Be Careful What You Ask For...

[R. C.]

Alternate subject line: Learn from my mistakes.

After almost of year of exclusivity with the 'Zon, today my books come off the restrictions. The "give it a college try all in shoot for the moon" effort proved less than positive.

For a week I have been gearing up to go wide starting Sunday. New ADs scheduled on multiple platforms. Redistribution of the books across vendors (Draft2Digital).

WooHoo! Time to start again with new knowledge and the freebies are giving me springboard to a new audience.

The Good

Several of my books made low 100s in rankings because: This week I gave away 2,769 eBooks, and counting! I made #1 in several categories and top 15 in a few more.  A few follow-on sales have already occurred.

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The Bad

All the traffic, coupled with the new ADs caused some series issues with the new TOS.  'Zon and 'Zon Affiliate, Googs, and FB ALL published new rules on, or about Oct 1.  Silly me, why would I think the processes I have used for YEARS would violate the TOS?

I violated the new TOS, made a redirect typo in a URL. I lost my 'Zon Affilate account and Googs Advertising account.  Of course, I am appealing but who knows.

Lesson: READ THE NEW RULES.

Example 1: My WEB site used the 'Zon Affiliate snippet to point to my books on Kindle.  That is NO LONGER permitted. (I am assuming it was permitted because, for years, I received no notices. Then BAM, account closed. If it was not permitted, I was under the radar until they started to see traffic.)

Example 2: The URL in the Googs AD pointed to the wrong page on my WEB Site. Advertise free, send them to a pay to read page, and BAM, account suspended.

BAM = No notices and no help in correcting the problem. Their BOTS assume you are a crook and begging, sorry appealing, to get back in the game takes a least a week to be told no.

Happy to answer any questions.

R.C.

[LilyBLily]

Now I'm confused. Where can one use the Amazon affiliate code, then, if not on one's website? 

[R. C.]

Now I'm confused. Where can one use the Amazon affiliate code, then, if not on one's website?

EXACTLY my thoughts. But the email says I "violated the operating agreement"  and the "site cannot be used to send traffic to Amazon."

Also, I used Amazon 'Amazon' and 'Kindle' as keywords in search engines.  Apparently, they are now cracking down. (Fours years and today they decide to ding me.)

I think it was not my site specifically but the fact that I created multiple paths to my books from my site and search engines.

One other thing: I was able to correct my site and use the direct Kindle link.

SATURDAY AFTERNOON UPDATE - OCT 9th

Freebies downloaded: 3701

Paid for sales exceed all of last month and are on a steady incline!

Also, overnight no one sent me a nastygram about direct links from my site to the eBooks.

Google "unsuspended" my account!  Woohoo! 

Remember boys and girls: Follow the rules.   

R.C.