KDP Is Eating Its Own Authors
There’s no sugarcoating it. If you still think KDP is the ticket to authorial freedom, you’re dangerously naive.
Right now, Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing is quietly tightening the screws, and authors are getting squeezed, or even deleted, without warning.
Recent stories from the front lines once again prove that relying on KDP is building your house on sand.
The latest trends in Amazon’s digital tyranny? Account suspensions, terminations and royalty cuts.
A growing number of authors report that their KDP accounts were banned with little to no explanation. They describe panic-inducing emails: terminations that mention “service manipulation,” rights issues, or metadata errors. Some claim they lost entire catalogs and were not paid royalties.
In other cases where accounts weren’t terminated, authors were locked out. One author says the identity verification step failed multiple times, and even after submitting a valid government ID, KDP refused to respond.
Another account, six years old, with hundreds of sales a month, was suddenly suspended. The author claims there were “no warning, no violations, just a kill switch.”
According to longtime KDP publisher Casa Carlini, Amazon’s content review is now increasingly arbitrary. Books that had sold for years are suddenly blocked without clear rationale. Their account was terminated for supposedly violating duplicate-content or metadata rules. But after appeal, Amazon admitted the termination was in error.
These reports aren’t isolated incidents. WritersWeekly recently covered multiple cases of authors saying Amazon shut them out permanently, and in some cases kept their royalties.
As of June 10, 2025, Amazon has slashed KDP royalty rates for print books priced under $9.99 USD, reducing authors’ cut from 60% to 50%. That means if your paperback isn’t priced high enough, you’re suddenly earning less per copy without any change in your work’s quality.
Nor are these issues random. They’re part of a broader problem: platform dependency.
When …
Amazon is the gatekeeper, and …
KDP is your publishing engine …
If Amazon changes its rules, you lose.
Because you don’t own your storefront; Amazon does. So let every account termination and royalty cut serve as a reminder: You’re a guest in someone else’s house, and you can be shown the door at any time without notice.
The fact that many authors report zero recourse despite appeals makes the situation worse. The rules to avoid suspension now require knowing KDP’s constantly changing terms, appealing without any guarantee of being heard, and assuming the worst.
So, what should authors do?
If you’re serious about writing as a business, not a hobby, you have to take back control.
Here’s how to start:
Diversify Where You Publish
Don’t put all your eggs in KDP. Use Draft2Digital, Ingram Spark, Kobo, and other platforms. Even better: drive sales to your own storefront. Build a website, collect email addresses, and sell directly via SquareSpace, Shopify, BookFunnel; whatever works for you.
Know the Policies Inside and Out
KDP mandates steps like A.I. disclosure, metadata compliance, and more. Study these rules, and document everything. Always be ready to appeal, but don’t count on a fast fix.
Prepare for the Worst
Keep local backups of all your work. Maintain a copy of your metadata, cover files, and Amazon receipts. Secure legal (or at least professional) input if you rely heavily on KDP income (this is not legal advice).
Use Appeals Wisely
If your account is terminated gather your documentation and do the following:
Lodge a clearly worded, fact-based appeal
request “escalation to an account specialist”
use concise, professional language.
It might take weeks, but persistence and patience obtain all things. In the meantime …
Build Your Tribe
Create a newsletter, run a small Kickstarter campaign, or engage with patrons on Substack. Your real customers are not Amazon’s hall monitors, they’re your readers. When you build up that relationship, you’re no longer subject to Amazon’s mood swings.
Why This Moment Matters
Amazon is reminding indie authors that they, not you, control the infrastructure. If your long-term plan still relies on KDP as your only channel, you're playing a risky game.
But here’s the silver lining: Tthis is exactly the kind of crisis that sparks real change. If KDP is becoming less reliable, then the case for Neopatronage becomes irrefutable. That’s where you’ll find the future of Newpub; not amid the flood of infinite cheap ebooks.
If you're building your author business, take Amazon’s tightening grip seriously. But don’t panic. Take this occasion to pivot.
Rebuild your strategy.
Own your revenue.
Write on your own terms.
Because in the end, owning your work means that no one else decides if you stay in business.
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Brian Niemeier is a best-selling novelist, editor, and Dragon Award winner with over a decade in newpub. For direct, in-person writing and editing insights, join his Patreon.