KDP Account Tips: Avoid Getting Terminated

I have helped other authors during the early stages of my career (7 years ago, give or take a few months).

I still do (shameless plug: 😁my Topmate page: https://topmate.io/arun_sarathy)

Being new, I made mistakes.

I admit, a blunder in fact! 🤦‍♂️ 

I had mistakenly created a second KDP account to show a live demo to a new author on how to create an Amazon KDP account.

And then a third account for another author.

And then a fourth. 😒 

Now, I know that it’s a sin 🫣 in the eyes of Amazon KDP’s terms and conditions. But back then, I was somehow convinced that as long as I didn’t use my other accounts for publishing books (and used just one a/c to publish), I was OK.

I have soon learned it’s NOT the case, but fortunately I corrected myself by promptly going to the KDP’s Contact Us page, initiated a chat conversation with a support representative, and confided in them what I had done. I told them just. like. it. is. 😐️ 

This is what I told them (something on these lines) - “I had opened multiple KDP Accounts mistakenly to show a demo to other authors, but I realized later this is against Amazon’s rules and I want to comply, no matter what. Hence I am reaching out to you to kindly assist me in closing my duplicate accounts”.

This turned out to be one important step in my self-publishing journey.

The support representative kindly helped me then by asking if I am chatting from that same email address. She also asked me to initiate separate chat threads from the other KDP accounts too to get them closed. She said she can help me get this account closed now (the one through which I was chatting with her).

Within no time, she confirmed with me that I won’t be able to open another a/c again using this email address and proceeded to close my account (and in other chat, the rep told me a request was raised and within 7 working days the account will be closed).

Later, I visited my page and found that the account got closed.

A sign of relief. ☺️ I sincerely hope I closed all my duplicate accounts, and haven’t created anymore accounts. 😌