Tag: kdp

A valuable Lesson Learned Ramble.

Learning is valuable—about love, good people, and, unfortunately, bad ones: people lacking a crucial human quality. Some call it a heart, others a soul. As the Dalai Lama said, “Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them.”

I recently learned a hard lesson about self-publishing—not about the publishing itself,the ready-for-print part, the nuts and bolts of it: learning about print, color, page count, the spine the cover  and a weird little item called a widow, which is when a word gets left over at the end of a page and gets pushed to the next page. That was all difficult enough. Publishing, as a good friend who worked in the business put it, “Publishing is not for the weak of heart.”

Writing a book is hard, and writing about yourself is even harder, especially when recounting a story from 50 years ago. Living it nearly killed me; writing it nearly finished the job.

And then I finally got the book on Amazon and wanted to learn more about reviews and promoting my book, so I joined the KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) community for writers. I soon learned that while 50 percent of those members are good and honest folks wanting to help a rookie writer, it is also populated by scumbag con artists who will scream death and destruction, and forever banishment from Amazon if you break the rules.

And while it is true that Amazon did get into some trouble a few years ago by allowing fake reviews, not just of books but on everything, from air fresheners to underwear, and for good reasons, they have tightened their review process. But it is not the death toll of you and your book if you unintentionally seem to cross the line. What Amazon does not want is for me to pay Jack and Jill to write a review that says Dan Sanders is the greatest writer since John Steinbeck or Charles Dickens. Even if it’s true, Jack and Jill need to decide thta on their own.

In the KDP community, while most folks are good and helpful, I ran into a few who responded with alarm, warning me I had made a mistake but offering to help. They never mention a fee upfront; instead, they engage in several emails before finally revealing a line like, “For a small fee, I can help you out.” One clue is that although many different names are involved, the emails all look like they came from the same cookie-cutter template.

I was so concerned that I asked my first reviewer to remove their review because it was from someone I worked with 40 years ago and haven’t seen since. A scammer claimed that if someone knows you, Amazon will suspect collusion, but I learned that while Amazon is strict, it isn’t unreasonable.

The main reason I wanted to write this is not to make a Mea culpa, but to warn others trying or considering self-publishing. I don’t want anyone to go in as I did—a lamb to the slaughterhouse. I believed everything would be good, but like any competitive profession, it can be underhanded and cutthroat.