Why Are These BIG Coloring Book Brands Being Terminated On Amazon KDP - Low Content Book Publishing
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- Опубліковано 27 чер 2023
- In this video we’re going to take a look at some very, very large colouring book brands on Amazon KDP that have been terminated and talk about the reasons why this is happening and how you can avoid having the same thing happen to you. I’ll also share an issue that I’ve had myself with my own coloring book brand, which hasn’t gotten my account terminated - yet anyway.
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I’d like to know why Amazon simply couldn’t have just banned/blocked the books in question rather than outright terminating the accounts. Truly bizarre.
Probably so they can do it themselves and take the profit. They seem to be like vultures and once they see big sellers, they start producing those things themselves and cut out the "middleman".
@@clb1389 While I absolutely know that’s a fact with regards to “manufactured goods” - just look at their Amazon Basics products in all the good selling categories - I’m not so sure about coloring books. I’m mean, it’s not so easy to just up and copy a book, and despite what I think about Amazon, I really don’t seem them blatantly copying books and setting up a publishing company to then sell that book. But what do I know; I’m not privy to the ins and outs of Amazon.
Indeed bizarre. Maybe their bot is malfunctioning.
Power tripping.
I feel the problem is the whole process . Bots are only as smart as the programing that is driving them. If they had a human controller double checking. I feel like this would not be as big a problem. At least suspend the account until a human could double check, that would make more sense.
It's clear we shouldn't use Amazon as our one and only store to publish or sell products.
I hear you which is hard for someone starting out. What to do, Where to go, How much to spend?
I agree. Actually that's a good subject for a video. What other market places could we use to diversify our income.
Amazon is for the LAZY. That Amazon makes so much money, is testament to the number of lazy people in the world.
Never put all your eggs in one basket.
I do think people should use Amazon at all.
Amazon treats their sellers and warehouse employees horribly!
I’m looking forward to my merchandise selling out, so I can be done done this toxic company once and for all.
The reason you cannot change a title or subtitle is because of the ISBN, which is registered at original publication of physical books. That is why you have to republish from scratch. This is the case for all companies, and publishers, not just amazon. You can (or used to be able to) add to your new title‘formally published as ----, this helps customers know that it is the same book and Amazon should then allow you to move over any reviews from the original publication. I did this with Amazon when I got the rights back to my mother’s fiction books years ago from her publisher.
What about low content books? They don’t have an isbn and also cannot edit the title
Where in their guidelines does it say you cannot use “stress relief and relaxation”? I cannot find it. Sounds like they make up new rules as they go as if they enjoy terminating accounts.
@@DejaDrewit did you find those guide lines? I can't find them either, thanks
Kdp not worth is anymore
Amazon treats their sellers and warehouse employees horribly!
It would be easier to follow the rules if they were clear!!
exactly what I'm saying
Agreed why don’t they just say?
Ikr..
Amazon treats their sellers and warehouse employees horribly!
As with all modern tech companies, they make up the rules as they go, and change them at will.
To end someone’s livelihood over one or two titles or subtitles is absolutely unbelievable. No one would ever work that hard and dedicate many many years and build a business only to then purposely disregard rules. I felt terrible for her.
I agree that its too heavy. Plus, that platform has a monopoly, and are swallowing all the market. So if you are locked out of them... its almost guaranteed that you would be starved and forced to be out of business for good.
That's the bargain people make when they get in bed with a monopoly where no actual human gets a say. They can wipe it all out in a second. She could've opened her own shop elsewhere and become independent. It's never a good idea to put all your eggs in these baskets we call digital platforms.
Partnering with Amazon is a living nightmare.
@@TheTerrainWizard I agree. There are dishonest people who do steal the work of others but the number of good and honest creators they put out of business is shocking.
@@benicio1967 agreed.
The real problem is Amazon using bots instead of real people to check things. I do vine and adhere to their rules but often get my reviews rejected because the bot sees a word that triggers its rejection even though the word is used in a context that doesn't break the rules. It's insanely annoying. Also what ever happened to warnings? Would it kill them to be specific and just ask something be changed instead of terminating an entire account. Oh that's right we live in a corporate culture that lacks humanity and empathy, or even reasonableness.
I have unpublished and republished a book on Amazon to enhance its Title and Subtitle keywords. I then contacted Amazon to ask if they could please transfer the one and only excellent 5 star review from the original book to the republished book. Within 6 hours Amazon replied, had somehow linked the books and my newly published titled had the 5 star review from the old title. I was most impressed with their serviec and help :)
I think I would have asked before all of that, just in case :D
That's awesome. How did you contact them? Did you email them?
I emailed them via their contact button. I cant speak highly enough of the help that they offered.
@@joannekanigowski1256 Thanks. I have a book that I need to change the title a bit. I have not because I have some good reviews and did think that was an option. I will try. Thanks.
The Term "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll" is public domain. Disney Changed it to "Alice in Wonderland", and trademarked the name. So yes, they were negligent in identifying the public domain titles.
Also our government has allowed Disney to re- trademark names, stories, art, etc, past the limits set by law. So, they are almost perpetual licenses.
American trademark law is an absolutely disgusting practice often misused in relation to character names and titles, in efforts to try to keep public domain characters and stories under corporate control. It's not what the system was meant to be used for. And it doesn't fly in Europe.
Around the same time as Jade Summer, my KDP account was terminated for a title written 10 years prior which included the trademarked term "MLB" (Major League Baseball). This was a lined journal with a vintage public domain baseball photo. Long story short, my account was terminated and reinstated three times, for this same book. When the account was reinstated the first time, the book remained in my library, but was never republished. I went back through 900 books and made sure the titles and subtitles were OK before republishing. Long story short, I've not asked for a review for over a year since the last termination and yes, it is tough. I started as a non-fiction publisher in 2014 and low content books became my main income. I was wrong in placing MLB in my title, and despite doing it unknowingly and taking care to revise what I could with further republishing, KDP didn't care. My thought now - it can happen to anyone. Even those who play by the rules are at risk as Amazon has rules, but those rules are flexible based upon the whims of the machine. It happens on other POD platforms too, so do yourself a favor and diversify your income so that when it happens, you're not wiped out.
There should be some ability to meditate this. There are varying levels of guilt.
And you wouldn't cut off someone's hand for jay walking. Or burn their house down for a parking ticket.
So the punishment should match the level of guilt without lethal force.
And I agree with you that this could happen to anyone.
Further, this platform has swallowed up other smaller platforms to the point that if you weren't able to get onto it, you literally could go out of business. So it seems that locking someone out... shouldn't be the first option you go to. I'm not saying you couldn't or shouldn't ban someone. But the punishments should be more measured against the level of guilt.
@@noahriding5780 it is overkill on Amazon's part; it will end up costing them dearly, much more than the (literally non-existent) trademark suits. Their own bots are pruning the orchard so it will never produce fruit again. That's not a smart bot. That's a bankruptcy bot. I wonder if someone sabotaged their code to undermine them? Hacked, maybe? Can't fathom Amazon intentionally doing this. They need to suspend the "offensive title" only, not the entire account, until it can be addressed by a real person.
@@noahriding5780 Agreed. Unfortunately, that's not how it works. Once you're flagged for termination, an appeal is unlikely to yield results. Meanwhile, actual blatant trademark infringement is rife. Search superhero notebook / coloring book for starters and you'll see what I mean.
Overbloated self-deifying corporations get like this. Some time ago, the BBC tried to declare a one-time common piece of street furniture, a 1929 Mackenzie Trench designed London Police Public Call Box a BBC copyright image just because Doctor Who's TARDIS has been disguised as one since 1963. As far as I know, the claim was thrown out.
I think diversifiying is a good advice. Another advice would be to understand Intellectual property rights and to stop infringing them.
Because doing the same thing somewhere else will not help.
I wish I knew why my KDP account got cancelled. They refused to tell me. The emails were like you broke the terms and our decision is final and after several attempts to get more info I gave up. Can you do a video about what other venues we can sell coloring books on that don't cancel you for ever being cancelled on Amazon?
One of the problems with these types of bans is Amazon constantly changes its terms of service but doesn't grandfather in books already published. So If you published a book last year that didn't breach any T&S, but policy changed yesterday... Well, that book can now get your account banned, with no rhyme or reason. Or, more importantly, notification that those books are no longer in compliance.
Laws change, the environment change, people are abusing the system, then policies change. Businesses have to adapt to thrive, so are we.
@@ceec165 Then, in that case, allow authors to change the titles and other things related to their books.
For the Alice coloring books, it's probably because of Disney (who will go after you for anything they can). Lewis Caroll's book is titled "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". The Disney movies are called "Alice in Wonderland". Small difference but a difference nonetheless, one that can get you tangled up in litigation with the mouse. Either stick "adventures" in there or play with the words, but "Alice in Wonderland" is a no go.
So true!!! You solved the mystery.
It is… the Alice coloring books infringed on Disney’s trademark. They should be glad only their account got terminated and that they did not get sued for trademark dilution.
From my own experience, I must say that it is not just a question of Terms of service. My book was flagged as a copywriting issue since I am the sole author and publisher, when I appealed the book was cleared and reinstated, but every change I made to the book triggered the copyright ban again. It happened 4 times and I was cleared 4 times, but I was just fed up with the process and removed my book from KPD and deleted my account. I do not know if it is a faulty bot, but something is not working properly.
so they flagged you because you are sole author and publisher? SO we can't do that? That seems rather odd. How can they know that and how can they legally say it has to be a business of more than one person? So should I not register the book I making as just one sole person author? or publisher?
I really have no idea why they flagged me for copyright, I am the only author, publisher, everything. I believe it is an algorithm glitch. But it became a problem so I just gave up. @@jennyjenny44
the main problem is that there isn't a "mister Amazon" that decide that something is wrong. There are rules, and every amazon content review team member have to judge if you don't comply with the rules, and everyone has different ideas about what a rule means and how a violation should be punished. Anyone of them has the power to terminate your account, even for minor reasons.
I had my account terminated last year, in quite a crazy way: they suspendend, and after a few hours terminated my account, because I didn't modify the books as they requested. But those books were in review stage, so i cannot touch them, and then my account was suspended, so I cannot do absolutly nothing. I replied that it didn't make any sense, and they reinstated my account (but I had to republish manually all the 600 books in my library). Decisions such as the termination of an account should be made by at least 3 people who agree, you cannot leave so much power to any single person. And you should at least give a warning, and wait for a reply, at least unless is something clearly illegal and dangerous.
Another thing that doesn't make any sense is the review process. If I submit a book that violates some rule, like a clear copyright violation, the book should be rejected without danger for my account. The review process is meant to catch mistakes and violation, and prevent problems. The person that review a book should not have the power to suspend or terminate your account (like in my case the last year). If I have done something wrong, but it's not something illegal or an attempt to scum the customer, you should tell me the mistake; if the book it's not online yet, there's no harm done.
And the same is for unpublished books, if no one can see them or buy them, why it's possible that amazon (probably its AI) could send you warnings about the content of those books? And the nonsensical thing is that to modify and unpublished book, you have to publish it again, making it visible. And, like you say, you cannot change title and subtitle in any way. There should be an option to delete permanently a book if you think that may violate some rule, or some new rule that didn't existed when it was created. They cannot delete a book completly, in case there is some legal issue about it in the future the must have proofs about the content of the book; but at least there should be an option to shadow it from anyone else a part from Amazon. Now only the amazon content review people can do this by blocking a title; and it make no sense that they can block our books, but we don't have the same power on our content.
This kind of problem happens on UA-cam where some person judges a person's channel as offensive when there's nothing really wrong with it while others get away with a lot of really inappropriate videos. They need to hire more professional staff. They need to make proper judgment but without worrying if every I is dotted or every t is crossed.
I think it is important to do our due diligence in the first place and to not infringe on copyrights and trademarks in the first place. As professionals, we are accountable for doing our job. Amazon is not there to give us feedback on whether we infringed or not. If we infringe, they kick us out as non-professional, on which I agree. Publishers doing a good job should not be dragged down with the ones who are publishing 50 books a minute and not doing their due diligence.
Don’t get me wrong, Amazon is not at all cute. But we need to be more accountable for what we send them.
So, if you violated a copyright, I agree with Amazon that your account should be terminated for breaking the law. Be happy you are not sued. This entitlement needs to stop.
Of course Alice in Wonderland is a copyrighted property. It was really dumb for a publisher to think they could get away with using the title name for themselves without paying for the rights. It's a good object lesson for those who think no one notices what they're doing on their sales sites. Being accused of providing incorrect medical information because of suggesting your product is relaxing, however, is ridiculous, in my opinion. Fear of litigation is the prime motivator of large organizations, and they all default to a paranoid stance regarding any claims made on their websites.
.
_Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland_ is well old enough to be public domain, problem is that Disney owns _Alice in Wonderland_ . The issue was probably because she used the Disney-specific title. She may have just been unaware of the difference because people often call the book Alice in Wonderland.
With the Alice in Wonderland issue, even if they ticked “this is public domain” (Which they don’t have to as all the work is their own) the amazon bot still picks up copyrighted titles. I had a notebook with my artwork of an Australian animal, “Tasmanian Devil” And it suspended my account, even though it was nothing like the copyrighted character. So rule of thumb even if you are doing something inspired by public domain works don’t title any books owned by large companies/ famous characters. The bots are aggressive and the humans see that as a red flag. I do wish they had a better edit or delete fully option instead of just Archive.
That's ridiculous. Amazon sucks.
@@arkikali5632 They do need to be less intense with bans. But I get it Other brands like Disney would have IP bots and they would try and sue Amazon for Billions if it was in fact one of their IPs. But of Course what is the point of Public domain works if you are going to get in trouble anyway ? :(
I've been publishing on KDP for about four years, but a year ago I made the decision to take my books to another self-publish platform, and opened a seller account to list the books. KDP is getting erratic and since our books are our income, the risk was too high. It was time consuming and a small layout to switch, but I am super glad I did. **Note, as soon as a book is published, the title can't be changed.
Amazon seller pays within the month - so faster than KDP. And if you can get buyers to your website, then you're making a better profit too. Amazon KDP is a different company and seem to be becoming very tricky to deal with.
I've had my account locked, i.e. couldn't see dashboard, although books untouched twice in May. Issue on Amazon side where they didn't recognise my phone number which had been on the account for years. Customer service couldn't help and eventually I reached out the CEO on email. Amazon is pretty difficult to deal with, even if one does nothing wrong - you can get blocked.
So what is the other platform you sell books on? It is POD as well? thanks
I’m thinking about a same solution. Can you tell what other publishing services you find to use or under what title I can google them?
Also would love to know what platform you went with.
@@arkikali5632 I went with Bookvault. I found most of my Kindle sales were UK based, so there was that. And also, they've just signed a deal with USA printers. Their quality, with spiral bound, and paper is excellent. The profit margin is on the high end too.
So, do I understand correctly that you have listed yoyr books with BookVault and are also selling your books as "hard covers" as an Amazon Seller?
Amazon doesnt want individuals to make money on their platform. They want only large publishing corporations to make money in mass production and sales, not small business entrepenurs or artists.
I got an email from Amazon the other day telling me that I had 5 days to correct a title and subtitle issue with one of my coloring books. In their text they reminded me that my title in the listing and what is on the cover of my book needed to be the same. This was really confusing to me because there were NO issue with that. I emailed them back and told them i didnt understand the comment and after review they ultimately said no issues existed. Kinda of random, but sort of makes me uneasy about who or what are generating these emails.
@rjmsoftwarereviews9109: To your point, I see plenty of KDP books where the cover on the live book does not match the listed title. Why doesn't Amazon KDP equally enforce the rules ?
Similarly I see many low-content journals which have the same content and same word-for-word description, just with different cover. I thought this was not allowed.
I have recently started to list books on KDP, but am concerned by people's feedback of unjustified, unexplained terminations.
Great video and I subscribed to you right away 😊
Random rant: What bugs me SO much lately too, is the gigantic boom suddenly of TONS of AI generated "artwork"/coloring books (poor quality mind you), and I see the exact same images of say Fairy Houses etc. in practically every single newly published coloring books under various different Publisher names. I can't understand for the life of me how something like that isn't being looked into more by Amazon?? (I'm not a publisher or anything, so I know I'm obviously in the dark about everything on that side as opposed to just being a buyer/customer). Hope that made sense lol I just woke up not too long ago 🙃
You're probably right. "Alice in Wonderland" is a Disney trademark based on their movies. The original book is "Alice's Adventures Under Ground" and is usually published today as "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland."
That should definitely be the reason because the public domain version wasn’t used the Disney trademark version was
very good catch, never realised the difference, I always think of it as Alice in Wonderland. That shows just how careful you have to be even with PD properties!
That's not entirely correct. The manuscript was originally titled Alice's Adventures Under Ground, but when they published it, it was officially titled Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
Disney are desperate and losing so much money with their terrible movies. No quality control. So they will do anything to stop people making money from their titles.
That is not correct. The manuscript was called „…und ground“, the actual published book is „Alice‘s Adventures in Wonderland“. There is no way in hell Disney can claim and copyright this title! That would be outrageous
5:58 I unpublished a fiction novel that I was unhappy with (back in 2015 or 2016) and republished after a major re-writing of the book and at that time at least, Amazon was willing to move the reviews to the new ASIN. I think the tough thing with Amazon is that the rules aren't exactly clear and there's always this subjective feel to anything, so just because one person or company is allowed to do something doesn't mean everyone else can.
It is frustrating, to be sure.
Good find, discovering the probable titles that caused the termination for that big brand.
The one thing I missed in your discussion is that... isn't it an overreaction to terminate an account with hundreds of compliant books, for two that were non-compliant?
You mentioned, the rules are the rules, but truly, where else is society so intransigeant?
Removing those two titles and even subtracting any revenue made by those books, from future earnings, to put it in trust against any potential legal actions... wouldn't that have been a more measured and indeed 'just' approach? Especially for the first infraction?
The amount of damage done to a brand via this sort of sweeping decision is huge, and could happen as a result of an honest mistake: something all of us are guilty of on a long enough timeline. Doesn't it feel chilling to you, to know that could happen to you, destroying your years of hard work in an instant?
I'm a bit disappointed to not have sensed any compassion in your telling of the events.
We are aware of the current use of A I in creating art , and how they are able to copy or create amazing art, while at the same time changing things ‘just enough’ for it to not be a violation of ‘copyrights’. Maybe Amazon, perhaps could be closing down so many human Creators, and are going to take advantage of A I art…which could make Amazon a lot more profit
All may depend on the outcome of the legal actions initiated by some authors and artists against OpenAI, Midjourney etc., I think.
AI created art is not just changing ‘just enough’. it is not how it works. But yeah, I hear you.
I don’t think Amazon wants to delete human creators. They know that a human needs to be in control of prompting AI properly to get a descent output and validate such output. IMO they are trying to crack down on mindless human garbage creation through AI. That is probably why there is now a limit on the number of books per day. You would not believe the irresponsible crap people can publish by asking chatGPT to ‘write a book’. You need to know your subject to validate AI output, otherwise: garbage in, garbage out.
The frustrating part of the KDP notifications is that they don't really give you much info to go on. I received an email, the same generic one that the companies mentioned in the video received, however I could not find an issue that went against their guidelines. I emailed and chatted for several weeks and they would/could not tell me what the specific issue was. You cannot get a straight answer from them.
I am wondering if other sellers aka the competition are maliciously flagging accounts & thus triggering these bans..
My problem with Amazon KDP is that I cannot find any Royalties for a number of my books that my customers have physically bought from Amazon and have asked me to sign the copies; when contacting Amazon about this, I get no human reply.
pretty sure you don't get paid for 60 days after the first sale. pretty sure it's in the rules and agreement that you signed when making the account
If you do another stress relief coloring book try "Coloring for Happiness and Calmness." Those two words can't ping as medical claims.
Thank you for this! Amazon KDP has given me so much grief and stress that I have unpublished most of my books for fear of having my account terminated (even though, as far as I can tell none of my books violates any guidelines). I had a book about Prince Harry. The cover was similar to his book cover and the title was 'Spared', so KDP blocked the book and terminated my account. I wrote an email to every single Amazon director and executive I could find including the CEO and eventually got my account reinstated. The whole process was very stressful and I am now very paranoid with my submissions to KDP. Sometimes I wonder what the hell the review staff are paid for - if a book doesn't comply, why do they approve it, only to have it blocked a few weeks later?! When it goes well, KDP is great but it's like putting your head into a crocodile's open mouth - you never know when they might snap on you and when they do, it can be devastating.
Hi, can you give some info about how you found their details? Would be really helpful.
"Alice in Wonderland" is actually not the public domain character. If you look back at the Alice stories, the most well known is called "Alice Through the Looking Glass", and "Alice and the Red Queen".
Disney made "Alice in Wonderland" - so the mistake many make is by using Disney's title, instead of the original.
It's so ironic that a lot of Disney's work is taken from other people's work.
@@stevenpike7857 I think it's Disney being more evil than ironic.
FYI "Alice in Wonderland" is Disney, the public domain title is called "Alice's Adventures In Wonderland". There is a difference.
I can’t help but wonder if Amazon is trying to clear the field of accounts dominating the market to bring in fresh content.
It could be possible that this is what is happening.
no. just no one hears about the little accounts with no followings that get busted. no one notices when all the thousands of accounts get terminated each year unless they make a social fuss that gets attention.
Thanks for this valuable information... I am new on amazon kdp and this information will really help me to avoid this kind of mistake in future
It's too easy to accidentally violate a TM or ©. I did this a long time ago. I was selling a shirt that had a skateboard with the word "TOXIC" on it. Even though I did my research, there was a skateboard company that owned "Toxic" as a TM that I didn't know about. What I don't understand is how any company like Amazon could just blatantly not care that a simple mistake on a title or cover is a good reason to terminate a partnership with no warning that also destroys a person's livelihood.
I still can't get my Sudoku book published. They keep sending the same message again and again that I use repetitive words in the title which is wrong. Sent them screenshots of other publishers that have those repetitive words and they are Live! I asked to be more specific and nothing. I just Feel discriminated.
Been there got the tee shitt. You are waisting your breath. They told me my title was confusing to the reader. To which I pointed out that was rubbish as there was a book that was a best seller with the same title. Yous.may not be the same but I'd translated that to read too many keywords. I got my book published but only after I remove all but one of the phrases.
@@KernowFay mine is blocked now because I did not know what else to change. Thanks to this video, now I know that I have to use fewer keywords and better have a unique title, so it's not blocked in the future. We will get there, let's continue pushing!
do not publish anything, run away from these scammers. If Amazon rejects your books multiple times, after the next time, it will simply block your account without explanation. That's what happened to me. With 100 books in it
When Jade Summer got back on the marketplace, I think they said they got a lawyer to appeal their termination.
I wouldn't have ticked the public domain checkbox for those Alice in Wonderland books either as the artwork isn't public domain - it's owned by Jade Summer and only based on a public domain character.
Jade Summer has only just started to launch new books to the market after over 18 months since their account was terminated.
My coloring book brand wasn't big at all but I lost my account due to a low/no content book I published back in 2019, which (accidentally) included the name of a pre-existing book in its subtitle and on its cover. It's been 7 months now and I'm still appealing but it's really unlikely I'll get it back now as I've gone through the whole lawyer process and they say that's the most you can do.
How do Stoner Disney Princess coloring books get approved? There used to be one that was published for years and made loads but it looks like it's no longer there. But there are still a load of newer ones on there. People who so blatantly break the rules will just start another account if they lose theirs.
They don't even reply to my appeals anymore. LOL
As someone else said, Caroll's book is not called Alice in Wonderland, this movie's name belongs to Disney so she had no right to use it. The book title is actually "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". Big difference.
My KDP account was terminated yesterday, and I am in panic mode. I have only started on this journey with 7 books published. I had 2 published yesterday morning then the dreaded email. I went to my account, and it said it was Canceled my heart sank! I feel sick and not sure what to do. I sent an email back apologizing for any mistakes I had made and asked them to please let me know what I had done and how I could resolve this and get my account back up. They sent another email early this morning standing by their decision. I want to email back but I'm frozen and have no words to respond, I want to cry... Do you have any ideas what I should do next. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for this video. I needed to hear this and read everyone's comments to not feel alone in this disaster.
Create new account with other gmail
A friend of mine had their account terminated because they used the phrase, 'suitable for all levels from beginner to jedi master'. Although jedi is now in common parlance apparently it is subject to copyright. Despite their best efforts the account was never reinstated. She also found the 'people' at KDP to be extremely uncaring and very rude. She moved across to Lulu but Amazon control 80-85% of the market so her sales were few and far between. She has now given up completely.
I plan to publish a book to KDP and I feel scare now :(
@@tungtop не надо, это мошенники и кидалы
Disney is notorious for getting anything removed that doesn’t have the appropriate rights. I see a lot of creatives use very generic terms like Red House, young wizard, or any sort of vague term that is related to that character.
Jedi is trademarked and enforced. That is is in “common parlance” has nothing to do with using a trademark for commercial purposes. She is publishing for money (not fair use) and used a trademark, hence broke the law and got her account terminated.
Great sleuthing - always so hard to know what the reason is, but that Alice in Wonderland find in your previous video looks like a really clear candidate!
I have looked at Jade Summer's coloring books, and they have tons of images that completely recognizable as disney. I don't know how they get away with it, month after month, year after year. I just don't get it. Now, a third party is going to complain to Amazon, not to Jade Summer. It's gonna be Amazon's problem. Anyway -- we'll never know -- but c'mon --
I have a number of their coloring books and have yet to come across anything that is recognizable as Disney
I always use the Chat feature in their Help menu to chat with a real person. 90% of the time the person is absolutely amazing.
This is a GREAT argument AGAINST using Jeff Bezos' Amazon because their process is too clumsy and destructive for non-professional publishers. Instead of cancelling accounts, Amazon is the end publisher and should check everything itself.
A publisher can not copyright ‘coloring book’, ‘word search’ or ‘sudoku’ because these terms refer to a fact. A book is an artefact, it’s a ‘thing’. And that makes it a ‘fact’. Facts can not be copyrighted. If they could then no one would be able to print any more books, or books called ‘coloring book’! Which, of course, is nonsense! Furthermore, you can’t copyright themes like ‘Christmas’, ‘Easter’, or ‘Fall’. This means that there can be many books with the title ‘Christmas Coloring Book’. This is ‘safe ground’ on which to publish. Also, artists, illustrators and publishers can not copyright images of a fact like, say, a dolphin, a princes, a wizard or a mushroom house. This means you can draw a picture of a dolphin, you won’t get sued! If you could get sued for drawing a picture of a dolphin then there would only be ONE image available, which isn’t true. Just look on Pinterest you’ll see thousands of drawing of dolphins! So a coloring book about dolphins won’t get you banned! Nor will a book called ‘A Dolphin Coloring Book’.
With that fact out of the way… copyright law is simply there to protect the rights of the artist, illustrator or publisher against unlawful use of their work. Unlawful means ‘without permission’. It’s unlawful to kill another human being, we call that Murder: simply put, you do not have the right or permission to take another persons life. Every artist, illustrator or publisher has the right to be acknowledged and compensated for the work they have produced. And by using someone else’s work without their permission you are breaking their commercial right to be recompensed for their time, talent and tenure. If you ask Disney for the ‘right’ to publish their work, paid them their due recompense, then you can publish their work and profit from it. It’s profiting from their works without their permission that violates copyright law. And that is what gets you banned!
i think the policy to require republishing for violations makes sense. as you said it kills momentum, and that's exactly why they do it. it's not great for the honest publisher -- however the opportunity it would present for bad actors it seem necessary as a deterrent.
Also in both the Uk and the US, titles are not copyrighted, however a series title may be trademarked
Lewis Carol published Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which is public domain. Disney published Alice in Wonderland, which is not public domain.
They are so heavy handed it’s tyrannical.
"Alice in Wonderland" is trademarked by Disney. I believe "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" is the original book title in the public domain.
Thank you so much for this video, I was just about to advertise my coloring that has exact subtitle you talked about. wow! I just had to press the 'BREAK' on it. Thank you.
You are so helpful and informative, Thank you for all your knowledge.
🔥🔥This was quite interesting and helpful. You gave me a lot to think about. I have not been able to publish due to the pages not meeting measurement standards. I have to go and start all over to ensure that the pages are right, but I can slow down and look a little closet at my titles. Thank you
Excellent overview. Thanks for sharing
Thank you for all of that information, those are all good things to know before you get started.😊
That explained why I got an email to change my subtitle when I was publishing. I had watched a video on getting keywords into the title and subtitle, and KDP went - no. The video was a couple of years old, I think. So, it seems they are making a conscious effort to stop it now. But I agree that they should allow people to update their old titles.
As Always, Caroline is spot on. Thank you
I have just finished my artwork for my very first colouring book, all hand drawn, no AI. Now I’m scared to even try to use Amazon. But what are the alternatives? I have no idea of any there’s out there. I’m from Aus too, so would love t hear of any alternatives you could suggest 🇦🇺❤️
Always double and triple check your listings with tess etc. I even google words and phrases to double check trademark and copyright. Anything that has any resemblance to the mouse's IP will get a termination even though the actual book is public domain. Almost all of the source material for Disney's classics are public domain. Even though it's technically legal to do the same, Amazon will bring the termination hammer down. It's not worth the risk. It playing with fire...eventually you get burned. imo
Best advice in all the comments. Of course, you did not get many likes because you are advising to do some due diligence. People are breaking the law and are whining because their account got terminated. Such entitlement!
Amazon is not going to risk getting sued for being a platform allowing intellectual property violations. So like Etsy, they are going to crack down on IPR infringement and terminate accounts. Like every business, they are going to change their policies to adapt to the environment, and as such, we will have to adapt too. That is business.
This is what happens when you use AI to do the jobs people should be, or not AI 'flagging' and kicking it to a human for a real review.
You can't complain about AI while profiting off it. Most of these coloring books are created with AI.
@@dab34rs You most certainly can complain about something that you benefit from that has flaws.
looks like that alice was probably a copyright problem. Alice in wonderland may be public domain, but Disney owns the specific character design on the movie Alice. (Like Pooh bear is now public domain, but he has to be book pooh, not red shirt disney pooh.)
Other commenters have pointed out that ‘Alice in Wonderland’ is in fact trademarked by Disney.
Excellent video! Thank you and best luck to you.
Could these coloring book companies just change their title and have another print on demand company print them and sell them on Amazon again this way?
The day your new book published is worth celebration. It takes them so much time to check the book... 🤦♀️
They should also have a human review of the bot decision and reach out to people first.
Thanks so much for this, very informative.
That was helpful, thank you!
A lot of "publishers" copy the content from an existing coloring book and just reorder the pages. I wonder how they can get away with this.
Wow, I'll bet you're right about the Alice in Wonderland books by Jade Summer. All of this scares me because I don't know about all of this stuff. I'm thinking I had better study before I even try to do ANY books.
I often see reviews for a company/seller in Amazon rather than a specific product which is what I find confusing when I want to find out specific product information or opinions from people who actually bought the product in question. The reviews algorithm needs work. Hope this clears things up a little.
Excellent video 👍🏻. Thank you ❤️
Can you do more videos on how to be careful about Trademarks? Like for example, do you have to only worry about the title, subtitle for mentioning that, or anywhere in the book? And there maybe other questions others might have on this too. I've avoided mentioning anything connecting to others, but it is an education process to be aware of how to avoid getting screwed by someone for using the wrong pronouns in a book now.
anywhere
That’s the only catch. Gotta be very tactful. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you for sharing this!
Amazon will absolutely terminate you for using public domain titles if a company has trademarked it, even if you're going back to the source material and not the trademarked material. My own account got terminated for a Wizard of Oz notebook. The artwork in the notebook was the original (public domain) illustrations. I think it's BS, but there you go.
@@Chef.Saltbaker Aww, thanks for looking that up. The journal version title was "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz-An Illustrated Journal with W.W. Denslow’s Original Artwork." The notebook version was "Vintage Wizard of Oz-A Pretty Flip-Top, Top Bound Notepad with Lined, Illustrated Pages." Both went through the first time, but then I updated the keywords and they got flagged. Unfortunately, Amazon has a zero-tolerance policy on what they consider trademark infringement once they flag you, and trying to talk to someone is about as useful as pounding sand. And yet if you look up superhero notebook / coloring book, the blatant trademark infringement is jaw-dropping. Anyway, thanks again.
Also, they don't care about exact matches. I also got banned on Amazon Merch for a shirt that said "Don't tickle the dragon's balls--it's a good way to get burned" and they dropped the ban hammer for Dragon Ball Z. Rather ironic if you consider it. Needless to say, I would tell anyone selling on Amazon to hedge their bets and not put all their eggs in the Amazon basket.
This was a verrrry important video for me as I am currently making a book that revolves around public domain content. So will have to do more research on the checking of that option for Amazon or maybe not even publish that book there. Shame too as it’s my most detailed book to date, and as I’m an artist myself, all the pages are from scratch so would be a shame for that and all of my other work to go to waste
Other commenters have pointed out that ‘Alice in Wonderland’ is in fact trademarked by Disney so the issue probably wasn’t about checking the ‘public domain’ box. But this also means it’s worth checking that what you think is content in the public domain isn’t actually trademarked by anyone else.
Wish Amazon would protect patents as much as they protect copywrights.
Amazon steals people's ideas and blocks them then sells a cheaper version. Amazon knows that most people don't have patent money. It's a dirty game
Thank you. Your research & clarity is excellent. Very helpful. My account was terminated. No reason given. I find the protocol of this platform simply too much of a business risk.
I prefer “the human touch” & fair business practice of several alternative platforms.
Great. I’m happy for you. That’s what I need…an expert. I have a case file but no expert so far.
Good video! Can you advise on any other KDP type services that can e used to diversify incomes.
i'm sorry to hear that! where to find those giude lines exactly? which section/paragraf, thank you in advance!
With Alice in Wonderland... the OG book is under public domain, but I believe the IP is not (Disney cartoon and movies in the 2000s). Not 100% sure how it all works but it's probably a gray area that Amazon would rather not risk litigation.
Thank you for this!
Amazon treats their sellers and warehouse employees horribly!
Don't allow any single distribution channel to dominate your sales.
Marketplaces offer a lot of value. However, the trade off is that you give them too much control over your business.
Your primary source of income should be your own site. That way, you get to make the rules!
The terms of service can change overnight. Making your products instantly noncompliant.
It's already been ruled in US IP court multiple times that titles are not subject to copyright or trademark laws. (Just look at how many movies and books share the same title without having anything to do with each other.) So what's the issue there? If there is any lesson to be learned here it's that you need to develop your own branding and get people that may have bought on one platform to switch to buying from you on your OWN platform / website, and get them to do this as fast as you can, possibly offering them deep discounts on their next order, or something like that. (Note: I'm not an Amazon so I don't really know the intricacies of this; however, this is the reason I am NOT on their platform for fear of something like this happening. I'd rather just sell directly through my own website so I have full control over everything.
That does not mean you are allowed to use a trademark in your title. It depends on how you use it. You can get sued for defamation, trademak dilution etc.
According to Copywrite law, if two books share the same title, the authors or publishers must make sure that there is no confusion between the two. To avoid any legal disputes or confusion, authors should strive for unique and memorable titles that set their work apart. So the next time you pick up a book with the same title as another you’ve read, be sure to do your research to ensure you’re not in for a surprise. Using Alice in Wonderland as a title or subtitle, that could be easily confused with Walt Disney's work is copywrite protected.
The more I look into this, the less I feel it's worth the risk. The rules are not clear, they change them at will and yet do not allow you the same courtesy of allowing you to update in order to remain compliant. And they are just so fickle, over automated and as in your own case, could terminate all your hard work by mistake!?! I was very keen to start this journey, now having serious and increasing doubts.
same, I've been researching a lot since I picked an interest in KDP. But with all I'm seeing, it's getting increasingly doubtful for me.
This is probably being done to curtail an over-saturated market..
Tbh Jade Summer may have been not going against amz TOS when they published the books as amazon changes guidelines and rules a lot. I first heard of publishing KDP in 2011 and so much has changed so many times over the years. Amz just keeps things vague so they can change things when they need to and too bad for people selling on there. It’s just how large corporations do business now online. It’s what’s best for them legally.
Also you do not need to select public domain book unless you are actually republishing a public domain book. Just because you use something from public domain works does not mean you are actually publishing a public domain book. Which is what that box is for. So that wouldn’t be the issue.
Also kw stuffing was not against amz tos for a long time. So again, that was a change that was made after millions of books were published. And like you said changing titles is not something that can be done after a book is published for awhile. So, I think retroactive cancellation of accounts for doing things that were not against tos when published is ridiculous, but it’s what amz has always done. Trademark and copyright not included as those are always not okay and illegal. Tho retroactive trademarks is a different story.
👍Thanks for sharing this!
This is the problem with Bots determining right from wrong.
Also a lot of the accounts terminated were due to humans not knowing right from wrong when it comes to intellectual property rights. Check the examples.
Every time I've gone to my kdp account, I've encountered changes that have caused me to create major workarounds or complete redos of works in progress.
Sounds like to me Amazon wants to knock out the competition. I'm sure at some point they will stop accepting new seller applications. I see alot of Amazon buys the same product as another seller and then slap their Amazon Brand on it, and sells it at cheaper prices.
This hit the nail on the head! Exactly what I wrote on another comment above!! Greedy!!
Thank you for doing this video
Eh. I didn't break rules and amazon said I didn't own the copyright on my own personally written ebook which was not a low content book and all of the words were my own. They didn't terminate me, but after all of my work putting it together and then getting a bunch of reviews on it and sales they said they could not fix the problem and I had to reupload it. Sometimes they do crummy things they have no answers for.
I recently had a book terminated ( not my account) but mine is such a small account, the books I have have not sold at all only the one that was terminated sold a couple of hundred dollars, it had to do with the title and unfortunately I didn’t catch the initial email from KDP 😖
Now I have to re publish it with another title,
My title had description of what the book was about and they claimed that it should only be what’s on the cover nothing more,
But I remember getting advice that we needed to put the description in the title so don’t know exactly what it is and I have 3 more books with similar titles 🤷🏻♀️🤷🏻♀️ I don’t know… I’m just deflated and discouraged
Recently I had problems about a book, a photo in the cover that was flag as copyrighted (after 2 years the books was online).
It was a book about citation of and about Silvio Berlusconi, and after his death the book started selling. I was also running sponsored ads for the book. This two things are the main reason the Amazon AI check your books I think, it's possible to have problems even with old books that didn't sell anything; but if a books sell and have ads, it's highly probable that all its content is checked by ai and humans.
Obviously I published all three format (ebook, paperback and hardback), but the cover was the same. They sent me 3 complaints, one every few hours; one email for every format. That means to rely to 3 different people which have all the power to terminate your account if they are so inclined. Ah, and they added a notebook with another photo of Berlusconi, which was unpublished.
The fact that they consider every asin as a single book makes no sense. If I have a book with 3 formats and the same cover, and you comply about the cover, it should be automatically about all 3 asins. And the fact that every time they write to you or you write to them you speak with a different person is destabilizing; you can do what a person say, but the next one find that it wasn't enough, or that there is another problem, or that a rule should be interpreted in another way. There is no coherency, and so you never know what to expect next, even if you try to respect the rules and comply with anything they say you have to do to correct some mistake.
And another things that makes no sense is that the books that Amazon says are wrong, were approved by its moderators, and were checked by its AI. Why they didn't find that image as copyrighted 2 years ago, and now it is? What's the usefulness of the review process if it doesn't catch even this simple mistakes (that are found by automatic checks, there is not a person who manually search google images to find if my image is copyrighted or not)?
I have unpublished all my low content. I wasn't earning too much, and the risk is too high, even if I didn't have content that was against the rules (at least I think so...). You can hear stories of account terminated for a simple notebook in a wrong category... It seems that Amazon wants to lighted it's database, that now it's full of garbage and many notebooks that are all the same. And they terminate any account easily because they don't loose any money. Low content books have no unique content. If someone don't find a coloring book by Jade Summer, they will buy another similar book, there are millions of coloring books. So to be considered important by Amazon you have to sell many books, obviously, but you work must be also unique and not easily replaceable, so that if someone don't find your books on Amazon anymore, they will look for them and buy them on some other site, and so Amazon loose a sell, and maybe a customer.
It is not up to the review process to catch a copyright infringement but to you. You are the publisher. You should do your due diligence and check your titles and pictures. You should have the commercial use license for the images you publish. Why the review process did not catch it 2 years ago? Maybe they have a better AI now to spot the infringements. That they did not catch it earlier does not mean it is right for you to use. You should be happy you did not get sued and still made money for 2 years.
@@ceec165 it was only because Berlusconi died, and the book started selling. If you don't sell a copy it's very difficult that your book is checked. And that is a part of the problem.
I think that in the review process they check only that you don't violate any law, you don't incite violence or racism, and that the book is not badly formatted. They don't really read your book (if it's a real book), and they don't check for copyright issue (at least in the past, some people published without problem materials from disney or fortnite, which was obviously illegal, and they didn't need a deep research or advanced AI to catch it).
Another time my account was terminated because i used public domain photos. So they can check the copyright in the review process, and they can even suspend or terminate your account, which is insane for me. You can't leave the power to decide over someone life to a single person chosen randomly. In the review process should be impossible to ban an account; the reason for a review process is to catch errors before they are published, in the interest of both us and Amazon.
They have reinstated my account after my first email reply, but they didn't admit that their ban was wrong (even if immediately going back it's a clear sign that it was an error).
The problem is that they are the supreme judges, but without a logic. Some low content publisher was banned because their book was in the wrong category. The AI can do mistake, and wrongly rise some alert; and a human monkey in the review team press a button without reviewing anything and cancel your account (maybe erasing the only income that you have).
The review process should be deeper. It's not a problem if your books take one or two weeks before they get published, if both you and Amazon are sure that there are no problems in any way. A book should be reviewed by 3 different people, and they should vote if that book can be published or not; so they could minimize human errors, both from the publishers and the review team.
Amazon does NOT give detail information to sellers about what it is that is incorrect or what is against what part of their TOS, which is extremely frustrating to correct or appeal and correct. It doesn't matter how many times you request this information, you will not get the response you need to fix. Don't put your all your eggs in one basket.
Amazon KDP help center states coloring books do not belong to the low content book category.
Coloring books, puzzle books, and the like are properly termed "medium content," not "low content, as you point out. "Low content" refers mainly to journals, I believe.
Waaahhhhh! Lil miss perfect! It’s obvious once u get 2 big on Amazon they find any reason to shut u down! So what makes u think they as well were not trying to follow the rules as u are! 😮
Thank you for the info
Brilliant video.
Interesting.
So many of the reviews against not only books but a lot of products and items sold on Amazon are fraudulent. Back in the day you could actually pay Amazon to get your first 10 reviews.
Hopefully you can build up your reviews again quickly if forced to go through the re-publishing route..
I am still confused on what they did. They say they didn't violate a copyright, but Amazon did... whose copywrite did they violate?
If you are talking about Jade Summers, Disney owns the copyright for 'Alice in Wonderland', as this was their movie title. The public domain title is the original title of the book by Lewis Carroll - 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland', which anyone can use.
thank you for making this video