New at KDP & Amazon: “Bestseller” Authors Need to Prove Their Status (or risk getting pulled)

by | Feb 7, 2017 | Amazon Updates & Marketing Tips, Book Marketing Basics

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So it seems Amazon may be cracking down on indie authors again. If you have ‘bestseller’ on your book cover be prepared to show proof that it was, in fact, a bestseller. And from the looks of the email below, it seems like anything that may give readers a skewed perspective of your book could lead to KDP contacting you and/or your book getting pulled. This also falls into the category of “Amazon Bestseller” which hasn’t been allowed for a while, but the vetting of general bestseller status is pretty new.

If you have a book that has “bestseller” or other “extra descriptive content” on the cover, be prepared to get an email from Amazon/KDP. In the case of books that claim “bestseller” status, you’ll need to send them a link that proves it. Not sure how to find your proof? Here is a link to find that information on USA Today: http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/best-selling

This also begs the question: what is a bestseller? I mean really? Does it have to hit a certain # on a list? Top ten? Top 100? I feel like there’s a lot more discussion on this to come for indie authors! I’ll keep an eye out for future developments and will keep you posted!

I’d love to know what you think of this! Good/Bad? Please comment below!

Here is the email from KDP:

During a quality assurance review of your KDP catalog, we found that the following book(s) you have published contains extra descriptive content in the cover image.

Extra descriptive content in your book’s cover field that is not part of your book’s actual title can be distracting or misleading to our customers. Examples of items that are prohibited in the title field and cover image include but are not limited to unauthorized reference to other authors or titles, advertisements, or reference to sales rank (bestselling).

In order to avoid setting false customer expectations, if your cover image includes reference to a national or international bestseller list, please reply to this email to provide verification of this claim.

We ask that you fix the above book(s) as well as all of your catalog’s affected books and re-submit them for publishing within 5 business days. If your books have not been corrected by that time, they will be removed from sale on Amazon.

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21 Comments

  1. Mark Coker

    We have a multi-time NYT bestseller we distribute to Amazon who was forced to remove the word from her keyword tags otherwise they were going to remove her book. Draconian.

    Reply
    • Penny Sansevieri

      Mark wow – did she have to show proof of the NYT listing? Or did they just tell her to pull it??

      Reply
      • Mark Coker

        Amazon didn’t request such proof. Requests for reconsideration or clarification are met with robotic non-answers. Trying to reason with their cust serve folks in India is worse than arguing with a robot. At least a robot is logical.

        I totally respect their desire to clean their store of scammers. We deal with the same challenge every day. But we have real people here in the US who are empowered to consider the facts and nuance, and empowered to forgive honest errors when they occur. Here, though, they decided they didn’t want to see the word “bestseller” in the keyword tags.

        The full thread is pasted below (read from bottom to top – the author’s name and title is redacted). Note the non-answers to my questions. I imagine every KDP author, publisher and distributor has a mailbox-full of such robotic exchanges.
        —–
        Hello,

        {title redacted} by {redacted} (AUTHOR) (ID:….) – still contains search keyword(s): bestseller

        We’ve set your book to an editable state. Upon changing your search keyword(s), please re-submit your book for publishing and respond to this email at title-submission@amazon.com in order for your book to be made available for sale on Amazon.

        We appreciate your cooperation.

        Best Regards,

        Ian S
        Amazon.com
        Your feedback is helping us build Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company.
        http://www.amazon.com/your-account
        ______________________________
        Connect with KDP and other Authors and Publishers:
        Like us on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/KindleDirectPublishing
        Follow us on Twitter http://twitter.com/#!/AmazonKDP

        —- Original message: —-

        Felicia,

        [authorname redacted} has a keyword phrase that mentions she is a New York Times bestseller. This is true. She has had multiple titles hit the list.

        Would it be acceptable if we changed it from “New York Times bestseller” to “New York Times bestselling author”?

        If an author is in fact a New York Times bestseller, or they’re a USA
        Today bestseller or Wall Street Journal bestseller, are you saying they
        are not allowed to mention this in their keywords? Or if they’re the
        recipient of any award?

        The intention of such inclusion is not to mislead – it’s to provide
        customers with honest accurate information relevant to their purchase
        decision.

        Or what of the hundreds of titles that have earned Newbery Medals for great
        writing for children? Are these books not allowed to use a keyword
        phrase of “Newbery Medal winner”? It seems to me that would be a
        relevant search term for a parent who wants to purchase an award winning
        book for their child.

        I don’t mean to be argumentative, but you’re asking me to remove
        something which is 100% factual and 100% relevant to her readers who
        would like to know that {author redacted} is a NY Times Bestselling author.

        Can you please clarify or escalate this to your supervisor?

        thanks,
        mark

        On 12/22/2016 9:13 AM, Kindle Direct Publishing wrote:
        Hello,

        Misleading search keywords, such as reference to other authors, titles, or sales rank result in confusion for customers as to why your work is included in search results. For example: “bestseller”. Attempts to manipulate search results is in violation of our Terms and Conditions and will not be tolerated. Repeat violations of our Terms and Conditions may result in your account being terminated or access to optional services being revoked.

        We ask that you remove all of the misleading keywords for all of your catalog’s affected books and re-submit the books for publishing within 5 business days. If your books have not been corrected by that time, we will remove them from sale on Amazon.

        Best Regards,

        Felicia B
        Amazon.com
        Your feedback is helping us build Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company.
        http://www.amazon.com/your-account
        ______________________________
        Connect with KDP and other Authors and Publishers:
        Like us on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/KindleDirectPublishing
        Follow us on Twitter http://twitter.com/#!/AmazonKDP

        —- Original message: —-

        Hi Amazon,

        This title contains the keyword phrase, “New York Times bestseller,”
        which is factual. {authorname} is one of our NYT bestsellers. So I’m
        assuming we can disregard this message?

        mark

        On 12/20/2016 2:12 PM, Kindle Direct Publishing wrote:
        Hello,

        Thanks for using Amazon KDP. During our review, we found that the search keywords for the following book(s) create inaccurate or overwhelming search results and impair the customer experience:

        {redacted} by {redacted} (AUTHOR) (ID:…..) – contains search keyword(s): bestseller

        Search keywords that are not accurate descriptors of your book’s central storyline or are completely unrelated to its content may be misleading to our customers and are unacceptable. Misleading search keywords such as reference to other authors, titles, promotions, sales rank, or Kindle result in confusion for customers as to why your work is included in search results. To check out our Metadata Guidelines, visit: https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A294SHSUYLKTA6 ;

        Please edit the search keywords of your book and all affected books in your catalog by following the steps below; a reply to this email is not required.

        Follow these steps to edit search keywords:
        1. Log in to your KDP account at http://kdp.amazon.com
        2. In the “Bookshelf” section, find the book you want to edit shown in “Draft” status, and in the ‘Other Book Actions’ column, click ‘Edit Book Details’.
        3. Make the corrections, scroll down to the bottom of the ‘Your Book’ section, and click ‘Save and Continue’
        4. On the ‘Rights & Pricing’ page, you need to reconfirm Content Rights.
        5. Confirm that you have all rights to publish by clicking on the box at the bottom.
        6. Scroll to the bottom of the page, ‘Save and Publish’

        For tips on how to help customers discover your book, please visit:
        https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help?topicId=A2EZES9JAJ6H02

        Thank you,

        Kindle Direct Publishing
        http://kdp.amazon.com

        Reply
        • Penny Sansevieri

          Mark this is UNREAL – I’m going to share this blog post (and your comments) with a few groups I’m a part of. I’m so sorry for the author that this happened.

          Reply
        • Daniel

          Mark, while I think Amazon’s responses demonstrate a great lack of reading comprehension on their part, can you help me understand why ‘bestseller’ would be useful as a search keyword? Are customers searching for ‘bestseller’ by itself or in conjunction with other terms as in ‘romance bestseller’? And if they are, wouldn’t Amazon ignore the term anyway and rely on their own salesrank sorting to show current bestsellers? Or does the author maybe have such a common name that the only way to get good search results is if a customer searches with ‘bestseller’ after her name? I completely agree with you that your author should be allowed to include any factual information in keywords, I’m just wondering whether it’s actually a good use of the limited number of keywords you have available. If your author’s book is a current NYT’s Best Seller, it should automatically appear in the category for that on the Kindle Store (https://www.amazon.com/National-Bestsellers-Kindle-eBooks/ via the web interface). If the book is no longer on the NYT’s list or her former titles have been but this one has not yet, well, Amazon really don’t care about anyone’s past performance, only what’s happening right now. It’s unfortunate, but it’s not surprising or unexpected.

          Reply
          • Mark Coker

            “Bestseller” is a badge of honor for authors, and I must assume that some fraction of customers use the word in their searches. I don’t have data on this, but it makes sense. Readers use bestseller lists to find what their peers are reading right now, but those lists are completely useless if you want a book or author that was a bestseller but isn’t listed in the current lists. If Amazon’s cracking down on the word then it must mean that customers are searching with that keyword, and Amazon is either using it to affect discoverability today or it plans to use that word more in the future.

          • Daniel

            Mark, thank you for providing more detail on your reasoning for including ‘bestseller’ as a keyword. While Amazon is very much a black hole, sucking in tons of data on customer behavior and barely letting any of it back out, are you seeing many instances of customers using ‘bestseller’ and related terms to search on Smashwords? I hope you don’t mind me picking your brain. I really appreciate that you’ve always been very open in sharing with authors what works and doesn’t work and what’s changing or staying the same.

  2. Julie Isaac

    Unfortunately, a book being called a “best seller” is almost meaningless today, because a book can become an Amazon #1 Best Seller by selling as few as 5 copies in some categories. And even in mid-level categories, you can get somewhere on the best seller list (the top 100 books) with extraordinarily small sales. I hate to hear that a New York Times best-selling author had to stop using that term, because she truly earned it, but I respect Amazon for trying to bring real meaning back to that title. I could certainly call myself a best-selling author if I wanted to, based upon Amazon category rankings, but I’m not going to do it. If I ever make it onto the New York Times or USA Today best seller list, or some other list of similar stature, then I will, but until then it’s not going in my bio or on a book cover. I certainly can appreciate authors wanting something to help them stand out from the crowd, but claiming best-seller status when you’ve only sold a handful of books, isn’t it. Instead, strive to write such an incredible book that you’ll get fabulous reviews, and the buzz the book generates will inspire thousands of people to buy it.

    Reply
    • Penny Sansevieri

      Very well-said Julie and quite true. The problem with the term “best seller” is it’s often thrown out, as you point out – and it’s sold only a few copies. I can appreciate Amazon wanting to vet these, to keep people honest, however Mark’s comment above is hugely distressing. And I don’t know where to find the NYT bestseller archives, which is problematic for those authors.

      Reply
  3. Wayne Layton

    Maybe they noticed the proliferation of the 20 author box set selling for 99c? That’s one easy way to make the lists and it’s a ploy being used quite cynically by some authors.

    Reply
    • Penny Sansevieri

      Wayne you are right – a lot of authors are using this. I also heard Amazon may be cracking down on multi-author book bundles, too!

      Reply
  4. CW Hawes

    I agree with Julie Isaac, the term “bestseller” is meaningless today. One so-called New York Times bestseller claims that vaunted title because a box set her book was in reached high enough on the list. However, that author’s name was nowhere mentioned on the box set advertising. So how can she claim bestseller status when her name didn’t even appear?

    I ignore all such claims, because they are mostly bogus.

    Reply
  5. Ed

    Amazon’s response was very clear; Search keywords that are not accurate descriptors of your book’s central storyline or are completely unrelated to its content…

    “Bestseller has nothing to do with the book in question. Don’t folks like me have enough to contend with to be seen without having people compromise the system?

    Reply
    • Penny Sansevieri

      However readers like what other people like – the term “bestseller” to some degree validates that – it’s also “eye candy”- so I can see why authors would want to use it. But I see Amazon’s point, too — because as Julie pointed out it’s often a sketchy term.

      Reply
  6. Gregg Michaelsen

    I have sold 200,000 books to date and I (today) have 2, #1 best sellers on amazon in large categories. My book covers say best sellers (some say #1 best sellers) on them and amazon gives me the “orange tag” saying “Best Seller.” I am not trying to game the system or brag, but I feel saying this on my cover helps me with sales and is being completely honest.
    So confusing!
    Gregg Michaelsen

    Reply
    • Penny Sansevieri

      You are right, it is REALLY confusing – but good for you with your book sales, that’s inspiring!

      Reply
  7. Gab

    Interesting! – does this also apply to the #1 Amazon Bestseller badge? – I have them on all my books, because they really were at some point (or still are) and I would have screenshots to prove it? – thanks, Penny – always great information!

    Reply
  8. Gab

    btw, they are also sending these out if you have text in your sub title that’s not on the cover. So the old adding keywords in the subtitle without them being on the cover, no longer works. Incurs the exact same letter as the above “additional descriptive text” that is misleading….

    Reply
    • Penny Sansevieri

      Good point, I would actually ask Amazon about that. You know how to reach them? Via Amazon Author Central!

      Reply
  9. Hai

    Hello, I want to subscribe for this web site to obtain latest
    updates, thus where can i do it please help out.

    Reply
    • Penny Sansevieri

      Hello – thanks for stopping by! In addition to checking back each week, you can follow me on social media, and you can also sign up for our newsletter, which currently goes out monthly. Newsletter sign-ups can be found on this page: https://amarketingexpert.com/blog/

      Reply

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