First time ever! 500 books sold this month Although the royalties are small, I still consider the learning curve as the important part

I completed my tax information on KDP 🎂, and all of a sudden it moved to ID verification. This was not an issue before, but now that I have completed and filled out the infamous Form W-8BEN, it requires some ID. This was a problem when filling in my address in Thailand for ID verification. Your identity information has to be the same as on your ID. I changed it but then fell into the trap that the system used is based on US IDs, and apparently they have an address on them, which Dutch IDs don't. I bypassed this issue by using my parents' address, which I have used in situations like this before (e.g., with my Dutch bank). The next problem was that my ID had a different name than Your Identity. My name is First Name Last Name. On our IDs (passport, driver's licence, etc.) we have Last Name, First Name. So now I have a new name in Your Identity; I hope that does not show up somewhere else. 😃 Sidenote: Thanks to the double-tax treaty between the USA and Thailand, my withholding tax is not 30% but only 5%. 🙏 I hope this information helps others.

Firstly, my book is 100% human-written, and all the pictures used are mine. In general, AI kills creativity if used otherwise. I only use AI as a tool for improvement. Writing a proper prompt is the main trick, and so many people are messing with that. Just write what you want it to do, then simply ask it to make that a proper prompt before executing it, following these four basic rules: 1> Make the AI 'do' not 'think' 2> Specify objective for output 3> Specific format for answer 4> List of things to avoid. AI Tools I use: - Quillbot: I pay for this service. They say they’re the ultimate tool for writers. I 've been testing for them since the beginning but the last year they 've been adding a tonne of crap to try to appeal to a wider audience . Tone of voice, fluency, humanising and keeping to UK spelling... I just love it even though I sometimes get small bugs. “I can use it everywhere, on my PC browser or on my cell phone. Someday I’ll get the energy to fix the reading level of the whole book. It’s still a dream but it’s a lot of work. - Google Gemini: I do not pay for Gemini, or Claude or Perplexity or ChatGPT as I do not believe it is worth the money. But that doesn't mean I won't be using it. 😉 I decide which service to use my free tokens on based on whether I'm doing tasks privately or for work. That way if I run out that month I can always go to another service. Just found out I can access Gemini through my Chrome browser, I don't know if it's a bug but it doesn't count towards my token count. I write my book in Google Sheets. I open a Gemini window in the browser. The entire book loads.😗 That is a miracle all by itself. The only thing that does not work so far is a plagiarism check of the whole book at once. Other AI tools: - Sightengine: see if and how much an image is AI and what engine they used. - CopyLeaks: Chrome extension – double-check, as it is very simple and fast. - DIYBookCover: test and take the textual output for the report and use it in your prompt on, for example, Gemini to improve your cover. - WordCounter - gives more than just the word count: reading time (!), reading level (!), and many more. - Plagiarism checkers: Unfortunately I can only check 25,000 words per month with Quillbot, so I have a couple of spare ones: https://plagiarismdetector.net/ - https://www.duplichecker.com/ - https://papersowl.com/free-plagiarism-checker These are all very limited in word count, but you basically only have to do it once or twice to make sure you haven't accidentally written something that conflicts and triggers Amazon AI.

At some point Amazon did away with 18+ age range category. So now, by default, if you leave the age range blank, the listing shows 16-18 as the recommended age range for all adult fiction. I'm concerned that many shoppers may interpret this as "Young Adult" content rather than adult. Amazon has many reasons, I'm sure, for making this change but it has the potential to mis-categorize many books and cause potential readers to pass on the purchase. Especially because there previously was an 18+ category and there's very little chance that shoppers are widely aware of this internal change. Has anyone else noticed the change to their Adult titles being displayed as 16-18?

A few days ago, my KDP account was suspended for alleged review manipulation. Since I spent a lot of time searching for similar experiences while going through it, I thought I'd share what happened and how the situation was eventually resolved. On June 13, I received an email from Amazon stating that my KDP account had been suspended because they had detected attempts to manipulate customer reviews. The email asked for detailed information about any methods used to obtain reviews, third parties involved, customer accounts, documentation, and corrective actions. At that point, Amazon did not mention any specific book. The suspension was account-wide. Naturally, I panicked. Like many people would, I started looking for answers everywhere. I analyzed sales patterns, review history, previous account alerts, and every possible explanation I could think of. The more I searched, the more confused I became. During this process, @Adriano Ferrigno helped me in every step of the way. He reviewed the case, analyzed Amazon's responses, and drafted each appeal that was submitted. I provided the underlying information and documentation, while he helped organize everything into clear responses and guided me through the process as the case evolved. I submitted my first appeal along with supporting screenshots and explanations of the promotional methods I had used. A couple of days later, Amazon replied. They still did not provide much detail, but they finally identified a specific ASIN that was under review. I then sent additional information related to that title, including documentation and a more detailed explanation of the promotional activities connected to it. Amazon responded again with what was essentially the same request for information. At that point, I provided an even more structured response, answered every question as clearly as possible, attached supporting documents again, and explained the steps I would take going forward. On June 21, Amazon reinstated my KDP account.