Oh boy, the trouble I got myself into in less than 2 months of being an amateur writer.
Although having my book hijacked by KDP algorithms and dehumanized representatives was deeply upsetting, the worst part of this nightmare was KDP effectively tarnished my name. I was labeled a bad actor by their remarkably flawed system.
Wake was a labor of love and was created with much care. It will never win a book award and will never make me rich. But it’s my baby, and it’s worth fighting for. I made my appeals several times through the KDP portal. I asked to “speak to the manager”. But KDP kept ghosting me.
Out of desperation, I emailed Jeff Bezos (jeff@amazon.com) almost daily to plead my case. He never returned my email. I found two KDP executives on Linkedin. Both were authors. I sent them passionate letters explaining my situation from one author to another. Both letters were returned to me unopened.
I resorted to Google search and found other writers’ blogs and YouTube videos describing the same ordeal they’d experienced with KDP. The story was alarmingly familiar — the bot’s errors led to circular arguments with unreasonably rigid KDP reps, then the accounts got terminated. One of the authors got her account back when she exposed the injustices she received from KDP on social media. The article went viral and received over 5,000 comments and shares. Shortly after, her account got restored. I found a YouTube video made by Sean Dollwet who suggested joining the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) as they offer legal assistance to indie writers. I signed up for ALLi membership and asked for their help. I received a quick and very kind response from Sarah, one of the contributors. I explained my case thoroughly and sent ALLi all the supporting evidence. At first, ALLi asked that I remain patient and give KDP time to respond. But after 3 weeks, I reported back to Sarah that KDP effectively ghosted me. ALLi said they would forward the info to KDP. I was thankful for their assistance.
I also sought legal support around the same time. I consulted a copyright attorney in Los Angeles. We discussed the case, and the attorney was baffled by the treatment I received from KDP. He assured me that I was in the right as the copyright holder of my creation and that the use of purchased images from Shutterstock was appropriate. But since KDP is part of Amazon and the mothership is in Seattle, the attorney referred me to his colleague in Washington state.
I had another legal consultation with the attorney in Spokane, who pretty much agreed with the first copyright attorney. He drafted a semi-threatening demand letter to KDP. The problem was, we did not know what KDP’s physical address was. My attorney’s intern did some research and found 3 potential addresses. On October 24, we sent the letter to the legal departments of all the addresses. And we waited.
Two weeks passed and we received a very short reply from the law firm that represented Amazon. They asked for my email associated with the terminated KDP account, which we had provided in the demand letter. And we waited again.
On November 22, I received an email from the KDP account review team saying that my account was reinstated. As expected, no explanations or apologies were included. Was it the demand letter or the help I received from ALLi that got the account reinstated? I cannot say for sure. But based on the timing of events, my guess was the former.
(And for those who are concerned about my legal fees to get all this resolved, I’m happy to report that I paid my attorney a whopping sum of $5.75 for the postage of the 3 letters. We belong to Legalshield which offers one-time consultations with specialty attorneys. I am now glad we have the membership.)
My first order of business was to unpublish my paperback and e-book from the KDP catalog. I unenrolled my e-book from Kindle Unlimited. (KU will automatically re-enroll your book every 90 days, even if it’s unpublished. You have to do this manually in addition to unpublishing.) Also, I deleted the draft of the hardcover. Now, when you go on Amazon, Wake will be listed as “out of print” as KDP no longer has a say in how I distribute my work.
It turns out that having my account reinstated was just a byproduct. The real triumph was how Wake emerged anew from this awful situation. For almost two months while I was banned, I worked with a very talented illustrator in the Philippines named Ronald Cruz. Ronald created new illustrations for each story, one black-and-white for the chapter title, and one color for the story. The work was fantastic. I ordered print copies through Diggypod and the finished products were outstanding. The illustrations added so much more pop to the book and brought the stories to life. I also revised and reformatted the manuscript. The new creation became the second edition of Wake.

To recap

Do’s

Don’t’s

1. Don’t try to game Amazon or KDP. They remember everything and they will eventually reach you for any shady activity.
2. Don’t lose your cool. Be patient. Rants and deprecations of the KDP reps won’t get you anywhere.
3. I would discourage emailing Jeff Bezos. He won’t get to see any of the emails. It’s a waste of time.
4. Do not randomly send letters to “KDP executives” you find on Google, LinkedIn, Instagram, or anywhere on the internet. Unless you have personal connections with the said executives, the letters won’t get anywhere.