r/KDP

My account was suspended for review manipulation a while ago. For context, you can read my two previous posts here:

• First Post
• Second Post

I’m making this final post to update you all on the situation and share my experience, hoping it might help someone who unfortunately finds themselves in this exact nightmare.

The Outcome: My account has been reinstated! The specific book that was accused of triggering the suspension remains blocked permanently. Honestly, I am just happy to have my account and the rest of my business back.

The Appeal Process & Escalation: It was an absolutely exhausting process filled with endless loops from frontline support. I was repeatedly rejected, stuck in the exact same copy-paste appeal loop for two straight weeks, and eventually, they just closed my case.

Out of desperation, I tried a hail-mary and emailed jeff@amazon.com and andy@amazon.com. At the same time, I reached out to ALLi and the Authors Guild (AG) for legal support. ALLi and AG were still in the process of reviewing my case and hadn't formally replied yet, so I am not 100% sure if they directly influenced Amazon behind the scenes.

However, on April 16th, my case was finally pulled out of the frontline queue, and I received an email from Executive Customer Relations:
Hi there,

My name is XXX with Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) Executive Customer Relations, and I'm writing regarding your recent inquiry about your account status.

We've reviewed the information you provided and have decided to uphold our previous decision to suspend your KDP account.

As you know, Amazon prohibits authors from posting reviews on their own books or providing any form of compensation in exchange for customer reviews. These practices undermine the integrity of our review system and the trust our customers place in it.

For more details about our Community Guidelines, visit Help:https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=GLHXEX85MENUE4XF

To move forward with reviewing your account for potential reinstatement, we'll need you to provide a comprehensive plan of action that includes the following:

-- A detailed description of all methods you used to post or obtain customer reviews that are prohibited by Amazon policies, or otherwise manipulate reviews. Include the dates when you used these methods and details on any third parties you used. -- Contact information (name, email address, website, etc.) for any third parties you engaged with to obtain prohibited reviews or manipulate reviews. -- Identifying information for any customer accounts you or a third party used to post prohibited reviews. -- Documentation (e.g., emails, receipts) from any such third party confirming you used their service. -- List of any prohibited reviews remaining on the Amazon site. -- Description of steps you have taken to prevent product review manipulation within your books and how this will prevent future violations. -- After reinstatement, review your catalog and unpublish any titles or reviews that do not comply with Amazon's Community Guidelines.

Once we receive your plan, we will review it and decide whether you may publish on Amazon again. If you do not send an acceptable plan, we may permanently terminate your account.

As a reminder, finding additional violations of Amazon's Content Guidelines may negatively impact your account status, and could result in the suspension or terminat*on of your KDP account.

Thanks for your understanding.

I knew this was my last real chance because a real human was finally managing my case. Here is the exact Plan of Action (POA) I sent back:
Dear XXX and the Executive Customer Relations Team,

Thank you for your response and for allowing me the opportunity to provide a formal Plan of Action. I am a dedicated professional author with over 60 titles, and I view my relationship with Amazon KDP as a long-term partnership. I have recently been honored with the KDP All-Stars Bonus for March 2026, which underscores my commitment to providing high-quality content to Amazon customers.

I take full responsibility for the health of my account. While I have never engaged in or authorized any form of review manipulation, I acknowledge that anomalies were detected. I am committed to the following plan to ensure my account remains in 100% compliance moving forward.

1. Detailed description of methods used to post or obtain prohibited reviews: Not Applicable. I have never used prohibited methods, including but not limited to: paying for reviews, using review-swap groups, or soliciting reviews in exchange for compensation. I have strictly followed organic growth strategies.

2. Identifying information for any customer accounts or third parties used: None. I do not operate any alternative customer accounts for the purpose of rating my own books, nor have I ever engaged a third-party service, agency, or freelancer to manipulate reviews.

3. Documentation (e.g., emails, receipts) from any such third party: Not Applicable. Since no third-party services were ever hired or contacted, there are no receipts, invoices, or communication records to provide.

4. List of any prohibited reviews remaining on the Amazon site: None that I can identify. For ASIN B0FZXXXXX, there are currently 0 written reviews and only approximately 8 ratings. I have no knowledge of the individuals who provided these ratings. However, I fully authorize and request Amazon to remove any rating or review that your internal systems deem suspicious or non-compliant.

5. Description of steps taken to prevent future issues: To eliminate any possibility of third-party anomalies or future violations, I have implemented the following:

• Permanent Cessation of KDP Select Free Promotions: I have identified that the recent anomalies occurred during a 5-day Free Promotion. To protect my account from automated bot activity targeting free books, I will permanently cease using the "Free Book Promotion" tool for my entire catalog.
• Neutral Language Audit: I have audited the "Author’s Note" and back-matter of all 60+ titles. I have removed any language that could be interpreted as encouraging or influencing a review, ensuring all reader-facing text is strictly neutral and compliant with Community Guidelines.
• Enhanced Internal Compliance: I have established a new internal checklist to review every update and new publication against both Content Guidelines and Community Guidelines before clicking "Publish."
• Direct Organic Focus: My marketing will be limited exclusively to official Amazon Advertising and my verified author platform, ensuring no "gray area" third-party sites are involved.

6. Catalog Review After Reinstatement: I fully agree to this requirement. Upon the reinstatement of my account, I will conduct a secondary, line-by-line audit of my entire catalog. I will immediately unpublish any title if I have any doubt regarding its full compliance with Amazon’s standards.

I have also sought guidance from the Authors Guild to ensure my business practices meet the highest industry standards. I respectfully request that you reinstate my account and allow me to continue our successful partnership.

Sincerely,

The Conclusion: After exactly one week, they replied and reinstated my account!

Looking back at this whole ordeal, I strongly suspect my book accidentally got hit by a wave of fake bot ratings while I was running a KDP Select Free Promotion, which triggered their automated systems.

I sincerely want to thank everyone in this community who sympathized with my situation and offered genuine advice. Thank you all so much!

...I don’t want to brag, but I think this Amazon ads thing is really working for me. In a week of running them, I’ve had a whole 9 clicks on my book. I think this is what success looks like. I’m ready to start a YouTube channel to teach others how to be this successful.

Obviously, I’m joking. It’s my first time running Amazon ads on one of my books. I watched a few tutorials on how to do it, but I don’t think I truly understand how they work. I didn’t really expect any success to begin with, so I’m not too disappointed. Maybe a little, but I’ll live :)

I’m at $107/month right now and it’s April 21st! Lol

Usually by this time I’m around $80 or so and end the month around that $107 mark give or take a couple bucks.

Focused on Adult Activity books and Math books and Kids books.

Looking to expand into Novels eventually but i don’t have the inspiration for that lol

Will keep pushing out activity books and such though, need this number over $100,000/month!

I have opportunities to do a couple of book signings, one at a brew pub and another at a retail shop. But should I? Even if I sell a bunch of books, at a gross profit of $5 a book it doesn't seem worth my time. With Amazon, the main thing is to show online purchases and get reviews, and over-the-counter sales don't generate those.

OTOH, book signings are marketing and it helps gets the word out about my book. It's something I would promote on local social media.

What are thoughts of fellow authors? Have any of you done book signings?

Hi, I’m a new small fish. I have been reading everyone’s posts and comments and am already so grateful for the wisdom here.

I have a book that I am not allowed to post product photos of. I thought if I posted a review with a video and image, that could be a fair work around. I was so new I didn’t think twice about it.

Now I am learning about all the rules and realizing this probably isn’t allowed.

Two questions:

- should I delete my review right away?

- do I need to be concerned about Amazon cancelling my account, even after I delete it?

Thanks!

What is a "good" daily budget on KDP ads to increase the visibility of the book, and subsequently sales? On site 12 euros/day is recommended, but it is too high for my low income.

What do you think? Should it be even more than that?

Is there a way for me to use KDP to publish a book for a client? They don’t seem to have a way to allow multiple users to have access to a KDP account…

I made 2 manual ads on Amazon with 0 impressions for 48 hours. One sponsored product and the other product targeting. Bids are high. Good keywords but 0 impression! What can be the reason. Thank you all.

I’m posting here because I’m honestly confused and trying to understand if this situation is normal or if anyone has experienced something similar.

I recently lost access to my KDP account due to what Amazon described as “similarity” with another book (mainly related to title/metadata potentially causing confusion). The book is in a common niche (short stories for older people), so yes, there are similarities in theme and keywords, but the content is 100% original and written by me.

A few important points about my situation:

I had no prior warnings at all. This was the first time anything like this happened.

The issue seems to be mainly about the title/positioning, not plagiarism or copied content.

My cover was completely different — we only shared the same niche and some keywords because the idea of the book is similar.

The other book they’re referencing was not even available anymore (it had been blocked a long time ago).

As soon as I realized there might be an issue, I tried to fix it and make changes, but I still lost access to the account.

I’ve already sent an appeal explaining everything and that there was no intention to mislead or copy.

From my perspective, it feels like this might be a very strict or possibly automated decision, especially since there was no previous warning or opportunity to properly fix the issue beforehand.

I’m trying to stay calm and handle this the right way, but I’d really appreciate hearing from others:

Has anyone experienced something similar with “similarity” issues?

Were you able to recover your account?

Any advice on how to improve the appeal or what worked for you?

Thanks in advance to anyone who takes the time to respond — I really appreciate it

I've published my second book and I never expected any real traction (certainly not to be able to have any sort of following) but it does hurt that absolutely no one cares about the only thing that I managed to do that actually makes me proud.

most of my acquaintances congratulate me on the fact that I was able to write and format my book but no one cares about the story itself. no one has read it. they don't have the time, the patience, or they don't like to read. I'm just venting but I would like to have some sort of community in which some one could at least tell me what works and doesn't work in my book, because so far, I have been my only reader so I'm still just guessing.

I know this is probably not related to kdp as a platform but I'm curious to read how many people are out there that feel the same and how they handle it.

I’m looking to build a high-impact team with two strategic partners to scale operations across ebook publishing, content creation, and advertising.

I have a hardworking mindset.

Feel free to send me a DM if u are interested.

Was logging in to see royalties but instead Amazon says it’s down for scheduled Maintainence for 2 hours has been 10

Hello,

Over a year I was writing books and building plans with Amazon. And then one morning you can't log in to the account.

The account closure happened not today. I wite this a few days after. Those few days I had some hope, but talking with customer support and other departments I understood that I can't get my account back.

KDP was not only my main source of income — I really enjoyed witing books, coming up with ideas etc.

I read somewhere you can open a new account with LLC, that would help me if you have some info about that..

Same as title what are the books that sells the most

Hello all! What do you do to track how readers/buyers are funnelled into your ebook on Amazon, and what might have set off sudden interest?

I published my first book on KU in March 22. It's a book I sat on for quite a while, and love deeply. Things were pretty dormant, particularly because I haven't been able to spend much time promoting it, as I've been deep in editing my second book.

I had a Friday off, so I worked on putting in A+ content on my book page, and made a couple of posts with trope cards to about 4 M/M Romance Facebook groups I'm a member of, but over the weekend I saw a huge surge in KENP reads and ebook purchases that's led to my book actually being in the Top 100 of Gay Fiction in the UK, and #161 in the US.

This to me is pretty insane for a complete cold debut launch, especially because this particular book is a niche within a niche (omegaverse), and Gay Fiction is a pretty big sub-category on Kindle/Amazon.

I'm doing a search of the socials now, but there's nothing obvious at all. In fact, there's been minimal engagement with my posts. How do you keep track of your marketing drives, and do social listening to see if someone has posted or reviewed your book and might be driving this?

Hello,

petite question, il y a un moyen de savoir si quelqu'un à lu mon livre (via l'offre amazon kdp gratuite) ?

J'ai des lecture qui s'affiche, mais aucun achat, donc j'imagine que quelqu'un l'a pris avec son abonnement kindle, mais je ne trouve rien pour "voir" si ça confirme ma pensée.

Merci de votre aide les gars.

PS : postez le lien reddit si y'avait déjà une réponse :)

Im on this sub and many people complain about either their book being removed or their account being banned. Yet others say how much money they make and how much fun they have using kdp.

If you are a normal user and dont try to cheat anything, dont use AI and try your best to make a great book / comic. Whats the likelyhood I will be banned or the book will be pulled?

All these people have me worried about using KDP but a part of me also thinks maybe they DID cheat somehow.

Never done it before and its the only piece missing before I publish. I'd prefer free. Any way to put my entire text in there and it formats it for me ? (Not necessarily looking for an easy way out but I dont like this kind of thing)