Whatever the cause, if you find your book flagged you have the opportunity to fix it and to appeal.
You should receive an email from KDP stating there are issues with a link to their eBook Quality Dashboard which will list the problems. You can also access the dashboard through your KDP bookshelf. Problems such as formatting errors, blurry images, duplicate content, typos, etc. are listed with hints on how to fix them.
The book can also be flagged for "disappointing content" which KDP defines as:
• Content that is either marketed as a subscription or redirects readers to an external source to obtain the full content
• Content that is freely available on the web (unless you are the copyright owner of that content or the content is in the public domain). For more information, you can refer to the sections titled "Illegal and Infringing Content" and "Public Domain and Other Non-Exclusive Content" in the Content Guidelines
• Content whose primary purpose is to solicit or advertise
• Content that is not significantly different from content in another book available in the Kindle Store
• Content that is too short
• Content that is poorly translated
• Content that does not provide an enjoyable reading experience
• Bonus content that appears before a book's primary content
• Content that is excessively reused, recycled, or repeated within or across books
You have three replies for each flagged item:
1. You will fix it.
2. You can't fix it.
3. Not an issue (meaning you intend for the content to appear that way).
You are given the opportunity to upload a new file with the changes. KDP can take up to a couple of days to review the file and either okay it or determine if further action is required. You will receive reminders until you resolve the issue. If you don't, they can remove the book from sale.
Related Topics:
Kindle Launches New Ebook Quality Dashboard
Amazon Kindle Crackdown on Ebook Quality
Guide to Kindle content quality
Content Guidelines
Ebook metadata guidelines
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Diana Hurwitz is the author of Story Building Blocks: The Four Layers of Conflict, Story Building Blocks II: Crafting Believable Conflict, Story Building Blocks III: The Revision Layers, and the YA adventure series Mythikas Island. Her weekly blog, Game On: Crafting Believable Conflict explores how characters behave and misbehave. Visit DianaHurwitz.com for more information and free writing tools. You can follow her on Facebook and Twitter.
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This is very valuable information, Diana. Thank you for sharing. :-)
ReplyDeleteI agree with Linda. I had one book flagged for a formatting page break problem, but I couldn't see any reason for the flag and said so. This does leave a big opening for a competitor or a troublemaker to do damage, so I hope that doesn't happen.
ReplyDeleteI can see the usefulness of this. I recently began reading a book that is badly written. There are grammatical errors, and many other things that make it read poorly, and far too much ignoring the things we are constantly told about (show don't tell, use of adverbs, etc). This might help improve the standard of self-published writing, which will be good for us all.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, I can see how it might be an opening for trolls.
Much is in the eye of the reader, though. Some might think the writing is at least good enough while someone else would not accept it. I recently had a review where the reviewer said he would have given the book 5 stars, but for ONE typo (which I found and corrected.) he gave it 4 stars instead.
I edited one anthology where a reviewer said it was riddled with spelling mistakes. All the authors read all the stories for me and we couldn't find any. Possibly, the reader didn't cope with a mix of English in US/UK/SA/Can/Aus spellings.
ReplyDeleteI added a specific note at the start and reloaded it.
But the review still stands...