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Editors & Proofreaders [Public] / Proofreading & copy editing - now booking for November
« Last post by Alexa on Today at 06:45:49 AM »Now booking for November!
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Recent Posts
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What are Amazon doing now? [Public] / Re: Publishing delay with Amazon ebooks
« Last post by alhawke on Today at 02:22:14 AM »Well, all is finally back to normal. Amazon changed the category somehow on their end right after emailing them. My concern now is if I alter things in the future and it shifts back to erotica based on past algos--something to look out for with all of us who write romance. I'm still locked out as of updates as it reads "updates in review". I'll do all some flushing of "dangerous" language when it finally unlocks as well.
So guess it's time to be hypervigilant on book categories. Unless the word "candy" is a strong trigger word for sex--could be?--Amazon is getting stricter on categorizations. Out of all books in my witch series, Candy Crone is ironically the most tame with little sexual content.
So guess it's time to be hypervigilant on book categories. Unless the word "candy" is a strong trigger word for sex--could be?--Amazon is getting stricter on categorizations. Out of all books in my witch series, Candy Crone is ironically the most tame with little sexual content.
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What are Amazon doing now? [Public] / Re: Publishing delay with Amazon ebooks
« Last post by TimothyEllis on Today at 01:14:48 AM »Amazon's bots and their live humans are inconsistent about language
Probably because the programmers have English as a second language.
And most of the help people are not American.
The second last one I had contact with on a recent issue was South African, and the last one was Indian.
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What are Amazon doing now? [Public] / Re: Publishing delay with Amazon ebooks
« Last post by LilyBLily on Today at 01:09:49 AM »I write romance, so that's not an option, but I frontload my book descriptions with "sweet" and I'll even check the "Clean & Wholesome" category although, obviously, closed door premarital sex is not what most people would call clean and wholesome.
Amazon's bots and their live humans are inconsistent about language, but to be fair, most live humans are when it comes to rules. Interpretation is all.
Amazon's bots and their live humans are inconsistent about language, but to be fair, most live humans are when it comes to rules. Interpretation is all.
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What are Amazon doing now? [Public] / Re: Publishing delay with Amazon ebooks
« Last post by TimothyEllis on October 06, 2024, 02:04:26 AM »I already have my suspicions. I'm waiting to gain access back to book info. Right now it's locked. I'm planning on just deleting all words that could be construed as sexual when I gain access back to KDP--probably will just do it anyway for fear of it returning back whenever I update the book, even if customer service can delete the category.
We had a thread about keywords. You can see how focused I get on keywords, I have no idea what I entered. But here's another area we need to be careful about there.
Quora has a set of moderation bots which trigger on keywords. They started out deleting answers which touched on underage sex in any way. Then it became under 20 sex. Then under thirty. Now it seems you can't mention it at all without the bots deleting the post. The stupid thing is they don't delete the questions, which are asking for that kind of answer, so now there's questions which never have any answers, and people complaining theirs got deleted. It's just an insane version of woke.
The danger is that Amazon's bots head down the same path.
All the bots are just bad code, and the more they monkey with them, the worse they get. And they were bad enough with Romance already.
You just have to be so careful now. I've stopped going there in my novels completely. Both my last two MC's haven't been involved with anyone at all.
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What are Amazon doing now? [Public] / Re: Publishing delay with Amazon ebooks
« Last post by alhawke on October 06, 2024, 01:56:34 AM »I already have my suspicions. I'm waiting to gain access back to book info. Right now it's locked. I'm planning on just deleting all words that could be construed as sexual when I gain access back to KDP--probably will just do it anyway for fear of it returning back whenever I update the book, even if customer service can delete the category.
We had a thread about keywords. You can see how focused I get on keywords, I have no idea what I entered. But here's another area we need to be careful about there.
We had a thread about keywords. You can see how focused I get on keywords, I have no idea what I entered. But here's another area we need to be careful about there.
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What are Amazon doing now? [Public] / Re: Publishing delay with Amazon ebooks
« Last post by TimothyEllis on October 06, 2024, 01:51:57 AM »That's the danger Romance novels always have.
It only takes the wrong keyword, and you get dungeoned. Presumably one of them triggered a bot, or something in the blurb triggered it.
So maybe post the blurb in the blurb private area, so those who know can check it for bad choices.
It only takes the wrong keyword, and you get dungeoned. Presumably one of them triggered a bot, or something in the blurb triggered it.
So maybe post the blurb in the blurb private area, so those who know can check it for bad choices.
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What are Amazon doing now? [Public] / Re: Publishing delay with Amazon ebooks
« Last post by alhawke on October 06, 2024, 01:42:08 AM »Well, I figured it out the delay... sort of. The book's been catalogued as Fantasy Erotica. Why? Who knows.
I emailed them to see what's going on and to change the category to avoid reader dissatisfaction--readers expecting erotica are sure going to be disappointed. Irony is, this book has the lowest heat levels of all my books in series.
I can't rummage through my keywords again because, for some reason, the book is still in "updating"
We talk of AI all the time. Ever notice how we're already at the mercy of computer bots in the largest ebook selling retailer in the world?
I emailed them to see what's going on and to change the category to avoid reader dissatisfaction--readers expecting erotica are sure going to be disappointed. Irony is, this book has the lowest heat levels of all my books in series.
I can't rummage through my keywords again because, for some reason, the book is still in "updating"
We talk of AI all the time. Ever notice how we're already at the mercy of computer bots in the largest ebook selling retailer in the world?
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Marketing Loft [Public] / Re: How do you guys use KDP Select free days?
« Last post by Hopscotch on October 05, 2024, 11:45:58 PM »...The title of the book makes me think satire...[but] the categories (military thriller, war fiction, war and military action fiction) don't fit that impression...
5 day freebie experiment done. Was fun. Grabs and follow-ons few. Cats may look askew (per Bill's comment) bc young / enlistment-age / avid readers of milfic are my target. But I must rethink cats, and thank you.
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Bar & Grill [Public] / Re: Hurricane Helene
« Last post by LilyBLily on October 05, 2024, 11:20:02 PM »I love Dolly. She's done so much for her old stomping grounds and for children in particular. I drove through Pigeon Forge when it was just a dot on a map outside Gatlinburg and since then she's turned it into a destination. People now have jobs, free books, and hope. Nice going, Dolly.