Let me start by saying, I’m not affected. Yet.
If you haven’t heard, there’s been a slew of authors having their page counts reduced and in some cases, their author accounts completely banned.
Many LitRPG authors have been affected by this, many of whom have done little to no promotion outside of the Facebook groups and AMS ads. However, they’ve had their page counts reduced and their accounts banned.
Now, for many of these authors, this is their livelihood – or a significant source of income. Unfortunately, because Amazon is (I assume) running programatic sweeps, people are getting caught up who did nothing wrong.
This is causing a few issues:
- Amazon is not providing any details of how they are finding these bad actors. I can understand why they aren’t providing details of how they are locating ‘bad actors’ because any public information released just lets scammers learn how to cheat the system. The problem is that whatever system they’re using is catching a LOT of good actors.
- There is no good way to get author to reinstate accounts or work with authors caught in this problem. You just get banned, your page reads stripped and you’re stuck.
- Amazon is also reducing page counts in previous months. However, there is no indication that they are shifting the money they have clawed back to other authors. For those who don’t know, authors get paid based on page reads – a certain number of cents per page read. The amount per page read is based off the total ‘pool’ of money divided by the page reads. If they are reducing the page reads, theoretically, the cents per page read should go up. However, there’s no indication Amazon is going to return / add this money to authors who aren’t affected. What this really means is that Amazon is keeping the difference.
- Authors are fast getting scared. A LOT are pulling out of KU because it’s safer to remove your books from KU and just sell books direct rather than risk having your accounts banned. This is a HUGE drop in revenue for many (see the previous posts about how much you make going wide compared to KU for my own experience) but it’s the safer option.
- As readers, this means you’ll get less books to read and have to pay for your books.
All this is entirely frustrating. It’s scary too because people like me who have just gone all-in with KU are now wondering if we did it right. I’d hate to pull my books out, but if I get a ‘you are getting invalid page reads’ e-mail, I might have to do that. I definitely don’t want / need my accounts being targetted.
What can you do?
- If you see an author you like pulling out of KU or have their books removed, PLEASE e-mail Amazon. Let them know that you read their books and they are NOT scammers.
- Support your favorite authors by just buying their books
That’s all I can think of right now.
Who’s been banned? Can you provide a few names? When you say the account is banned- it is just KU or all Amazon?
Hypothetically if you were banned- where would I buy your kindle copies from then?
Curious.
I haven’t heard of any bannings, but a number of suspensions, which is near-term just as bad for authors who need the royalties for bills.
GR Cooper was banned. Then got his account back. A few others from what I recall, there’s a list floating around. Pretty much a ban if your account is suspended unless Amazon changes its mind. Which can take a while.
People who got suspended / banned / have had warnings
GR Cooper
Jeff Sproul
Matt Diniman
Tom Hansen
Jeffrey Logue
Ramon Meija (I think, not sure about this one)
RJ Castiglione
Leto Blackman
Wilson Bateman
RJ Triveri
Prax Venter
Zachariah Dracoulis
the list goes on. Some of them have had their page reads stripped, other sbanned, etc.
Is this why one author I’ve been following had his account wiped so it just says “Name – Author” with no books listed? I thought he’d voluntarily quit the game, which was depressing enough, but if it was done to him or to avoid being banned it’s even worse. I’ll definitely email Amazon, for all the good it’ll do.
Oh and for the record, if you have to pull out of KU I’ll buy your books. I’ve already bought several, and I mostly get them on KU for the first read or when I’m broke and buy it later.
Quite likely.
I’ve been buying your books in Kindle. I’d be willing to pay for paper copy if it comes to that. Bundle up the first trilogy of SA and I’d even pay for a hardback.
Good to know! I’ve never looked at a hardcopy version before, it probably would be an interesting exercise.
But I’ll always be selling in eBook format myself. Just a question if it’s in Kindle Unlimited or not.
Let’s be honest here. Some authors have been playing games with their page counts. I’ve noticed it in my reading times (how long it takes me to read a book) on a few authors. I’ve seen books that quote page counts in the 500-600 (or more) range that I’ve been able to finish in as few as four hours. And on a few occasions I’ve complained about this…this is stealing at its most basic level.
So this issue is real. And it is cheating authors that play by the rules and standards. When you are getting paid by the number of pages read…and you essentially make your books longer than the standard you are cheating other authors out of their fair share.
Bottom line. Don’t play games with your fonts and spacing to make your books longer than publishing standards. If you do you deserve to have your books pulled until such time you edit your works to standards.