How I Got My KDP Account Suspended

About this video

Dale tells the story of how his KDP account was suspended after he gamed Kindle Unlimited page reads. He explains the old KDP Select system: before Amazon’s July 1, 2015 restructuring, a borrowed book paid a flat fee once a reader passed 10 percent, which let publishers of five-to-six-page books profit while authors of 500-page novels earned nothing extra. After payouts switched to pages read, a loophole spread: hyperlinking from the front of a book to the back made Amazon register the whole book as read, and Dale says some publishers claimed earnings of ten to one hundred thousand dollars per month from it. He also describes paying for Fiverr page-flip gigs, working through the math that 2,000 pages at half a cent per page pays ten dollars against a five-dollar gig, and admits he does not think he cleared more than a thousand dollars from the scheme himself before Amazon suspended his account and froze his KDP Select earnings. After days of phone calls his account was reinstated with a strict warning, he removed the hyperlinks from his catalog, and weeks later Amazon terminated many other accounts, clawing back funds and KDP All-Star bonuses. His closing message is that loopholes and get-rich-quick tactics eventually get caught and can destroy a publishing business.

Key takeaways

• Amazon restructured KDP Select payouts on July 1, 2015, moving from a flat borrow fee triggered at 10 percent read to paying per page read.
• The front-to-back hyperlink trick made Amazon count an entire book as read even when the reader had barely opened it.
• Dale describes paid Fiverr page-flip gigs as another manipulation method that also inflated bestseller rankings.
• His own account was suspended with earnings frozen, then reinstated after phone calls and a warning never to repeat the tactic.
• He warns that manipulation can end in termination, returned funds, and lost bonuses, so long-term publishing should avoid loopholes entirely.

Episode details: published August 2, 2017 · 5:51 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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