A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about my recent experience with my advertisement for my Consortium series and suffering a Moderation by Amazon. With this article, I’d like to report on Moderation by Amazon, again; follow-up. ?♂️
Rinse and rewind
To those who might have missed my last post, I wrote about mother-effing Amazon moderating an advertisement I had run on their Kindle platform for years. And by moderation, they mean discontinuing distributing the advert. Suddenly, they discontinued running the ad, stating that it ‘does not comply with our current Creative Acceptance Policies.’
Their message went on to say,
‘Please ensure your ad does not contain erotica, pornography, or explicit sexual practices or preferences.’
I went on with my research and resolution to the problem, which was that the offending words were not in the advertisement itself, but on the product description of my book accessed by clicking a link.
They objected to the sentence:
‘Can she submit long enough to escape?’ and ‘submits herself to a man’s control’
as
“content is not appropriate for all audiences.”
To me, my book description did not contain any inappropriate verbiage. Unfortunately, it is useless to argue with them. I just don’t have the resources. I fixed the book description. Amazon approved the change and removed the moderation block on my ad.
What Followed Moderation by Amazon, again; follow-up
Although they removed the block, it took several days for my ad to reenter the cycle of advertising to my targeted audience. While I monitored the advert, I saw my sales plummet to lows I hadn’t seen in years.
It took more than a week to reverse the Moderation by Amazon and see an upswing in interest and sales of my books. ?♂️While I am glad that is over, I’m predicting that my sales for May will be significantly lower than sales from the previous month and even those during the pandemic lockdown. In short, I paid the price of Amazon’s sudden change in their marketing criteria.
In Other News
I’m home from work this week on a staycation. Since last Friday, I have had out-of-town guests staying with me. They’ll return home on Sunday. I’m enjoying their company, but I’ve gone out to dinner so often that it’s been impossible to manage my food intake. I’m going to have to be extra careful over the coming weeks.
On another front. I’ve gotten to write a little and sleep in every morning. The latter I need a lot, and the former was going slow to start, but I’m looking forward to some quality time writing. Wish me luck.
