23. June 2026
That time I got banned forever by Amazon
Most writers dream of seeing their books on Amazon. Some dream of topping the bestseller charts. Others dream of quitting their day job and writing from a charming little cottage overlooking the sea... while Amazon does all the heavy lifting (apart from the actual writing, obviously).
I was no different. Until I got banned. Not intentionally, you understand. If Amazon is reading this, I was not actively pursuing a lifetime ban as a career goal. It simply just sort of... happened.
Like many disasters in my life, it started with what seemed like a perfectly reasonable idea at the time.
I first started publishing on Amazon (via their self-publishing arm KDP) in 2009, quite soon after they launched. I had recently "written" a cookbook. Disclaimer: I am not a chef. I am not even a very good home cook. I simply saw an opportunity and jumped on it. I had recently moved from England to Canada and was missing home-cooked food. I couldn't find a cook book advising me how to make a steak and kidney pudding (another disclaimer: I have never actually made a steak and kidney pudding) and so I gathered a load of recipes together and put them into a book format. Genius. It was really amateurish and some of the recipes were terrible; some were wrong; some were - oh you get the picture. It wasn't great. But I sold a boat load of copies just by using my PR skills. And then KDP came along, and it was revolutionary for the kind of writer who hasn't got a chance of getting published traditionally. I cannot even tell you how much I loved it.
I put my little cook book on there, and carried on with my life. Gradually, the royalties started dripping in.
Here it is. This is one of the covers - told you it wasn't great; I did eventually create a way better one - actually I paid a cover designer to do it - but it's gone now, into the ether, never to be seen again. This is not entirely true. I did manage to hang on to the Plant Based version. I know it's not the same. I also lost my children's book but did manage to create an ebook version of it. Also not the same.
Once I realised that this Amazon KDP thing could actually work, I started churning out other books - a plant-based edition of the cook book, a children's book, a gallstone memoir* (don't judge), a few others... and then I discovered the journal! There are courses everywhere telling people how they can make a fortune on Amazon by publishing a blank journal. All you do is design the cover - KDP even has a platform for that - do a few other things and whack it up there , and you sit back while Amazon (again) does all the selling. I love this kind of passive income scheme - I mean, opportunity - so I spent quite a bit of time making hundreds of these things. I knew that it was a numbers game - make 200, maybe 10 would sell. And they did! I had some bestselling ideas - it's all about the cover, you see. Fan of Van Morrison? I had a book for that. A Scot who moved to Canada? I had a book for that. Enjoy Bruce Springsteen lyrics? Yep. Had one of those too. Basically I would take one tiny lyric and put it on the front of a black journal. Again, genius.
I started making money - around $1500 a month actually. Not bad.
And then one day my husband said to me "Why don't you make a journal that would appeal to the fans of really big artists?" Of course I should do that! This was 2023, and there was no bigger artist at the time than one with the initials TS. I am not putting her full name because I am pretty sure she has a team of lawyers scouring the internet looking for people like me. You know, idiots.
I literally leapt out of bed and raced to my computer, and before lunch I had created four different journals, all with various depictions of the artist known as TS. No lyrics, no real photos, no reference to the actual name. I am not a complete idiot. But I did use a word associated with her. If you are one, you will know what word I used. OK, I do admit that I am somewhat of an idiot.
I sat back, smug and convinced that I was soon to be a millionaire. KDP was taking around a day to approve new books after upload, but journals took longer for some reason (I suspect because they are the bottom of the book chain). After a couple of hours, I started to think I might have been a bit hasty. KDP has strict rules about copyright or brand infringement (not that I ever read them - clearly). When I came to my senses I went back into my account, and deleted all the new journals. I noticed that I wasn't able to delete one of them. I wasn't worried. All my other journals had been approved, and many of those related to bands or singers.
The next day, I got an email from KDP. This is the email that I had read about from other writers and journal creators. It was the termination email. Not a warning, not an invitation for discussion. Termination. No going back.
Termination from KDP means that ALL of your books are taken down. It also means all of the money you have sitting in their account (two months in arrears, always) was now theirs. In my case it was $2000. This was a few weeks before Christmas.
As the reality sank in, I experienced a wide range of emotions, including shock, panic, indignation, confusion and a brief but intense desire to move to a remote island and raise goats.
I was devastated - and I mean that in the truest sense of the word. All my books, gone. All my money, gone. My career, gone. I have rarely in my life felt such a sense of a mixture of regret (at my actions), anger (at their harsh and absolute punishment) and a profound sense of loss. I don't care about the journals, obviously, but the rest of my books were my creations. The cook book especially was selling really well and had hundreds of reviews (not all great, but the number of them made the book look legitimate). I set about a campaign of appeal with Amazon, including an email letter to Jeff Bezos. (I did get a reply from his office, though it was not good news.) After quite a lot of communication with KDP, where I said "please!" and they said "nope", they eventually told me to leave them alone.
I really do know how stupid I was. It was one of my most rash decisions - naturally I blame the ADHD - but as well as that I am going to play the sympathy card here. When this all happened, it was nine months after my Mum took her own life. And I'm sorry if you didn't realise that this post was going to go that way, but I am a bit concerned that you were judging me as much as KDP did, so I wanted to get you back on my side. The absolute truth is, I was not thinking straight. Not only was I still grieving and recovering from my mum dying, but I had six weeks earlier had Broken Heart Syndrome (a real, not made-up, form of heart failure called takotsubo cardiomyopathy). I mentioned this to KDP, and Jeff, but they didn't seem to want to take it into consideration. Rules are rules, I suppose.
It has taken me until now to get over it. I'm not over it, but I have sort of accepted it. It does make quite a good story. Few authors can say they were actually banned by Amazon. It's not a literary prize. It's not something they'll engrave on a trophy. But it is, admittedly, a memorable "achievement." Not many people can say they annoyed one of the largest companies on Earth. I can. As I said, genius.
*Luckily, the gallstone book was picked up by a real publisher, and survived the cull.
See my banned Amazon books here (now available as e-books only through my shop). It's all a bit sad.Book Shop