How Joanna’s KDP account was terminated. And how it came to be reinstated.

This is a tale of woe. And frustration.
On 17th February 2025, my Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) account was terminated by Amazon KDP. On 23rd February 2025, less than a week later, the account was reinstated.

This is the story of why the termination appears to have happened, what I did to get my account back and what, if you are wise, you will avoid doing.

In other words, it’s a “don’t do what I did, do what I should have done” story. If you follow that advice, you could save yourself a lot of frustration and wasted time.

But first, some background… 2023

Some of my readers will know that, back in 2023, my Amazon KDP account was deleted.

Amazon blamed me for that.
I blamed Amazon.

It started as a question of tidying up. I had an account with Amazon.com that I had never used. The login email was one that was about to become defunct. So I decided to delete that US account. Amazon gave me warnings that all files related to the account would be deleted, irretrievably. “Fine,” I thought. “There are no files related to that account anyway because I’ve never used it.”

WRONG!

What I didn’t know—and what Amazon did not specifically include among its very generalised warnings—was that, without telling me, Amazon had tied that unused US account to my KDP account, even though the two accounts used different emails and different passwords.

I blithely completed my tidying up. My Amazon.com account disappeared. And so did my KDP account, with all my uploaded books. More than a dozen ebooks vanished.

I complained. Several times. Amazon replied each time that deletion of an account was irrevocable, as the warnings had said. I pleaded for reinstatement. Same reply. Amazon added, however, that as I had already created a new KDP account, I could re-upload all my missing ebooks.

Sigh. Thank you. I think.

I didn’t immediately upload all the lost ebooks. A UK publisher was sniffing around my Harlequin backlist, so I decided not to put those onto KDP while the publisher was deciding whether to take them. That left 3 more recent books, all of which I uploaded and republished. It was a chore, but publication went through without a hitch.

The KDP saga continues… 2025

The publisher took a long time, about 18 months all told, to think about my backlist. By the time their editor was ready to make a decision, their policy had moved on and they’d decided to stop publishing any kind of romance. So thanks, but no thanks, Joanna. We appreciate your patience.

More sighs. But that’s publishing.

Time to upload the books that had been lost in the 2023 KDP meltdown. On 10th February, I started with the 4 books in The Aikenhead Honours series. They seemed to spend a long time “in review” on KDP. Eventually, the last book in the series was published. But books 1-3 were marked “blocked”.
I couldn’t understand it. I had uploaded the same files I had used before.

On 14th February, KDP emailed me. Valentine’s Day, of all days. This is an extract (emphasis added by me):

During our review, we found that the following book(s) causes a misleading customer experience because it impairs customers’ ability to make good buying decisions… [names of books]

Items that can cause a misleading customer experience include:
• Similarity of the contributor name to another author
• Similarity of the title to a previously published book
• Similarity of the cover to a previously published book
• Similarity of the publisher listed in the book details to another publisher
• Similarity of the description to a previously published known work

As a result, we will not be making the book(s) available for sale on Amazon.

Confused? Frustrated? You bet.

Similarity to another author? Which other author would that be?

Possibly the same Joanna Maitland who had published these books before and whose account had been deleted in 2023?

Who at KDP is making these decisions?

I don’t know for sure, but I think it was a bot. KDP will not say.
Understandably, KDP won’t reveal the technology it uses to detect abuses. Nor will it specify its detailed grounds for refusing publication.

I protested that I was the author of the books. I explained about the deletion of my previous account in 2023. To back that up, I quoted chapter and verse of how KDP itself invited me, back in 2023, to republish the lost books.

The following day, KDP emailed again…

More extracts (emphasis added):

We’ve reviewed your book(s) and are upholding our previous decision. The book(s) impairs customers’ ability to make good buying decisions because of the following:
• Similarity of the contributor name to another author
• Similarity of the title to a previously published book
• Similarity of the cover to a previously published book

The information you provided is insufficient because of the following concerns:
• Documentation has not been provided to confirm there is an agreement with the known author
• Documentation has not been provided to confirm you are authorized to publish the author’s work.

The grounds for refusal to publish had narrowed a little. But clearly, KDP still did not accept that I was the author of the books. (You can work out the subtext of that for yourselves, I am sure.)

There was a person’s name on the end of the email, but I suspect the author was still a bot.

I protested again that there was no “other author”. I sent KDP a screenshot of a recent KDP royalty statement to me, at the same email and address, for Joanna Maitland books.

In addition, I sent a copy of the reversion notice from Harlequin for two of the blocked books, also with the same name and address.
Surely that should convince them?

And KDP saw the light?

KDP’s reply came less than 2 days later. Another extract (emphasis added):

We have terminated your KDP account because we found misleading details or content in the book(s) listed below. Examples of misleading details or content may include a contributor name, author, title, or cover that is similar to a previously published book……

As part of the account termination process:

– You can no longer access your KDP Account, Bookshelf, or Reports.
– We have removed your published books from the Amazon Store.
– You are not eligible to receive any outstanding royalties.
– You are not allowed to open a new KDP account. … …

If you have any questions or believe your account was terminated in error, please reply to this email. If you have documentation proving you have the necessary rights to publish this book, please attach it to your reply. To help us respond quickly, please reply with a single email.

There was a lot of swearing at this point. Even more than previously.

It felt like I was banging my head against the proverbial brick wall.

And if the wall was a robot, was it capable of listening to anything I might say?

What frustrated author did next

It was clear from that last email that I’d have only one shot at getting KDP to change its collective mind. So I had to get my response right.

It was not a moment for letting my anger and frustration loose, however tempting it might have been. Though, if I’d had a cat, I’d have kicked it.
(No, don’t shout at me. That was a joke. Probably.)

It took a good couple of hours to compile a factual (and non-accusatory) email explaining why the termination was an error. I pasted in copies of the original 2008 Harlequin contract and Harlequin’s covering letter. Each used both my real name and my pseudonym, Joanna Maitland, and the postal address of the house I’ve lived in for about 25 years. I also gave them copies of Harlequin’s reversion letter for the books that had been blocked. And a recent Harlequin royalty statement to prove that Harlequin was still paying me royalties for the foreign-language editions of those blocked books.

KDP acknowledged my email.
They would get back to me within 5 business days.
A week, in other words.

That was the moment I realised I should have asked for advice from the Society of Authors. So I emailed that same day, sending the SoA chapter and verse, including those reams of documents and emails. I felt a bit guilty about that, I will admit, but I’m sure it was the right thing to do.

The SoA took a day to digest it all. Then they emailed back.

Essentially, I should give KDP the week it asked for.
If KDP’s response was unsatisfactory, the Society could intervene on my behalf with Amazon. Presumably human to human.

I found that reply hugely reassuring. I was very grateful.

And the outcome was…?

On the evening of day 6, KDP emailed a decision. Another extract (emphasis added):

After reviewing your response, we have reinstated your account and you may submit titles for possible publication…

As a reminder, finding additional violations of our Content Guidelines may negatively impact your account status.

I was not best pleased (!!) at the mention of “additional violations” when I hadn’t committed any violations.
But I knew it would be useless to complain about that.

I had my KDP account back. Shouldn’t I be relieved?

So plain sailing from then on?

Not exactly. It took another two rounds of emails before KDP finally unblocked and published the 3 blocked books. But now, at last, they are all available, at only 99p a pop or you can read them for free on Kindle Unlimited.

Don’t do what I did… Please…

This sorry saga has taught me several lessons which I’m happy to share:

1. Never delete any Amazon account, however trivial. You can never be sure what might disappear along with it. And a deleted account is gone for ever.
2. If KDP raises queries about the status of your books, treat it very seriously from the outset. Send them every item of documentary evidence you have in support of your position. And send it quickly. Doing that makes it more likely (I suspect) that a human, not a bot, will review your arguments.
3. If you are a member of the Society of Authors and/or the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), ask their advice as soon as you know the extent of the problem. You may be glad of their help.

And what’s next for Joanna’s ebooks?

Belt and braces.

I’m publishing some of my other lost ebooks using Draft2Digital which distributes to Apple Books, Kobo and pretty well everywhere else, including libraries.

D2D will also distribute to Amazon but I’ve chosen not to use D2D for that, in case of more problems.
I wouldn’t want to be discussing contested decisions with KDP via a third party.

I will probably publish all the D2D ebooks directly onto my KDP account as well.
Eventually.
And yes, I expect that an Amazon Content Review bot will then suggest they’re the work of “another author”. If that happens, I’ll follow my own advice.
Once bitten and all that…?

Happy self-publishing but please
don’t make the mistakes I made!