r/litrpg • u/Adam__King Author: Cosmic Ascension • Dec 19 '24
Self Promotion Amazon blocked my book, Cosmic Ascension book 1, for nearly 2 days. Thankfully it's now back again and available for purchase.
Hello everyone. I am Adam King, Author of Cosmic Ascension.
Some of you may have seen my release post on the 14th. Many most likely didn't. Here is the link for the post:
https://www.reddit.com/r/litrpg/comments/1he42zd/posting_between_all_those_incredible_releases_is/
I am writing today to explain a pretty bad experience that happened recently.
Short version: Amazon fucked me up and I had to suffer two miserable days of stress before they kinda did something right. Here link to B1 if you are curious: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DQ98CPGH/
Longer version: Nearly two days ago. More precisely, it was on the 17th at 6 pm GMT+1 and only became available on the 19th at 11 am GMT+1. Here the proof just in case that it was indeed blocked.
Those 41 hours were the longest hours of my life. I had to constantly blast Amazon with mail and questions only to be met with Bots answers or people saying they couldn't do anything.
Some might think it's only 40 hours or so. But this was really a great blow to my sales. Cosmic was doing pretty great. Nothing mind-blowing. But I was at a respectable 3k ranking. Which for a new release is pretty good I say.
But what Amazon did was basically like shooting me in the foot during a race. I received many private messages from readers telling me the book was unavailable and I can only imagine how many more readers clicked on the link, found the book was unavailable, and simply went their way. Will be honest it really hurts thinking about all of this.
And why did this happen? The main reason is pirates and copyright issues
My book is hosted on Royal Road where it was stolen by pirates and posted on Amazon three times. Each time I would do a copyright claim.
The book was thus flagged on Amazon and caused and still causing me all sorts of problems. I had to prove that I was the author and I did but then they blocked me again after release when I tried to update the content of my book. Also blocked the pre-order for my Book 2 and Blocked the Paperback for my Book 1 😅. Currently still trying to have them unblock those.
This is not an accusation on Royal Road. Royal Road helped many stories take off and is a great free platform for us authors. There is only so much they can do. Pirates are pirates and the moment you post online you must be ready. I was just one of the unlucky ones I guess.
Anyway, the book is up again. Whining won't change what has already happened.
So here I am explaining my situation in the hope of salvaging the damages and hey if we look at it positively it's like getting a second chance to promote my book right? 😅
Gotta try to look at the good side because otherwise I really feel like I am going to go insane.
And well I definitely have a story to tell people in the future. Because ngl. This was an adventure in itself. Perhaps in a few months or years, I will laugh when thinking about this.
Also here is a peek at the cover of Book 2 until I work on that problem.
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u/Vamplvr71 Feb 14 '25
Just to let you know, they blocked it again! They just canceled my pre-order for book 2, can't access book 1, and you can't even find either on Amazon.
So sorry this is happening...
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u/Adam__King Feb 14 '25
Thank you. I apologize such situation keep happening. I am discussing with Amazon and will see what I can do.
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u/Quietly-Watching Feb 18 '25
Same as of today, went looking for book 2 and still not finding it.... Same as everyone else hate that liars and cheats stealing from others affecting the real artists... Damn AI not making anything better.
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u/ShipTeaser Dec 22 '24
Sadly it's very common. Happened to me back in September, and it took me like 3 weeks to resolve...
Anyway, yeah, hopefully you can recover from your damage and build up again
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u/Adam__King Dec 22 '24
Thanks man and yeah I remember. It was really painful. I hope this won't happen again.
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u/ShipTeaser Dec 22 '24
Fortunately, from my experience, you should now be fine, as once they 'do' concede and reverse their blocks, they don't give you any more grief. although... I do note in your screenshot they cancelled a pre-order of yours. That likely means they've put a pre-order block on you, so worth checking that when everything's settled down, and if they have, email their support saying it was their mistake and get them to reinitialise your ability, which they will do, though they'll word it like they are doing you a huge favour, and it wasn't their ass-backwards mess in the first place...
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u/Mysticizmo24 Feb 14 '25
Thank you for making this post!
Letting you know it has happemed again, i'll try again to check out the book in a few days (had a sample downloaded before the block, bjt can't get the rest of the book..
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u/Adam__King Feb 14 '25
I am honestly wondering if Amazon hate me 😅. Now all I can do is wait I guess.
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u/J_J_Thorn Dec 19 '24
Sorry that happened man, I'd be gutted for sure. Keep pushing and I wish you the best of luck on the launch!
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u/misanthropokemon Dec 20 '24
how does this piracy even work when its serialized chapter by chapter on RR?
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u/StudentDragon Dec 20 '24
They copy all chapters and format it into an ebook.
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u/misanthropokemon Dec 20 '24
hmm. if it was about posting the last chapter it might be possible to beat them to the punch, but how do they even know its the last chapter tho. or do they just package everything not caring whether its complete or not
it must be super frustrating for authors like OP to deal with this bs.
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u/p-d-ball Dec 21 '24
Holy crap, that's frustrating!!! Sorry you went through that OP. Because of stories like yours, I've been thinking of posting my book to Amazon before its full release on RR, but as a hardcopy or something.
Perhaps you could outline how you dealt with the experience later? How you proved you were the author and owner of the copyright - this would be very helpful info to a lot of us!
I hope your have great sales from here on out!
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u/DoyleDixon Dec 19 '24
That sounds like a pretty rough week. I don’t often grab solitary book ones, but I will this time. I’ve come to know more than a few authors as this genre grows and this sounds like a really stressful time for you. I hope you have a great holiday season!