We are currently experiencing problems with our distribution partner, Amazon Kindle. As a result, the links to our books on this website are no longer working.
A few days ago, we received the following message:
Hello,
We are terminating your account with immediate effect because we have detected activity on your account that attempted to manipulate our services.
In addition to closing your account:
• You are no longer entitled to payment of outstanding royalties.
• You will no longer have access to your account. This includes: editing titles, viewing reports, and accessing other account information.
• Published titles will be removed from Amazon.
According to our Terms and Conditions, you are not permitted to open new KDP accounts.
Needless to say, there was no attempt at manipulation on our part. But time and again, authors report that their Amazon KDP account (and thus author access, book publications, and royalties) has been suddenly blocked, deactivated, or even deleted, often with a very general statement such as the one we received: “Attempt to manipulate our services.” This can happen without prior warning, and Amazon often does not provide any specific evidence that would be understandable to outsiders.
What other authors have experienced
This is evident from several reports and community discussions:
In Reddit forums, authors report that their KDP accounts have been terminated with the standard wording “terminated,” citing “attempted to manipulate services,” without a clear indication of a specific rule violation.
Some were able to restore their accounts by responding to Amazon’s emails and asking for clarification; others report that support did not respond after that.
Frequently cited reasons in such discussions (even if authors were not aware of them) include:
Violations of usage or metadata guidelines, e.g., misleading titles, keyword stuffing, or relevant brand/author names in the title/subtitle.
Multiple KDP accounts under the same person, which is not permitted according to KDP.
Suspicion of non-compliant reading/manipulation of “Pages Read” in the Kindle Unlimited program or similar.
In other cases, authors lose access to their books and outstanding royalties after being blocked, and it can be extremely difficult to reverse this.
How authors should respond
In the forums, the community often recommends the following:
- Respond immediately to the suspension email and politely ask for a more detailed, comprehensible explanation. Many authors who had their suspension reversed did so through direct contact.
- Include clear evidence and supporting documents, e.g.:
- Screenshots of your dashboard (books, metadata) can be helpful, but should be taken when you first list new titles. This is because once you have been banned by Amazon, you will no longer be able to access your dashboard. But who thinks about being banned when uploading new titles?
- A statement that you did not have any additional accounts
- An explanation of why you did not violate any guidelines. To do this, however, you need to know which guidelines you allegedly violated. And finding that out is not always easy.
- If support does not respond, use multiple contact methods (multiple email addresses, KDP support form, social media support, etc.). Amazon has its own support teams on platforms such as X (Twitter), Facebook, and Instagram. On X, this is usually the @AmazonHelp account.
- In difficult cases, some authors report that professional legal assistance was necessary because Amazon has a great deal of leeway in its TOS.
Important to know
The general wording “attempting to manipulate services” serves as Amazon’s standard accusation, even if the actual cause may be something else (e.g., metadata issues, multiple accounts, IP changes, system errors, etc.).
Amazon is often not transparent about such suspensions, and even long-time authors can suddenly be affected – the mechanisms are automated and described by many as difficult to understand.