Beware of Amazon KDP Publishing Scams

Amazon KDP is a wonderful resource for indie authors. It lets us publish our books on the Amazon platform and make them available to potential buyers around the world at no cost, other than what we spend to write and produce the book.

Unfortunately, the online world is rife with Amazon KDP scammers who steal from unsuspecting authors.

The most important point in this article is

Amazon KDP does not charge to upload a book to its platform, nor does it charge to maintain a book on its platform.

If you want printed copies of your book, Amazon KDP charges you for them. Other than that, you don’t pay Amazon KDP to publish your book. Amazon KDP doesn’t make any money from your book until it sells, and then they keep their portion of the purchase price and send you the difference (royalties).

Amazon KDP scammers are imposter companies that charge for the services that KDP provides for free. They use the Amazon name and trademarks to try to make authors think they are working with Amazon. They charge fees to publish your book on Amazon, and some charge “maintenance” fees to keep your books on Amazon. Other details of the scams vary, but every one I’ve read about boils down to an innocent author losing hundreds (sometimes thousands) of dollars and sometimes even the rights to their book.

Do your research on companies before you pay them any money. Don’t get so excited about becoming a published author that you fail to do your due diligence.

The reality is that there are costs associated with writing and publishing a book. You need to pay for services you can’t do yourself, including editing, cover design, interior design and production, and so on. But once your book is produced, you don’t need to pay Amazon to publish it.

Full disclosure: We help our clients publish on Amazon by guiding them through the process of setting up their own publishing account with Amazon KDP and uploading their files. We charge for that, but when we’re finished, our clients have their own KDP accounts that they manage independently.

Victoria Strauss has a comprehensive article about this on her Writer Beware blog: “How Scammers Are Using Amazon and Amazon Trademarks to Rip Writers Off”. It’s worth your time to read, and while you’re there, subscribe to get updates when Victoria publishes new alerts.

If you’re new to self-publishing, Simple Facts About Self-Publishing (second edition) will give you the knowledge you need to avoid getting ripped off by scammers and unscrupulous publishers.