Amazon & The Death of a Career - the Finale

Let me start this post off with the best news - after 8 full days, my account on Amazon has been fully restored. However, for the last 3 days, I've fought an entirely separate battle where Amazon attempted to not pay me after allowing my books back.

My personal fight has not yet ended, as I will not back down, and I have every intention of getting this process fixed, and thankfully, now I have a contact to continue to fight.

Before I get started, I wanted to say thank you for your voices during all of this. You see, it was social media that got an Executive to call me, not my emails and phone calls. It was everyone banding together - in some instances, for someone you don't even know.

A Christmas Gift?

Christmas night, I was checking my email when I saw it, a different subject line from KDP not attached to any case number.

I will not lie. I screamed. I screamed at the top of my lungs and nearly jumped into the air.  I was back. My career had come back after 17 total people on the content review team telling me no. What's more - I was answered by an American and not a bot. (I have since confirmed the content review  team is overseas so I am not being rude).

I thanked them so quickly and rushed to the next step. I quick search on Amazon did indeed show all my titles.

Being overjoyed, I immediately went to check and see if they truly paid back my royalties as well. Imagine my surprise, when I saw this.

I politely emailed asking if there was a mistake. 

Meanwhile, I had two friends buy books - 1 bought ebooks, 1 bought audio. I waited three hours and checked. It hadn't triggered the account reopening in full. I'd already emailed, and I didn't want to piss the nice people off so I waited.

​Next day I got this email.

Four three more days I would explain, send my screenshot and get this exact same email back, sometimes from the nice Luis, sometimes from someone else. Each time, I checked my dashboard.

Stressed, I went to Twitter again and tried tweeting about possible stolen royalties. 

I also noticed a glaring issue. The book that got me banned had reviews...reviews from January 2021. Had the backend crossed their wires and the content really appeared misleading? I thought so, but wouldn't know until I could speak to someone.

Today, while on a work call, a strange number called. My jaw dropped when I saw the "voice to text" of the voicemail. Which I was also able to confirm with an email check moments later.

I emailed back (notice they still don't give you a way to get to them?) and got a call within a few short minutes.

Tony was wonderful. He assured me nothing was taken from me, and even agreed that there was no suspicious content, but that he has no access to the content team notes. He told me I was back in full and I confirmed with a quick check into my dashboard - I was also surprised to see I somehow made sales three of the days I was totally missing.

What did I learn from the call?

• The KDP content team has no phone access because "they aren't client facing so it isn't an issue". I assure you, I let him know how very much it was/is an issue
• Executives have no idea why the content team does what they do - AKA NO NOTES!!
• He found me via Twitter, not via any of my emails or attempted calls.
• The KDP content team is overseas and doesn't interact with clients. I was very verbal that this is a problem.
• I was told there would be an investigation into why I was ignored so many times and not given proper responses.
• That while nice, I will never put all my eggs in one basket. While I will remain on Amazon for the exposure, I am 100% wide.
• Our fight to fix this process is not yet done, but I'm still trying to understand what will help as a petition merely expresses a desire for something, but we all know Amazon KNOWS their policy is shit.

To everyone who has sent messages, left comments, and shared their stories. Thank you. This has been nothing short of the week from hell. I am not backing down. I have this man's direct phone number because he used a phone registered with CallerID. I will be following up. I will be consulting law professionals on the best next steps for us all.