Self-Publishing Considerations for your nom de plume and book title

[JoanUP]

This from a Facebook friend of mine:

The latest Kafkaesque absurdity from Amazon (and naturally, there is no way to appeal):
Hello,
During our review, we found that the following book(s) causes a misleading customer experience because it impairs customers' ability to make good buying decisions.
The Survivors by Weber, T. C. (AUTHOR) (ID: KEP-A71YC22KB85)
Items that can cause a misleading customer experience include:
• Similarity of the contributor name to another author
• Similarity of the title to a previously published book
• Similarity of the cover to a previously published book
• Similarity of the publisher listed in the book details to another publisher
• Similarity of the description to a previously published known work
As a result, we will not be making the book(s) available for sale on Amazon.
Thanks for your cooperation,
Kindle Enterprise Publishing Team

 

[RK Wallis]

Can she try another publishing platform?

 

[Sarit]

There is no copyright on titles. Ridiculous.

 

[Jake E]

Well... That's -king stupid.

 

[Jake E]

There are seven books called 'The Survivors' on Amazon.
Are they going to take down six more? I bet this is AI related

 

[Rich.]

@JoanUP, does your friend know which of the 'similarities' the book has been flagged for?

 

[JohnBertel]

These emails from Amazon, which list a number of reasons, are puzzling. Surely, some system has flagged one or more of the reasons, so why can't they specify which one?

Some years ago, Amazon was criticized for selling horror novels by people who chose to write as Stephen King. Maybe they have gone too far and are now too restrictive.

 

[JoanUP]

There are seven books called 'The Survivors' on Amazon.
Are they going to take down six more? I bet this is AI related

Good question! And all books by T.Weber.?

 

[Jake E]

No. By different authors.

 

[JoanUP]

No. By different authors.

What I meant was, if the name Ted Weber is too common, are they going to drop all books under that name?

 

[Jake E]

What I meant was, if the name Ted Weber is too common, are they going to drop all books under that name?

Ah, gotcha

The way I see it, they use AI to 'scan' all the books and flag these things. It's got to be automated. A human wouldn't make this error.
It's probably a feature to weed out scammers trying to sell knock off versions of popular books.