Time Crunches and Writer Stupidity

I've had my head down for the last couple of weeks in order to get A Matter of Death finalized and proofed before my formatter is out of the office for the rest of this month. DH and I went to see Rocket Man a month ago, and I haven't even had a chance to write up my review. So I haven't blogged much either.

So I'm doing my meerkat pose to see what's going on in the world.

And overall, it's pretty much a typical July in the publishing world.

Trad pub is slowing down as acquiring editors vacation on Mummy and Daddy's estate in the Hamptons. Smashwords is having their semi-annual sale. And Amazon does shit to their store.

Why Amazon updates right before their super-spectacular Prime Day is beyond me, but July's the month for all software roll-outs, and by gum, they're sticking to that schedule!

The other thing that happens right before Prime Day is scammer clean-up. So a bunch of top-selling authors had the ban hammer dropped on them.

Folks, piece of advice. It's Amazon's store and they can do whatever they want. Their rules are posted and/or easily found. Acting dumb when you're clearly violating the TOC doesn't become you.

And if you're a writer who's worried about your account, here's the rules. Simply stated:

1) Back/extraneous matter must be 10% or less of the total e-book file.

2) Don't have banned subjects in your books, which includes, but is not limited to, incest, rape, necrophilia, dubcon, etc.

3) Don't use trigger words in your title or description, which includes, but is not limited to, virgin, rape, daddy, etc.

4) Don't bookstuff.

5) Don't use click farms to increase your rank.

6) Don't buy thousands of your books to increase your rank, hit a bestseller list, etc. Also, don't giveaway cash or a cash equivalent in order for people to buy your books for you.

7) Don't use your books to promote contests or giveaways. They are illegal or have serious restrictions in many countries where Amazon sells books. Amazon ain't getting fined for your shit.


This isn't a complete list by any means. However, I have my own rule: don't do any of this shit, then whine when your Amazon account is terminated. You ain't getting any sympathy from this corner of the multiverse.