Why My Books Were Nearly Banned From Amazon

Naughty, naughty, slap wrist, bedroom sans supper for Lymon.

I've been warned that I'm one more warning letter away from getting my books scrubbed off Amazon for good.

And I've come to the conclusion that that'd be a bad thing.

It's all down to my recent foray back into KDP Select land with 'The Diamond Rush'. As my reader will know, Amazon demands digital exclusivity for titles registered 'Select'. So I unpublished my book from Smashwords and decommissioned it from Draft2Digital and pulled it off Kobo thinking that'd do the trick.

But Amazon's bots spotted 'The Diamond Rush' was still on sale somewhere (without my knowledge m'lud', honest). And a couple of sales via Draft2Digital proved it. Gulp. I'd accidentally broken the rules and got caught.

I was sent a stern but fair letter to which I had to hold up my hands. I thought 'The Diamond Rush' was exclusive to Amazon. Apparently not. But how difficult is it to keep track of where your titles are being sold, and how long does it take to unpublish them?

Anyway, lesson learnt. One more misdemeanour and I'm out of Amazon. So I just can't risk KDP Selecting any of my existing titles again.

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