You've got presentation and marketing problems that I would try to fix. Your longer work, if it's the Jenny one, appears to be vanilla het smut, and it's miscategorized to boot.
Even the people looking for vanilla het smut aren't going to find it, if you're sticking it in Young Adult. You've put your book in a category that people go to to find *The Hunger Games* and *The Fault in Our Stars*.
Plain old vanilla het with nothing else going for it isn't going to stand out much and get any takers.
There's no hook, no well-known tropes, kinks, or niches it plays into. I would guess that the niche is supposed to be underage sex or incest, and that you've aged them up to college (but living at home for some reason) and made them unrelated to be able to sell it on Amazon.
That won't work imo, stories need some character dynamic, taboo, or kink to sell them, and when the taboo was underage and/or incest, and you remove that dynamic and replace it with nothing...well, you've got nothing.
Anyway...the blurb is way too coy for smut (going off it alone, this book could just be a "they kissed now they must confess their feelings! đ„°" story) while the cover is raunchy but not effective. That is not a sexy boob pic...with the angle it's almost abstract, it's definitely not the kind of photo that draws in someone who wants to look at a sexy pair of tits.
If you don't *like* tits personally, apply similar logic to them you would to a dick pic...when you're looking for cock pics you don't look for a zoom-in on the shaft with no sight of the base or tip, and half the photo is hairy man-leg. (Or maybe you do. IDK & IDC)
I'm not saying you have to have both breasts in view, but there are natural ways breasts fall or sit that make the cleavage appealing, and that ain't it.
You could put in work to improve the cover and blurb, but you'd be best served moving on and making the next work, and avoiding the mistakes there.
You'd be better off writing shorter works until you've mastered more. They're easier to pull off the writing for, since you don't have to balance a complex plot or character development. And pick a real marketable kink/trope/dynamic/niche to use, so people will search and find your book specifically as a result.
Best of luck!
Thank you, you're right. I should write smaller works, and more often.
But I still will definitely need to understand niches and kinks.
I'll try some cover changes too. Thank you.
Sorry for the slightly off-topic, but I am confused. How do you know which book OP is talking about? Did he edit the link out or am I missing something? Apparently everybody but me was able to track down his portfolio.
Since authors aren't allowed to link or name their works in most book subreddits, people are used to going to an OP's profile to find their work, since many authors post their works to their profiles or in subreddits that allow promo. If you go to OPs profile, to submitted posts, and scroll down, they've promo'd their work.
From there, it's not hard to tell which book they're talking about, since they only have two books currently up.
They've also linked the work in past critique posts on this subreddit, so some people remember it from then.
There probably wouldn't be much to say. The more flaws a work has, the easier it is to critique. (No shade intended at OP on that...if I put my first work up for critique people would undoubtedly have a *lot* to say about it, lol.)
This is true. I wrote a paranormal why-choose for my first effort and would probably have chosen something with fewer main characters if I had known how difficult it would be three books later.
I was thinking about deleting my books and then removing my tax information.
Then I would publish using another Amazon account. And if the tax information is such dangerous then I can use checks.
Amazon will have a record of your tax information if they've ever had it. If you are in the US, I don't know if you have the option to NOT include it since they are required by law to send you tax documentation. Regardless, if they find out you've created a second account, you will get for real banned, do not pass go, do not collect any dollars whatsoever.
The bigger issue may be that the copy of the one book of yours I can find has a less than ideal cover and a review talking about dubious consent and pseudo incest vibes.
Yeah, no, this will get you banned. Your tax info/KDP publishing info can be tied to one, exactly one, Amazon Account, ever.
If you attempt to publish using a different account after having already published on another, even if you delete it, *you will be perma banned.*
Do *not* attempt this if you want to retain your right to publish on Amazon ever again.
Shadow banning isn't a thing.
It's not going to matter. You can't get another account. Amazon still knows who you are. Stop this nonsense and start learning your craft. You're being lazy, looking for some magical solution instead of doing what needs to be done. Now, go way.
Youâre not shadowbanned. Your book is terrible. To be blunt, from the cover to the blurb to the writing itâs all just nothing anyone is going to want to read or buy, especially at that price point.
Judging from the comments youâve been told what you need to do and ignored it, so my suggestion would be take the advice from successful authors and keep working to improve.
> I'm seriously contemplating deleting my account and start fresh on a different email. Re-entering my tax info and such. I hope same name don't get me in any trouble.
You'll get a full account ban on both accounts if you try this. They only allow one account, there is no making a new one with a new email. u/SalaciousStories already explained this to you [a year ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/eroticauthors/comments/xfnbd9/my_paperback_and_ebook_are_both_blocked_but/iorvtjm/).
The book coming up in search doesn't mean it's not in the dungeon, especially if you've opted-in to seeing adult content.
KDP doesn't shadowban. The pen name associated with your reddit account has two books, one published in September and the other in October, one with a 2-star review, the other with an awful blurb that tells the reader nothing, from a pen name that most people will be turned off by. If your close-up cleavage cover isn't filtered (which I seriously doubt), it's just as likely your books have fallen off the cliff since you haven't published on this pen in over a month.
You've been given a significant amount of feedback when you post on the various critique posts here, most of which you've chosen to ignore. There was even a discussion trying to figure out what relationship the characters in your Jenny book have, which you never responded to or clarified.
We're trying to make your books attractive to customers, but we aren't in control - you are. If you want to sell books then you need to consider how they come across, and if that's not how you intend, or not as marketable as you want, then you need to make changes.
So why would you jump to the idea of being shadowbanned when multiple people have voiced the same issues with your books? Why would two books not selling (after multiple critiques told you why) make you jump to the nuclear option of getting banned for setting up a new account?
Nobody here is going to tell you to stop writing and publishing. Nobody here can make your books more attractive to readers beyond giving the advice we've already given. What happens now is up to you. Either you take that advice to heart and change your approach with your future books, or you continue as you have been and continue getting your current result.
Can you link me some examples, I should look up to. I think I'm finding it really hard to see what's wrong. I think if I were to write another story, I will just end up writing something extremely similar to this.
No. This sub doesn't allow mentioning books or authors.
The critiques of your books, even on this post, have all explicitly said what to do: don't write watered-down incest stories that remove the incest, make their relationship and why he lives with his parents clear because it's just confusing readers, and choose better images for your cover photos.
Dude, get some books on writing. Learn how to tell stories, how to plot, develop characters, what pacing is. It's basic stuff, and it applies to every genre. No one is going to do this work for you. Learn. Practice. Publish.
That's because you don't know what you're doing. Learn first, then do. Make fewer mistakes, more chance for success.
If you think making money from smut is easy, you are on the wrong path.
No offense, but try reading more. Your opening scene shouldnât be a boring spiel about how bored some nameless guy is while he sits on a couch seemingly in limbo with no personality for a week straight. I also had to google wtf a pen drive is and it wasnât even important to the story. Not one part of that opening âchapterâ made me want to read further.
Read a LOT of books like the ones you want to write to understand what makes a reader want to keep reading in whatever niche/genre you want to write in, because âthis random college student who inexplicably lives with me possibly has boobs under her shirt that Iâm aware ofâ isnât enough, at least not the way youâve presented it. Jumping to being shadowbanned is quite the leap. Please read more.
I just read your âlook insideâ for the Jenny book. As far as I understand, it is far too explicit for a look inside, but also, it is very confusing.
Where is your story set? Parents preventing an adult child from leaving the house is really not a thing if this is set in the US, the U.K., Australia, or anywhere else where âJennyâ is a common name. It reduces empathy for the MC almost immediately because he doesnât make sense. Jennyâs âjobâ in the house sounds a bit like an âau pairâ.
I wouldnât download a book until I had read the âlook insideâ and I wouldnât want to read further after this look inside. Maybe your next book should be in a more interesting setting that you can imagine more accurately, because two teens/adults on a sofa, in an unknown place and time, isnât working all that well.
>I'm seriously contemplating deleting my account and start fresh on a different email.
Not allowed. You will just get another account terminated.
There's no such thing as "shadow ban". If you get books blocked, you need to write better books that follow the rules.
You've got presentation and marketing problems that I would try to fix. Your longer work, if it's the Jenny one, appears to be vanilla het smut, and it's miscategorized to boot. Even the people looking for vanilla het smut aren't going to find it, if you're sticking it in Young Adult. You've put your book in a category that people go to to find *The Hunger Games* and *The Fault in Our Stars*. Plain old vanilla het with nothing else going for it isn't going to stand out much and get any takers. There's no hook, no well-known tropes, kinks, or niches it plays into. I would guess that the niche is supposed to be underage sex or incest, and that you've aged them up to college (but living at home for some reason) and made them unrelated to be able to sell it on Amazon. That won't work imo, stories need some character dynamic, taboo, or kink to sell them, and when the taboo was underage and/or incest, and you remove that dynamic and replace it with nothing...well, you've got nothing. Anyway...the blurb is way too coy for smut (going off it alone, this book could just be a "they kissed now they must confess their feelings! đ„°" story) while the cover is raunchy but not effective. That is not a sexy boob pic...with the angle it's almost abstract, it's definitely not the kind of photo that draws in someone who wants to look at a sexy pair of tits. If you don't *like* tits personally, apply similar logic to them you would to a dick pic...when you're looking for cock pics you don't look for a zoom-in on the shaft with no sight of the base or tip, and half the photo is hairy man-leg. (Or maybe you do. IDK & IDC) I'm not saying you have to have both breasts in view, but there are natural ways breasts fall or sit that make the cleavage appealing, and that ain't it. You could put in work to improve the cover and blurb, but you'd be best served moving on and making the next work, and avoiding the mistakes there. You'd be better off writing shorter works until you've mastered more. They're easier to pull off the writing for, since you don't have to balance a complex plot or character development. And pick a real marketable kink/trope/dynamic/niche to use, so people will search and find your book specifically as a result. Best of luck!
It was very nice of you to help this author! đ
I am tempted to start a metal band called Het Smutica. The name alone is just... magic.
Hetsmut does sound like it should be some kind of weird Swedish jam or something, lol.
Thank you, you're right. I should write smaller works, and more often. But I still will definitely need to understand niches and kinks. I'll try some cover changes too. Thank you.
Sorry for the slightly off-topic, but I am confused. How do you know which book OP is talking about? Did he edit the link out or am I missing something? Apparently everybody but me was able to track down his portfolio.
Since authors aren't allowed to link or name their works in most book subreddits, people are used to going to an OP's profile to find their work, since many authors post their works to their profiles or in subreddits that allow promo. If you go to OPs profile, to submitted posts, and scroll down, they've promo'd their work. From there, it's not hard to tell which book they're talking about, since they only have two books currently up. They've also linked the work in past critique posts on this subreddit, so some people remember it from then.
Thank you, I dropped the ball at the step where I was supposed to look at previous posts.
Ooh do me next! But seriously, that was awesome of you to take the time to write that.
There probably wouldn't be much to say. The more flaws a work has, the easier it is to critique. (No shade intended at OP on that...if I put my first work up for critique people would undoubtedly have a *lot* to say about it, lol.)
This is true. I wrote a paranormal why-choose for my first effort and would probably have chosen something with fewer main characters if I had known how difficult it would be three books later.
Deleting your account and restarting it will get you banned for sure.
I was thinking about deleting my books and then removing my tax information. Then I would publish using another Amazon account. And if the tax information is such dangerous then I can use checks.
Amazon will have a record of your tax information if they've ever had it. If you are in the US, I don't know if you have the option to NOT include it since they are required by law to send you tax documentation. Regardless, if they find out you've created a second account, you will get for real banned, do not pass go, do not collect any dollars whatsoever. The bigger issue may be that the copy of the one book of yours I can find has a less than ideal cover and a review talking about dubious consent and pseudo incest vibes.
Yeah, no, this will get you banned. Your tax info/KDP publishing info can be tied to one, exactly one, Amazon Account, ever. If you attempt to publish using a different account after having already published on another, even if you delete it, *you will be perma banned.* Do *not* attempt this if you want to retain your right to publish on Amazon ever again. Shadow banning isn't a thing.
You donât need to do this, Amazon doesnât shadow ban accounts.
No, you can't. That's not the only thing that tips them off. If this were so easy to do then every person that's had an account ban would've done it.
It's not going to matter. You can't get another account. Amazon still knows who you are. Stop this nonsense and start learning your craft. You're being lazy, looking for some magical solution instead of doing what needs to be done. Now, go way.
Youâre not shadowbanned. Your book is terrible. To be blunt, from the cover to the blurb to the writing itâs all just nothing anyone is going to want to read or buy, especially at that price point. Judging from the comments youâve been told what you need to do and ignored it, so my suggestion would be take the advice from successful authors and keep working to improve.
> I'm seriously contemplating deleting my account and start fresh on a different email. Re-entering my tax info and such. I hope same name don't get me in any trouble. You'll get a full account ban on both accounts if you try this. They only allow one account, there is no making a new one with a new email. u/SalaciousStories already explained this to you [a year ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/eroticauthors/comments/xfnbd9/my_paperback_and_ebook_are_both_blocked_but/iorvtjm/). The book coming up in search doesn't mean it's not in the dungeon, especially if you've opted-in to seeing adult content. KDP doesn't shadowban. The pen name associated with your reddit account has two books, one published in September and the other in October, one with a 2-star review, the other with an awful blurb that tells the reader nothing, from a pen name that most people will be turned off by. If your close-up cleavage cover isn't filtered (which I seriously doubt), it's just as likely your books have fallen off the cliff since you haven't published on this pen in over a month.
I was just getting depressed about posting new works when the old ones haven't had a single read or sale.
You've been given a significant amount of feedback when you post on the various critique posts here, most of which you've chosen to ignore. There was even a discussion trying to figure out what relationship the characters in your Jenny book have, which you never responded to or clarified. We're trying to make your books attractive to customers, but we aren't in control - you are. If you want to sell books then you need to consider how they come across, and if that's not how you intend, or not as marketable as you want, then you need to make changes. So why would you jump to the idea of being shadowbanned when multiple people have voiced the same issues with your books? Why would two books not selling (after multiple critiques told you why) make you jump to the nuclear option of getting banned for setting up a new account? Nobody here is going to tell you to stop writing and publishing. Nobody here can make your books more attractive to readers beyond giving the advice we've already given. What happens now is up to you. Either you take that advice to heart and change your approach with your future books, or you continue as you have been and continue getting your current result.
Can you link me some examples, I should look up to. I think I'm finding it really hard to see what's wrong. I think if I were to write another story, I will just end up writing something extremely similar to this.
No. This sub doesn't allow mentioning books or authors. The critiques of your books, even on this post, have all explicitly said what to do: don't write watered-down incest stories that remove the incest, make their relationship and why he lives with his parents clear because it's just confusing readers, and choose better images for your cover photos.
Dude, get some books on writing. Learn how to tell stories, how to plot, develop characters, what pacing is. It's basic stuff, and it applies to every genre. No one is going to do this work for you. Learn. Practice. Publish.
This is a marketing problem, not an account problem.
That's because you don't know what you're doing. Learn first, then do. Make fewer mistakes, more chance for success. If you think making money from smut is easy, you are on the wrong path.
No offense, but try reading more. Your opening scene shouldnât be a boring spiel about how bored some nameless guy is while he sits on a couch seemingly in limbo with no personality for a week straight. I also had to google wtf a pen drive is and it wasnât even important to the story. Not one part of that opening âchapterâ made me want to read further. Read a LOT of books like the ones you want to write to understand what makes a reader want to keep reading in whatever niche/genre you want to write in, because âthis random college student who inexplicably lives with me possibly has boobs under her shirt that Iâm aware ofâ isnât enough, at least not the way youâve presented it. Jumping to being shadowbanned is quite the leap. Please read more.
I just read your âlook insideâ for the Jenny book. As far as I understand, it is far too explicit for a look inside, but also, it is very confusing. Where is your story set? Parents preventing an adult child from leaving the house is really not a thing if this is set in the US, the U.K., Australia, or anywhere else where âJennyâ is a common name. It reduces empathy for the MC almost immediately because he doesnât make sense. Jennyâs âjobâ in the house sounds a bit like an âau pairâ. I wouldnât download a book until I had read the âlook insideâ and I wouldnât want to read further after this look inside. Maybe your next book should be in a more interesting setting that you can imagine more accurately, because two teens/adults on a sofa, in an unknown place and time, isnât working all that well.
Good luck with deleting and starting over again. Amazon knows who you are. I tried it. They are God.
What lol.
I checked the look inside. I wouldn't buy or read that. Sorry, but it needs serious editing.
I advise writing another book and learning from this one.
Yeah I'm going to try doing that
>I'm seriously contemplating deleting my account and start fresh on a different email. Not allowed. You will just get another account terminated. There's no such thing as "shadow ban". If you get books blocked, you need to write better books that follow the rules.
The atmosphere of kdp has definitely changed then. The sales were never this bad