Amazon Book Banned And What To Do About It

[Kasumi_Lee]

I woke up this morning to an email from Amazon's content review algorithm informing me that one of my ebooks had been blocked because it violates their content guidelines. Below is a comprehensive list of all the evidence and examples provided in the email of ways in which the ebook violated Amazon's content guidelines:

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So, I replied to this automated email requesting that a human reviewer manually evaluate the ebook. A few hours later, I was surprised to receive a response from an actual human being, and even more surprised by the news that they had reversed the book ban. Sure enough, the ebook in question has reappeared on Amazon and everything is back to normal.

Here's the key takeaway: if you ever get an email from Amazon telling you that your book was banned, reply with a request for a human reviewer to look into it.

 

[Privates1stClass]

Good for you for following up! I think any AI rejection should be automatically checked upon by a human reviewer. Artificial intelligence has some good points, but it is still seriously flawed in some areas. Perhaps, someday AI can be trusted, but not today. Thanks for filling us in on this one.

 

[Kasumi_Lee]

Good for you for following up! I think any AI rejection should be automatically checked upon by a human reviewer. Artificial intelligence has some good points, but it is still seriously flawed in some areas. Perhaps, someday AI can be trusted, but not today. Thanks for filling us in on this one.

It wasn't even a rejection. I first submitted the banned story for preorder through Amazon KDP at the end of 2021, and it was released in 2022. Yesterday, all I did was change the price, and it was during the review that the algorithm blocked the book. If the book really had contained problematic content (which the human reviewer decided it didn't), then the content review algorithm isn't fit for purpose.

 

[Codoc24]

About a year ago I had a book banned by Amazon that had been published for about 4 months. I changed the book description, nothing else within the story itself and republished. That's when they banned it. They told me my story violated their guidelines. I sent them numerous emails asking what the violation was. They claimed they human reviewed it and still maintained there was a violation. They would not tell me what or where the violation was. It was pretty tame as far as erotic content goes. There was one consensual sex scene, the guy kissed the girl's feet a couple of times, he performed oral sex on her, and then they had missionary sex. That's it! So freaking stupid, it made me furious. I've seen much, much more graphic sex than in my book. I finally gave up asking because I was afraid they would get pissed at me and kick me out completely. I asked them about why my book violated their rules but another book didn't. I started reading one book but didn't finish it because the woman was treated so horribly that I couldn't read it anymore. She was sold as a sex slave, her owner raped, sodomized, forced her to perform oral sex and beat her with a bat. He then invited some friends over to do the same thing. I was like, how the hell does this book NOT violate your guidelines!!?? But my one consensual sex scene does? They would never give me an answer. I'm still sooooo pissed at them.

 

[Kasumi_Lee]

About a year ago I had a book banned by Amazon that had been published for about 4 months. I changed the book description, nothing else within the story itself and republished. That's when they banned it. They told me my story violated their guidelines. I sent them numerous emails asking what the violation was. They claimed they human reviewed it and still maintained there was a violation. They would not tell me what or where the violation was. It was pretty tame as far as erotic content goes. There was one consensual sex scene, the guy kissed the girl's feet a couple of times, he performed oral sex on her, and then they had missionary sex. That's it! So freaking stupid, it made me furious. I've seen much, much more graphic sex than in my book. I finally gave up asking because I was afraid they would get pissed at me and kick me out completely. I asked them about why my book violated their rules but another book didn't. I started reading one book but didn't finish it because the woman was treated so horribly that I couldn't read it anymore. She was sold as a sex slave, her owner raped, sodomized, forced her to perform oral sex and beat her with a bat. He then invited some friends over to do the same thing. I was like, how the hell does this book NOT violate your guidelines!!?? But my one consensual sex scene does? They would never give me an answer. I'm still sooooo pissed at them.

The first time Amazon banned a book of mine about two years ago, the exact same thing you just described happened to me. The only explanation was that they reserve the right to decide what is in violation, then they pointed me to the same bullshit one-sentence content guideline for reference.

I unenrolled my entire catalog from Kindle Unlimited (which is massively overrated) and released them through Smashwords. Now my average royalties have doubled.

 

[Otto26]

Amazon sells John Norman's Gor series which features outright kidnapping and rape. I don't think I need to say anything more than that.

 

[Kasumi_Lee]

Amazon sells John Norman's Gor series which features outright kidnapping and rape. I don't think I need to say anything more than that.

I guess Amazon's standards don't have to make sense as long as they make dollars and cents.

 

[Ada Stuart]

I guess Amazon's standards don't have to make sense as long as they make dollars and cents.

So true!

I made the mistake of republishing books that the Amazon bots had banned. Eventually they closed my entire account, despite the fact that I had several books on their best seller lists. And they also withheld payments for the last three months.

So yes, I hope them all the worst and more.

One year later, I'm making the same amount of money without Amazon. And the top selling sites are Google, Smashwords, Eden and my own personal stores over at Payhip. It feels really good not to share any of that money with Amazon