New Year, Old Problem: Innocent Author Rank-Stripped For Third Time - Let's Get Digital

Panzer had intended to make a quick trip today; but, when he hit the Catosphere, the Panzermobile was buffeted by yelling and screaming. Our brave kitty knew he needed to find out what all the hubbub was about. Following the noise took him to the Let's Get Digital site. With no digging required he found a post about Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP).

This is definitely not good news.

According to the post by site owner David Gaughran, Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) rank-stripping machine is at it again. The post documents the problems indie author Kristi Belcamino has had with KDP beginning in September 2017 when she listed one of her books to free status from paid. KDP immediately rank-stripped her book. This means the book lost its sales ranking, became "invisible" in reader searches and couldn't be linked to by affiliates. After emails back and forth the book was finally re-instated to its former sales position. She again listed the book free in December 2017 and the same rank-stripping occurred. More emails back and forth and the book was again re-instated. She listed the book free in January 2018 with the same result with the rank-stripping. According to the Let's Get Digital post, it appears KDP doesn't have a valid explanation for what's causing the problem. There is a link near the end of the post to get Kristi Belcamino's book for free, if you hurry. (It goes off free in a couple of days, so check the price before you buy it to make sure it's still free.)

Panzer says, "This is exactly why this little kitty has never listed any ebooks free on KDP. Free are on Smashwords and Barnes and Noble."

Note: This is a h-u-m-o-n-g-o-u-s post. Bring two thermoses of tea, a dozen muffins and six cookies (biscuits) and a sleeping bag for a nap in the middle of today's reading selection.

To read the post tootle over to Amazon author

Amazon's Hall of Spinning Knives - David Gaughran

Six days to Halloween.

Panzer's trip into the Catosphere today took him to David Gaughran's blog. With a little digging he discovered a post about Amazon's fraud detection system.

According to David Gaughran's post, Amazon's fraud detection system has been catching some innocent authors. The system is designed to identify authors who use clickfarms/bots to increase the sales numbers of their books. Most of the authors' books mentioned in the post were in free promotions, so the "sales" were free downloads. As a result of the fraud detection system, the authors' books were rank-stripped. The authors were also warned their accounts were eligible for shut down if another infraction was detected. The post describes two possible reasons for the authors' books being flagged.  One is there's a problem with Amazon's fraud detection system itself or the second is the authors may have been targeted by scammers.The authors targeted even included New York Times bestselling authors.

Panzer says, "Umm ... It appears Amazon uses bots to answer authors emails, so you can't even ask what's happening."

Note: This is a v-e-r-y l-o-n-g post. Bring a thermos of tea and a half dozen muffins and three chocolate chip cookies (biscuits) for today's reading selection.

To read the post, tootle over to Amazon