Two Writers Rambling – Amazon is Blanket Bombing Again

Amazon is Blanket Bombing Again

I had an article in the works about how Amazon is becoming the new Walmart and I plan to still finish that one, but the recent activity in the past couple of days has altered my course to discuss another issue about the ‘Zon

As I mentioned there has been a considerable amount fresh activity going on with Amazon. They’re back on the war path and like all the times before they’re blanket bombing in a poor effort to put an end to ‘Reviewer Rule Breakers’.

The mighty ‘Zon can’t seem to get a handle on the real scammers but by god they can take out their frustration on every legit, honest small author by keeping them getting reviews ever again. Its so much easier this way since the honest author isn’t in hiding much like the scammers who take own their accts every few months and to click bots dispersing their activity around to include legit authors as well [read more about this over at the Digital Reader]

Let’s ponder this a moment. Amazon was a small little online shit 5 and half years ago. Then they had an epiphany: “Let’s allow authors a chance to self publish and bypass staunchly publishers.”

It was a great idea, not only for writers who didn’t fit inside the box of traditional publishers, but it also rocketed Amazon into space, becoming the largest online retailer out there. But the climb to fame and fortune has corrupted Amazon’s brain turning them into a mindless, heartless conglomerates who forgot where they came from and WHO it was that boosted them to where they are. Amazon makes no remorse when it decides to stomp on its own people.

Yet authors continue to support them by remaining exclusive to Amazon. Standing, idly by, watching as the few competitors degrade until finely closing their doors. I have often pointed this out several times both directly and indirectly to authors and often with the same responses. “Not my problem.”

Let me put this as clearly as I can YES, IT IS YOUR FUCKING PROBLEM!

Its everyone’s problem, if you want to have a place to sell your books. Sure, Amazon isn’t going anywhere but in case you haven’t noticed they are near as much handing us our hate. Taking away every possible method avail to you to promote your book and get it out there in front of the eyes of readers. Indy authors made Amazon what it is today, but it is clear that Amazon holds no love or even any kind of gratitude. It said nowhere on your Amazon contract that you would forever have a seat at the table.

When you take a step back and look at the big picture, one has to wonder if Amazon has become the new Walmart on bully pills. Let’s look at the Kindle Unlimited for instance. From Amazon’s view point this looked like a great idea. It rides right alongside ‘On Demand’ and ‘Netflix’. They’ve even managed to suffocate the life almost completely out of ‘Scribe’. For authors, KU, when it first started, was not so great depending on the size of your books. Novellas were making bank and authors started shelling out more shorts, while authors of large size novel were getting taken for granted receive a measly $1.35 for a book that normally sold for $7.99. Then came the scammers and ruined it for the novellas writers. Amazon changed the pay out to $0.005cents (that’s half a penny) ‘per page’ and while there was a discrepancy of what was a ‘page’, novel writers were finally getting a better share. Novellas writers were pissing and moaning over it. Despite the previous gains they had been getting. They’d become spoiled by the prior pay out. This may have to do with why they refused to see the bigger picture of the damage KU does to the industry or for authors to remain exclusive to one retailer.

But still the scammers seemed to catch up rather quickly. Taking all those horrible shorts they wrote and put them into one big book, again and again, shuffling them about so that one story was THE main story and the rest bonus reads. The scam was to place a link for a free something at the start of the book. The link redirects the reader to the back of the 3000page book which, according to Amazon’s system, was an instant full read and scammers have been making bank ever since. Once such fake author has 88 books like this and there are hundreds of scammers like them. It only took me a mere few minutes to find a dozen of them. They stay ahead of Amazon by closing their acct every two months, reopen a new acct using a new TIN#, and reload all the books again.

It’s right there in front of Amazon’s face. Yet they don’t see it or don’t do anything about it.

A new scammer surfaced in the last 60 days, creating unauthorized books as ‘Reader Guides’ based on series from well-known authors. Using the series titles and author’s name on the covers to promote them. Most are mainstream, but a few are from the smaller genres like Bestselling Author Nicholas Bella, who is well known to his reader fans for the ‘Chained in Darkness’ and ‘House of Théoden’ series and a few others. In fact, the scammer put up 155 books in the last two months, a few of them are ‘How to’ books encouraging readers to turn their books in for full refunds after reading them so they can read for free. While Nicholas with the help of his fans did manage to get the ‘Read Guide’ based on his series taken down, none of the others were. You’d think Amazon would get a clue and figure out if one was fraud so too would the other 154 books.

Watching this play out gave new perspective. Amazon doesn’t contain enough brain cells to operate common sense. Nor can they decipher a real scammer from a legitimate honest author, so they blanket bomb the rules and effective take out a number of little honest authors. Perhaps more of them then the scammers actually. Guilty only because They Say So.

The latest mind sweep being reviews again. Any review that mentions “received a free copy for honest review’ or received ARC for reviewing’ are now the target o the ‘Zon. Making it worse is reviewers and authors are apparently getting flagged in the Amazon system with a “THIS IS NOT UP FOR DISCUSSION”, which translates into ‘No matter how many times you email us, this is what is going to get sent back as our response.”

This is one such response an ARC Reviewer received today:

Author Abby Hayes posted on Facebook last night, she’d received a similar email from Amazon where as she claims she hasn’t posted a review in sometime. So it would seem not just recent reviews are being garnished.

When emailing Amazon for an explanation, one gets the feeling nobody in charge is getting any feedback. The customer service responds with a general scripted response and no matter how many times you email back, that is all you get. And since little ever changes its doubtful the staff is talking to their supervisors of the effects or outrage coming from legitimate reviewers and Authors who depend on them. It would also seem Amazon supervisors are slacking off on the memos. You see Amazon changed their review policy banning ‘free product’ for reviews. This included ‘free copies’ and ‘ARC’ books. Somehow the ‘Zon got the message from authors this time, so the policy was quickly altered to exclude books from the new rule. Only, no one got the memo on this apparently, because authors and reviewers have been getting emails by the hand full in the last two days stripping reviews and even suspending some reviewer’s accounts with Amazon.

So what is an author do to? Well, I can only go back to what I have been trying to tell you for years. NEVER give a retailer exclusive rights. Because when all other retailers go under because we don’t help support them by putting our books up on their retail shelves, then all we will have is Amazon and if you think its sketchy now? Wait until there isn’t any threat of competition. I am not suggesting boycotting Amazon entirely; we have to come to terms that the 900-pound gorilla is in our bed to stay if we’re to see our books gain any sales at all as 70% of book buyers buy from Amazon.

Another thing you might want to do is not lay down passively with Amazon. Write out a well thought out letter explaining how Amazon’s mind sweeping tactics are doing more damage to their legit honest authors than it is to the scammers. I mean seriously WE know what is going on. If we can figure it out, why the hell can’t they? Don’t get cold feet about this, you can do this, you’re an author for god’s sake, you know how to write out thoughtful dramatic letters just as easily as you do stories.

Now send it. Every week until someone in the staff sends it up to the supervisor’s desk.

Then start pulling books out of KDP and KU. Maybe they’ll start to get the message when the only books remaining in the KU will be the scammers and their fake books. And if what I am telling you isn’t enough to convince you. Read this article you may have missed. Its right up there with a true Halloween scare: Innocent Authors Are Getting Burned in Amazon’s Fight Against KU Bot Farms

 

Stay tuned as more on the ‘Zon is coming up here with Two Writers Rambling