I have created a new and improved version of K Money Mastery which is called, Mastering Book Publishing!
If you're a Kindle publisher or Amazon seller, then I have an important message for you today:
DO NOT GET YOUR AMAZON OR KDP ACCOUNT BANNED!
Many people out there are looking for “loopholes” or “short-cuts” to just try to make some quick money on Amazon or with Kindle publishing. This isn't a long-term sustainable strategy, as there are many risks associated with it.
I've seen Kindle publishers and Amazon sellers get their accounts banned due to violating Amazon's terms of service or guidelines.
I've even heard of some getting sued or facing lawsuits because they're scamming Amazon and damaging their reputation.
It's not worth it.
Focus on building a long-term, sustainable online business that adds value. ALWAYS think long-term and be willing to put in the work.
Most people won't put in the work necessary – they'd much rather take the path of least resistance. BUT, if you're willing to commit yourself and take the path least traveled, you can get the rewards and results that few would ever dream of.
If you know of any Amazon sellers or Kindle publishers that can benefit from this message, make sure to share this with them!
Watch the video below:
(Click here to watch on YouTube)
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Do you want my proven step-by-step system for publishing books on Amazon? CLICK HERE to purchase my new and improved Mastering Book Publishing course!
Kindle Publishers – Don’t Get Your KDP Account Banned Transcription
Hey everyone, Stefan here from Projectlifemastery.com. I have a very important message today for all the Kindle publishers and anyone that's selling anything on Amazon and that message is is do not get your Amazon account banned.
Do not get your KDP Kindle direct publishing account banned. Do not get in trouble with Amazon, don't risk it and don't jeopardize your relationship with Amazon in any way.
It's not worth it guys. I've seen it time and time again, Kindle publishers Amazon sellers, they're looking for loopholes, they're looking to exploit the system, they're looking for a shortcut and, sure enough, they're violating Amazon's terms of service, Amazon's guidelines, they end up getting in trouble, they end up getting suspended, their whole account banned by Amazon, Amazon withholding money that's owed to them.
Potentially getting sued by someone else, even getting sued by Amazon, getting a cease and desist from a lawyer. That's not how you build long-term sustainable business guys.
Pitfall of going after short-term profit
People are after the short term profit, they're looking to exploit something and they're trying to get rich quick and, sure enough, you might make some money in the short term but it's not going to last because what are you going to do when the loophole closes?
What are you going to do when Amazon bans your account and doesn't allow you to open up another account? Your entire business is gone just like that. That's not how you build a business. That's not what I teach, that's not what I'm about. I'm about building long-term sustainable strategies.
Yes, it's more work, it's more time but it's worth it. You want to build a business that has a foundation guys that will stand the test of time, years from now, 5, 10 years it will still be around because it's built on a solid foundation that won't go away.
Many of these people, they're violating these different things on Amazon just to try to profit here and there and they're risking things, they're jeopardizing things and even worse they end up trying to teach other people to do this and they end up getting in more trouble and it becomes a chain reaction and you're putting other people at risk. Don't do it guys.
Be smart, do things the right way
All right, so how do you prevent your Amazon account from being banned? How do you avoid the mistakes that others have made that resulted in getting banned by Amazon or getting in trouble or lawsuits or the whole ugly situation?
I think first and foremost you have to make sure that you read and understand Amazon's terms of service and their guidelines, very important, it's right there on the website and when you sign up for Amazon.com KDP you're agreeing to their terms of service.
You're agreeing to their guidelines, the terms of use of their website, even if you use their website in any way or capacity you're signing a contract, you're agreeing to their terms. You're at the mercy of Amazon. You have to understand that Amazon is a privilege for us.
As someone who wants to profit from Amazon, have a business on Amazon, we're the lucky ones because Amazon's provided this opportunity for us. They built their business, they built their reputation with customers, they're allowing us to take advantage of that and to publish and sell on their website and get access to their millions of customers.
At the mercy of Amazon
When you sign up or use their website in any way you have to make sure that you understand the terms of them and you're not violating that in any way.
If you do violate it's going to result in them banning you, suspending you, sending you a cease and desist, potentially suing you, I've seen people get sued by Amazon, I've seen people get sued by other people because they're violating a trademark, they're going against advice, recommendations that I have and again, it's just not smart.
Make sure you just read the terms of service, you read the guidelines, I reference it all the time in my Mastering Book Publishing course. I put links to it but sure enough again, people aren't willing to do that so make sure you're smart if you want to avoid these things happening to you, okay.
If you're unsure about anything in any way, ask Amazon. You can contact them, there's a button on their website, you can send them an email, you can even call them, ask them. You can submit to KDP, ask, “Hey I'm thinking about this. Is this a good idea? Is this violating anything in any way? I'm unclear about your guidelines here, can you maybe clarify this a little bit.”
If you're ever uncertain just ask them, okay, because only they know. You can ask me, you can ask other people out there but it's not my business, I can only share based on my experience and what I've seen amongst other people but Amazon is also always changing things, they're always updating their terms of service in some way so don't ask me, don't ask someone else, ask Amazon, only they can really tell you and verify for you whether it is against their terms of service.
If you're still unsure and you kind of on the fence, I'm not sure if this is violating it or not then just don't do it, it's just not worth it, just don't do it at all, just play it safe. That's always the smartest way of going about things, okay.
Common violations
Now, what do people do?
Trademark violation. Number 1, I see people violate trademarks. They publish a book and they violate someone else's trademark that's their intellectual property that they own. Maybe they publish a book and they publish it under a celebrity's name or they're trying to make money off another person name without their permission.
Never smart to do guys. How would you feel if you were someone that had built your career, your business, you built your name, your reputation, you worked your entire life to become something, to build something and then someone comes along and they use your name or your business, your trademark in some way that you've earned, they take that and they use that and they try to profit from it?
If that happened to me and it has happened to me man I'm going to take action against that. I don't want this person, I don't know this person using my name in some way to make money, to profit off of me without my permission. I don't know what they're saying about me in any way.
If someone did that, sure enough, you'd probably report them to Amazon, you might even call a lawyer, you might even take action from them if they're profiting and making all this money off of you without your permission so don't do that guy.
If you're unsure you can do a US trademark search. Just do a Google search for US trademark search. You can look up different trademarks to see if it's against the terms of service but if it's someone else's name just don't do it, it's just not worth it guys.
Again, long term you might make money in the short term but it's a matter of time before they catch you. I see people violate trademarks or they say, “Well I see other people that are doing it, they're getting away with it so I'm going to do it as well.” They're only getting away with it because they're not big enough for these people to even care and take action against them.
At the beginning when you're a nobody, you're just doing this to make money off someone else's name, it's not even worth their time to report you to Amazon or even contact you in any way but once you start getting on their radar, once you start making money off their name that's when they're going to go after you and at that point you've already made all this money, they can go after all that money and all the damages and take you to court.
Buying reviews. It's just not worth it in the first place. I don't care if other people are doing it, just don't do it, guys, it's just not worth it. Other things people do is they buy reviews. Don't buy reviews, don't manipulate reviews in any way. Amazon has strict guidelines with that.
Don't lie, be dishonest or deceive people in any way, that's not how you build a long-term business with integrity. Don't buy reviews. There's a whole thing where people got sued over fake reviews and buying reviews and things like that and that's just not the right way to build a business.
Getting reviews for your business, your book takes time, you're promoting it, you're marketing it, you base it on the principles of business and marketing you will have a successful book if you do it that way.
It might take a little more time like I said but if you have the right mentality, the work ethic and the commitment you will be successful. You should never have to worry about that, okay. Focus long-term and focus on sustainable marketing strategies that will grow your books for a long period of time.
Kindle Unlimited loophole. One loophole that I've seen people violate, find out and violate with Amazon KDP that's now causing a lot of problems, people getting banned over Amazon, actually getting sued by Amazon from this is by exploiting the whole Kindle Unlimited KNEP the books read, the whole system with Amazon.
Amazon has a Kindle Unlimited system where people sign up, they pay every month, they get unlimited access to certain books that are exclusive to Amazon. Amazon, the way they pay publishers for that is they pay based on how many pages of a book that a customer reads.
The longer a book is the more pages that the customer reads the more that the publisher is going to get paid for that. What a lot of these Kindle publishers ended up doing is they found a loophole where they made these really long books by just basically stuffing a bunch of books into one, right.
You can just put a whole document, they're putting like tons of books, making their book really long and then they publish that. Sure enough, their book might be a couple of hundred pages, a couple of thousand pages in some cases.
What they do is they put the table of contents for the book at the very end of the book and KDP has something called clickable table of contents so you can actually press a link at the start of a book, when they press it, the customer presses the link it will take them all the way to the end of the book.
Kindle, KDP will register that as hundreds or thousands of pages read in which case Amazon will end up paying that publisher for all those pages read but obviously the person isn't reading all those pages they just have exploited a loophole where they press a button it's taken them to the end of the book.
This is something I do not recommend whatsoever. People are getting suspended and banned by Amazon for this, they're even getting potentially sued by Amazon because in some cases Amazon has paid out up to $100 for a book and sure enough, the customer didn't even read the book and Amazon have taken a significant loss.
Any time you try to scam Amazon you're going to lose
It's just not smart to even take that risk in any way because if you're costing Amazon that kind of money and hurting them they're going to go after you. They have a lot more power and influence than you do so I don't know why just don't even risk that in any way guys.
It gets even worse when people end up trying to teach that and sharing that with other people and trying to profit off of teaching this loophole that is causing more people to get their accounts and their whole business in trouble as well.
Again guys I just really want to emphasize in this video there's other loopholes and all these different things out there, I'm not going to go into them. I'm aware of them but I consciously choose not to use them. I've seen time and time again over the years different things that have occurred.
I've seen people that have gotten in trouble with Amazon and I've seen people that just worked hard and did the work and built a long-term sustainable business and the person that just focuses on the long term, that's the guy that always ends up standing on top at the end, always the one that's lasting a year, 2 years, 3 years, 4 or 5 years.
Build a long term sustainable business
I've seen publishers that just did things the right way and just slowly worked away at their business and built it up. That's really what I want to communicate in this message guys. This theme can be applied to any business out there whether it's YouTube or Google.
I’ve seen people, trying to manipulate the search engines in Google and YouTube and all this sort of stuff, just always be aware, always play by the rules, guys. You're given an opportunity from these other platforms and beyond that the mentality of short term thinking loopholes and shortcuts is going to cost you in your life.
People they look for a loophole now, today, maybe it works, what's going to happen years down the road? Years down the road in your marriage, in your family life, in your body, in your business? There's no loophole that you can find or something you can exploit to get yourself out of that mess. The shortcut is actually doing you a disservice. It's preventing you from putting the work and really earning the success that you really want and deserve.
When you put in the work you actually earn something, you did it by the book, you did it the right way, that's when you can be proud of that, that's when you can have that pride and feel good about yourself because you built a business that truly serves. It's something that will give you piece of mind because you never have to worry about it.
You don't want to always have to be worrying about your business. I've seen people that built a business on Kindle and Amazon exploiting loopholes and stuff like that. They're so dependent on Amazon, they're making a couple of thousand a month, they're feeling good about themselves, they feel like an expert, they think they're a guru now, they can start coaching and teach other people and sure enough, boom, their account gets shut down.
They quit their job over this and everything and now they're in trouble. What happens then? Again guys, don't take that path. I've seen the loopholes, I'm trying to help you guys avoid making those mistakes and trying to make sure that you guys are compliant with Amazon.
Look beyond Kindle
Building a business again, long term, always focus on the long term. Look beyond Kindle, look beyond Amazon, build something that's bigger than that. A lot of people don't recognize that. Kindle is just a beginning, it's just the tip of the iceberg guys.
Kindle leads to paperback books. E-book to paperback to audio books to affiliate marketing, building a brand, to building a Facebook, a YouTube, an Instagram, a blog, an entire business that can lead to you doing products and just so much more. Don't focus on the short term guys, focus on the long term.
That's my message for this video. Share this video, if any Kindle publisher or Amazon seller out there you think can benefit from this, I really want to get this across and help people avoid pain in their lives because I've seen people come to me when their account gets in trouble and I end up, unfortunately, have to say I told you so because I typically advise against certain things but I don't want to see that happen to many people and I just want to make sure you guys are educated right from the start, right at the beginning of the business.
I know a lot of you guys that follow me are just starting out with Kindle and Amazon and sometimes you listen to these other people out there, other people online or YouTube or whatever and they're often times steering people in the wrong direction.
A lot of these people they started Kindle publishing a few months ago and they're already some sort of expert because they exploited this loophole and they're making some money in the short term and people buy into that, people trust some of these people and invest their hard earned money and they end up getting scammed or ripped off or just put down the wrong path.
Conclusion
I've been doing Kindle now for so many different years now, I've been at the beginning stages and I've seen everything along the years of what to do and what not to do. I've made mistakes myself. I'm not pointing the finger guys, I've made mistakes too but I've learned from that.
I've never gotten banned from Amazon. I've never gotten in trouble with Amazon in any way, thankfully because I still was intelligent about my process and whatnot. Sometimes you violate and you're not even aware of it.
I remember one time, for example, I used the trademark for dummies in one of my books and I didn't realize that at the time, I was kind of naive, I didn’t know that was a trademark and everything and sure enough, I got contacted by the For Dummies, whoever owned that trademark and I got that book taken down and everything and I rebranded the book and I made sure I didn't make that mistake again.
I shared that story and prevented other people from making that mistake also. Be careful guys. Hopefully, this video can potentially save some people’s businesses so I really hope that this can really resonate and help a lot of people. Thank you guys for watching, I'll see you in the next video.
Do you want my proven step-by-step system for publishing books on Amazon? CLICK HERE to purchase my new and improved Mastering Book Publishing course!