Kdp AmazonReviews of kdp.amazon.com

On January 04, 2021, I wrote a review badmouthing Amazon KDP. About five minutes after I submitted the review, I stumbled onto a set of guidelines for review submission that I had never seen...not KDP's fault...mine...just never found the guidelines before. The guidelines explained a couple of questions I had that were just giving me diaper rash. Now I understand the policy. I deleted my previous review.

In my experience accessing KDP Print is difficult and can take me 20 to 30 minutes. The problem is that after entering into the search-box 'KDP Print + UK' the amazon website page comes up (KDP Print is a division of amazon). I find that it is not possible to access KDP Print from the amazon website page. So this means that I have to do repeated searches for KDP Print. The log in procedure is lengthy and requires repeated entries of my email address, password, and code words plus a text that has to be accessed from my email provider then back to KDP Print to enter that. Exhausting! I use Lulu Books too to publish my books. Lulu Books is a quick and easy to access website. I have sold and still do sell several books through Lulu Books. Payments are quick and regular. In contrast, the same books just do not seem to sell on the KDP Print website. Just one sale in six months. Presumably, KDP Print and Amazon Books websites are not that popular?

KDP is the only self-publishing platform I've ever heard of that tries to use "ISBN requirements" as an excuse for why they don't allow the author to delete drafts of their files. First of all, an ISBN (international standard book number) collects metadata (name, date, title, etc.). There is no effect to a book's ISBN if an author chooses to delete a draft. Secondly, the book is the property of its creator, not its printer or distributor. KDP is not a publishing company, and most other publishing companies and self-publishing platforms don't keep draft files of books against the author's wishes. Third, a lot of authors upload draft content to KDP and update it accordingly as they write/edit, prior to publication. A lot of draft files are unedited, unfinished, poorly-formatted and of no financial benefit to store against the author's wishes. Fourth, all of this content will enter the public domain one day. I don't think anybody wants to read my half-finished rough draft of a "memoir" that I uploaded to Createspace when I was twelve. The retaining of draft files against an author's wishes is something that most self-publishing imprints generally don't do. Some of them hold onto the draft files for a year after they are retired/ignored, after which the author can have them purged from their account. Others retain the title and basic metadata of files, but not the files themselves. KDP holds onto the files with no consideration as to what the author wants or why the author wants the files deleted. As an author who was mentally ill and underage when most of my Createspace titles were published, it adds insult to injury that I have to beg KDP to allow me to erase my files, and that KDP won't do it. I thought that my situation was just a rarity, but nope, lots of KDP authors are worried about the same thing, and they're not getting clear answers. Most authors, no matter how famous or how unknown, don't want any chance of their rough drafts being released to the public. Rough drafts are rough drafts for a reason, and again, KDP is not a publisher. It is basically a printing press for self-published authors. It has no business storing files of drafts or even of retired files if the author expresses a desire to delete them.