Kdp AmazonReviews of kdp.amazon.com

My book was listed as 'unavailable'. I honestly think customer service are robots.... ask a direct simple question and you get a cold email back referring to an (irrelevant) help page, or a phrase like 'we cannot disclose our internal practices'.. or 'we refer to our previous email' and so it goes on. You may as well talk to a wall. It's horrible.

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.

My experience with KDP could not have been worse. They just don't have it together. Different instructions from different customer service people. Really slow to respond. Faulty review process. Total waste of time. Believe the bad reviews

.1. I wanted to publish my book with the last few pictures extended to the edges of the page as posters. I had to chose the Bleed option. As such, I had to do a lot of work to resize the book, as required, and re-submit it. I did that a few times because they kept sending robotic messages that I have to learn how to do the margins calculations. Yet the book and the margins were right from the beginning but the guys there could not agree on their own instructions. After two weeks of trials they advised me to set the pictures within the normal borders as in the initial No-Bleed, normal option because the images contain text at the edges. But no instructions communicated that info though. Right now, I would not recommend the Bleed option to anyone. .2. I updated at the same time an older ebook and proceeded with the paperback version for the first time. Yet, when KDP turned the ebook live, underneath the new cover was the old ebook version as checked with Look Inside. Moreover, the paperback, as seen with Look Inside, was based on the old ebook as well, which was never formatted for paper anyway. Yet, all the new files I uploaded and submitted are still correct in the book content section. But how could this go wrong in an automated process (at least looks like one) unless one manually meddled? .3. For my second book I uploaded an updated ebook file and cover and formatted the book for paperback as well this time. I was lucky. The paperback looks okay with Look Inside. Probably only because I lost so much time debating with them the Bleed option. But the ebook has yet again underneath the old cover and ebook. How could this happen? When I asked the customer service to remedy, they informed me that they cannot replicate the issues. I had to send them a load of screen snips. I live in fear now they would not get it right. I wonder though, how can Amazon tolerate this, a firm I had so much respect, at least for their Cloud Business...? -------update 30-10-20 ------------------------- After two days KDP responded that it takes i10 days to update the Look Inside books. But how could they turn the books live with obsolete or wrong content that would discourage customers buy the fresh books causing as such a loss of revenue and reputation for both KDP and their clients? Or are they making up this rule up? KDP failed to address the paperback having the wrong file in Look Inside, an unformatted quite old ebook content. It would be nice if someone from KDP would bother to acknowledge and act on all these reviews so that we know they have a will to improve. ----Updated: 12/11/2020--------------------------- Not even after I wrote to the top Amazon management has KDP improved the service even though at times they appeared willing. But action seldom materialised. They keep publishing my technical books with the first lines of the paragraph indented, extra large heading and altered table of contents... which render the technical books hard to read since, to be concise, they exhibit numbering and bullet points. For paper books they keep showing with Look Inside the ebook content rather than formatted paperback pdf file. Hence customers cannot see the book with the true proper formatting. They also display at times either the old ebook versions or/and a yellow banners stating that the paperbacks are not available when in fact the pdf files for paper publishing are readily available. The book descriptions are hard to read big blobs because the paragraph breaks are removed. The book Series I created crashed their system apparently. KDP blocked the Series and asked me to send them manually all the information without apologising for the effort they were asking from me. It was my fault that, as a user I crashed the Series soft. The Covers created with Cover Creator were slightly skewed since the Author name was regularly overlaid onto the title section above. The Cover Creator changed formatting on Save by re-arranging the subtitle from one row to two or vice-versa. I wrote to them to let them know but they interpreted it as having to do me me a favour. I found books already submitted for publishing in draft state yet again or in processing a day later. I wrote to them so many times with so few results. Each and every time another customer service agent responded, when they respond at all. They promise to fix things but then they fail to keep the promise. I refrain from giving them advice but they have, as somebody else observed, a great platform with a poor service. They seem to lack motivation, leadership and organisation. They are so slow to act, when they act at all. I am just happy that I've succeeded to publish my books no matter they altered my formatting. KDP thinks they know better.

Great platform, horrible service. The moment you need to address problematic printing policies, might as well talk to a wall. Customer representatives are poorly trained to handle anything out of the ordinary. I have been publishing with CreateSpace and then KDP for years. They took a turn for the worse. Recently, they would not allow me to publish a book because they claimed the margins were too wide, and the book would not print right. Guess what? I printed several proof copies and they looked fantastic, as expected. Their sub-par review team however continues to prevent me from publishing my work, claiming there are "problems". I spoke with several of their people, and they have basically been ignoring my pleas and problem. Even when I sent them many pictures of the printed book to prove there was no problem with the print, they ignored that completely. Specifically I would like to name Mrs. Jenna Scheepers, who has certainly been the LEAST helpful so-called 'senior customer representative' and basically made this into an even bigger problem. Back in the days of CreateSpace before they were bought by Amazon's KDP, you were able to discuss and reason with them about issues like that over the phone. Gone are those days, for sure! Apparently, the current people at KDP could not care less about your problems. And you know what the biggest irony is? The book they are preventing me from publishing PRAISES some of Jeff Bezos' business strategies. There is a whole chapter on these. Basically, the company is shooting itself in the foot. SHAME ON YOU ALL treating a business partner like that. I would likely be moving to Lulu soon. Absolute disgrace. KDP, you reading this? You are losing countless authors such as myself to the competition, and getting negative reviews which you have rightfully earned. Want to fix your relationship with a long-standing business partner? You know where to find me: jonathanDOTbluesteinATgmailDOTcom

I published my book with KDP and it was a NIGHTMARE and still continues to be. They are the WORST EVER. When you call, they don't every help resolve the problem. I have wasted so much time and money and I am just disgusted with KDP. I wouldn't recommend KDP to my WORST ENEMY!

Can't get author copies. Been two weeks and they have every excuse in the book. NO BOOKS. NOT EVEN PRINTED YET. TWO WEEKS.

Is Amazon kdp real or a farce? In April 2020 i published my ebook with kdp and no accountability and no payment.... What is this all about ? For the past 6 weeks I have been locked out of my account and ever since I have tried cancelling my ebook account with kdp but could not. Where is all my royalties payments Amazon?