Julie Broad walks through how to keep your Amazon KDP account safe. Match your metadata exactly to your cover, use real keywords instead of promotional ones, pick honest categories, and follow cover rules: no misleading claims, no copyright theft, flattened files, embedded fonts.
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Amazon account suspensions are relatively rare and typically occur due to specific identifiable violations of Amazon's guidelines. Authors who follow Amazon's criteria don't usually have anything to worry about. However, we've run into a few situations in the past year where it was not clear why the account was suspended, and it was a nightmare to resolve. As a result, we've become even more vigilant and strict with guiding our authors on their Amazon journey to try to prevent Amazon account suspensions or worse terminations. So if you want to do your best to avoid it happening to you, well, this video is for you. Hey there. I'm Julia the Book Broad, founder of Book Launchers, a fabulous full service team helping you self publish a nonfiction book that will grow your brand and your business. All right, let's get right to it. Do you know what metadata is? Getting it right will help you keep on Amazon's good side. Metadata is your title, subtitle, keywords, categories, description. Amazon's algorithm uses them heavily in deciding who to show your book to, how the Amazon ads will work or not work, and ultimately to decide if your book meets their guidelines. Violations here are a common reason for account warnings and terminations. So what do you need to know? Well, I covered this extensively in a video specifically about making sure your title is okay in the eyes of Amazon because we've run into a lot of hiccups with titles. So I'll link to that video at the end so you can watch the really detailed breakdown about titles in particular. But the super short version of the title subtitle part in your metadata is that it must match exactly what appears on your book cover. If you include a subtitle in the title metadata, that subtitle must also appear on the book cover. Any discrepancy can lead to a flag. Watch out for words like journal, book, gift, or other words that can violate Amazon's terms and conditions. And definitely watch that other video if you're in the process of titling, because there's a lot of rules, which is why I did an entire video on it. Now, when it comes to your keywords, if you don't know about it, there are keyword boxes inside of the KDP dashboard that you'll fill out, as well as the ones Amazon extrapolates from your title subtitle and book description. Be very careful with these words though. You want words that accurately describe your book's content. Don't try to do anything tricky to game the system, and don't use words like best selling or free or other promotional language in your keywords. Now, Publisher Rocket is an amazing tool for you to do keyword research. We also use kdspy. Finding good keywords, the ones people are searching for when they have buying intent, is really important. Also, choosing the right categories is vital to the discoverability of your book and to the Amazon acceptance of what you're doing as okay or not okay. What do I mean? Well, don't play the category games that were popular in the past. You know, choosing a category that you can hit bestseller status in with just a couple of sold books, but the category really doesn't have anything to do with your book. Yeah, that game. You know, being a best seller in the category of Bananas Grown on a Bush doesn't help you if your book is about robots making bananas. I don't know. Examples can be hard. You get my point, right? If you don't, feel free to tell me nicely in the comments below or just share a better example, because I know you have a better example than that. Now here's a few other things that are likely less important than the above, but it all plays into the Amazon picture. Your book description should follow Amazon guidelines and be positioned to appeal to your reader without saying things like bestseller or offering claims, because that can cause a flag. You should also be careful about mentioning other books or authors in the description because that can be considered misleading as well. Also, it should be obvious, but don't include personal information in your book description or put things like bestseller on your cover unless it's provable, like being a New York Times bestseller. Amazon has rules about your covers too. Like Covers must not infringe on copyright of artists or other publishers. Companion books like study guides or summaries or critiques or analysis must indicate that before the subject material. Do not add HTML to your cover page or to the content in addition to the COVID image. Covers should be one continuous image centered left to right in the spine or left to right. Flatten all layers in the native file. There's bleed restrictions. Font must be embedded. Bottom line, don't play games trying to get bestseller status and make sure you're following these guidelines. Be accurate and consistent with your metadata, as there's a lot of things that can cause issues with Amazon, so it's important to know the rules or work with professionals who do. Watch your email for notifications and act quickly if you ever get one. Now if you do get terminated, well, this video is a great one to watch. And if you're thinking maybe Amazon's too much of a pain and you want to skip it? Well, here's my video on the five reasons I'm still recommending Amazon KDP for authors despite the challenges. Click on over. Say hello, I'm waiting.
