As many who follow us know, we’ve used Amazon KDP to publish our magazine and Chapbook in both e-Book and Print format. But this year things changed. Their own employees don’t understand the issue and cannot contact anyone by phone. Only email communication allowed. Each support person interrupts Amazon policy, however they see fit. With the same submission, one person may let it go through, the other may not.
Almost a month ago, we submitted Chapbook Vol II.
At first, Amazon workers denied both versions. After hours on the phone and emails back and forth, the Kindle version became available. But the print hung in their review status limbo.
Their reasons? All over the board. In one example, they went so far to state it’s because we quoted five lines of Shakespeare and Orwell. I had to let them know it’s legal to quote and you don’t need to own the copyright to do so. It’s unfortunate those who dictate policy don’t know the publishing rules. Instead, they ban and block at will as they see fit.
Another reason, they found one of the submitted pieces on writtentales.substack.com. Yes, that’s correct. Because we shared one entry on our own platform, they blocked the print edition, but let the e-book go though. I know, right?
Almost a month after the Amazon back-and-forth headache nonsense, the print version lives. They allowed it on their platform.
To circumvent the problem, we looked at other publishers and found one, Blurb. From now on, for print, we’ll also use their services to offer the paper version of our Chapbooks.
The quality and delivery presentation, beautiful.
We would recommend anyone who relies on professionalism in the publishing efforts to look outside of Amazon. And as an FYI, their inconsistent block has happened more than once. The worst part, if they decide not to move forward with your book, you have no recourse. It’s time for all of us to use other publishers and remove the power Amazon has over us. It’s now out of control.
While I have often purchased from Amazon, I don't like their monopoly over book publishing and distribution. So, helping smaller online electronic and paper publishers is a great idea!
I completely agree! Sorry you had to deal with that. I'm glad you found a suitable replacement.