10 Avoidable Mistakes on Amazon KDP

About this video

Drawing on a decade in self-publishing, Dale walks through ten avoidable mistakes that can get a KDP account suspended or terminated. They are: manipulating Kindle Unlimited page reads (paid at about half a cent per page) through click-to-the-back links or hired readers; stuffing bonus content beyond the 10% limit into a book; author review swaps, which Amazon treats as biased, though he describes marketplace-style services as a gray area; paying for reviews, with editorial reviews and advance reader copies as the accepted exceptions; abusing trademarks or brand names in titles and keywords, illustrated by an acquaintance suspended over a book using the TRX name and by his advice to check titles at uspto.gov; plagiarism, where he urges authors to answer copyright notices within the roughly 72-hour response window; publishing poorly edited content that damages the customer experience; failing to disclose generative AI use to KDP and IngramSpark while noting that AI-assisted tools like grammar checkers do not require disclosure; opening multiple KDP accounts, which he says the terms flatly prohibit with no exceptions — a friend lost all three of his accounts; and choosing categories or backend keywords that misrepresent the book, where he passes on a tip to anchor two of the seven backend keywords to the book’s true categories.

Key takeaways

• Never game Kindle Unlimited page reads (about half a cent per page): front-of-book links to the back and hired readers are detectable patterns that have gotten accounts terminated since 2016.
• Keep bonus content at or under 10% of a book, and do not bundle the same book into overlapping compilations.
• Review swaps and paid reviews are banned as biased; editorial reviews quoted in Author Central and unpaid advance reader copies are the accepted routes.
• Check titles and keywords against trademark records (for example at uspto.gov) before publishing, and respond to any copyright notice within its roughly 72-hour window with documentation.
• Disclose generative AI content when uploading, keep editing quality high, hold exactly one KDP account, and pick categories and keywords that honestly represent the book.

Episode details: published August 3, 2024 · 31:38 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Dale L. Roberts’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

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