Help! My KU page reads from last month have been retroactively halved.

[TM285]

Today I checked my KU reads from last month and saw they had been cut to almost half of what they were before! They were reporting at almost double, but a week into this new month and the graph is showing half as many.

Has anyone experienced this? Can you guess why this might have happened? Please check your KU reads and see if the same happened to you last month.

NB My book does not do book stuffing or anything else that breaks the rules, if Kindle thinks we have, they are mistaken. It's like any other book.

[she-la-ti-da]

Check the Excel file you download, rather than look at the graph, which is a rolling graph and isn't all that accurate as to true sales.

I have heard some speculation that involves the lawsuit as reported in another thread that says perhaps Amazon is removing sales and pages read from accounts where the reader has been caught doing naughty things (not the author, the consumer).

If you are concerned after checking your actual reports, then contact Amazon and ask them to look into it. For authors, go through the KDP dashboard, there's a Contact Us link somewhere. Don't call the customer service number, it gets you to people who deal with consumer issues, which this is not.

[TM285]

The difference is over 300,000 KENP reads, this is not a minor error or related to delayed reporting. The Excel report just mirrors what the graph says now, but it was different before...

[Acheknia]

The difference is over 300,000 KENP reads, this is not a minor error or related to delayed reporting. The Excel report just mirrors what the graph says now, but it was different before...

This is just a maybe, I don't actually have a clue but...

As it's such a large amount (more than 100 is a large amount to me lol) maybe it's a 'sweep first & then check' type thing.

When some people get reviews taken off, they often get them back later (presumably after they've been checked & okayed).

Maybe large numbers of KENP are being removed across the board while they're checking for stuffers, bot reads etc etc.

You should still ask support but I'm thinking they may just come back in a little while, after they've been approved as being legit.

[dianapersaud]

Check the Excel file you download, rather than look at the graph, which is a rolling graph and isn't all that accurate as to true sales.

I have heard some speculation that involves the lawsuit as reported in another thread that says perhaps Amazon is removing sales and pages read from accounts where the reader has been caught doing naughty things (not the author, the consumer).

If you are concerned after checking your actual reports, then contact Amazon and ask them to look into it. For authors, go through the KDP dashboard, there's a Contact Us link somewhere. Don't call the customer service number, it gets you to people who deal with consumer issues, which this is not.

Contact US is a link all the way on the bottom of the KDP page (once you log in).

[solo]

Aw, [crap]ake mushrooms! Now I have to check everything. To be honest, I just look at the total and forget about the figure after a few days (since one's mind on the present and the future). 300,000 reads lost is a huge amount. And no notice? No one-sentence email?

Writing is a hobby for me. It had become a serious one, true. But we have to watch for these incidents too? Bad enough when you see your work blatantly plagiarized/copied in a lot of bizarre book sites.

ADD - And when they compute royalties already, the raw data on reads and sales disappear 
And March was not a good month.

[dgaughran]

This is the third case I've heard of where Amazon has done a massive retroactive page read reduction. In the first case, Amazon subsequently accused the author (who was totally innocent) or rank manipulation, in the same manner that it did to those it rank-stripped.

Good luck getting some clarity from Amazon.

[TimothyEllis]

I've had one day change overnight, losing me about $200. I'm now writing them down at US days end, in case it happens again.

Amazon is doing something, and appear to be ignoring messages to them asking what happened to the reads lost. I've not contacted them myself, as i cant be sure it wasn't a memory glitch on my part. And mine happened 2 days before other people started reporting they could see the reads being removed from BR.

But something is happening. And its not just about bad review activity.

This is the third case I've heard of where Amazon has done a massive retroactive page read reduction. In the first case, Amazon subsequently accused the author (who was totally innocent) or rank manipulation, in the same manner that it did to those it rank-stripped.

Good luck getting some clarity from Amazon.

I know 2 others , both of whom have had nothing from Amazon at all.

Maybe Amazon thought removing reads would slip past authors unnoticed? 

[Bill Hiatt]

Maybe Amazon thought removing reads would slip past authors unnoticed? 

That's certainly possible, but it's equally possible that Amazon has found some botted pages, or at least suspected some.

We know that bots will, under some circumstances, target legitimate books to make their activities harder to detect. Since Amazon is cracking down in some ways, it wouldn't surprise me.

The problem remains transparency. If Amazon disallows some pages, it should explain why--always. We shouldn't even have to ask.

As someone pointed out, reviews occasionally disappear, then reappear. This appears to be caused at least part of the time by the reviewer being suspected of something. The reviewer clears his or her name, and the review reappears. Perhaps that will be the same with page counts. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

[LovetoWrite]

Another author had mentioned that she'd lost about $300 in page reads. ...I checked my account this morning, and they took close to $1k from me for March! I'm beyond shocked. My page reads had really shot up in March, but I attributed it to doing more ads and promoting better through my email list. I'm seriously sitting here stunned.

[TimothyEllis]

Another author had mentioned that she'd lost about $300 in page reads. ...I checked my account this morning, and they took close to $1k from me for March! I'm beyond shocked. My page reads had really shot up in March, but I attributed it to doing more ads and promoting better through my email list. I'm seriously sitting here stunned.

You need to to ask KDP why you lost them, and give them all the details of all your ads for the month (and the one before), so they can see you were advertising more than normal.

Do that now!

[C. Gockel]

You need to to ask KDP why you lost them, and give them all the details of all your ads for the month (and the one before), so they can see you were advertising more than normal.

Do that now!

It's not the same thing, but when books were being rank stripped I had a book get 5,000 downloads in one day with no advertising. I called Amazon right away and told them that I believed a scammer had targeted my book for whatever reason (it was free, and not in KU so why?) They were really nice, had me speak to a special department, and took down a lot of details. I was never rank stripped.

TL;DR. Listen to Timothy and contact them right away.

[eroticatorium]

Just to provide a counterpoint, I think I got page reads added for last month. Honestly I don't keep track closely enough to be sure, but those numbers look better now than they did at the end of March. I definitely didn't lose any. I don't do any advertising or bookbubs.

[Avery342]

I almost feel like giving up at this point. Last month I published the third book in my MM Gay Mystery Romance Series. To give it a boost, for the first week, I did a free run for book one, a Kindle Countdown deal for 99 cents on book two, and offered the new release at 99 cents. I kept a pretty decent track record of page reads and sales per book for the rest of the month. (Release mid-March)

For me, the strategy was a huge success--giving me true hope for the first time of being able to make this work by following all the rules and simply writing decent books. The only "promos" I did were BkNights and BookDoggy for the free run and a LGBT-Romance newsletter promo for the new release.

I closed March 2018 out at $675.51 per Book Report (at the first of April). I was thrilled!

Now? According to Book Report, I've lost $170 in March income. To someone just starting to gain traction, that's a heck of big hit! Especially on top of being reminded how extremely well the book stuffers are doing. Can an honest author just not win with Amazon anymore?

Am I just setting myself up for more heartbreak at this point?

And yes, after checking, that loss of income was all from page reads that seem to no longer exist.

And all this on the day I was to actually start writing book #4. Great motivation to write, that. Good job, Amazon.

[Gabriella West]

Off to check...

[Seneca42]

Why are you guys complaining? Amazon is doing what they need to in order to keep KU going. Amazon enabled ebook publishing and everyone should be thankful to them, not complaining when they take $300 or $1000 or $10,000 of your money. If they didn't exist you wouldn't even have that money in the first place.

Whatever zon wants to do, it's the right thing to do.

Would you rather not have KU?

[TM285]

Looks like lots of people are experiencing this.

It's devastating.

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/781495321956934/permalink/1379173772189083/

[Bill Hiatt]

Why are you guys complaining? Amazon is doing what they need to in order to keep KU going. Amazon enabled ebook publishing and everyone should be thankful to them, not complaining when they take $300 or $1000 or $10,000 of your money. If they didn't exist you wouldn't even have that money in the first place.

Whatever zon wants to do, it's the right thing to do.

Would you rather not have KU?

I fear someone who doesn't know you will miss the intended irony.

[Ryan W. Mueller]

Mine appear to be untouched, but I don't get huge numbers of page reads.

[TM285]

I spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars generating those reads. It's going to destroy my bottom line.

[brkingsolver]

I fear someone who doesn't know you will miss the intended irony.

I know him quite well, and I don't see any irony. I see a very ugly comment mocking other people on this forum. On the other hand, it's about what I would expect.

[Dpock]

Why are you guys complaining? Amazon is doing what they need to in order to keep KU going. Amazon enabled ebook publishing and everyone should be thankful to them, not complaining when they take $300 or $1000 or $10,000 of your money. If they didn't exist you wouldn't even have that money in the first place.

Whatever zon wants to do, it's the right thing to do.

Would you rather not have KU?

You must be fun at funerals...

We all knew a true clean-up of KU would be messy and snare a lot of innocents. I'm confident those innocents will have their numbers restored (why feel otherwise at this point?) if they appeal. On the bright side, if Amazon is successful, zillions of KENP pages will be wiped from stuffer's and schemer's dashboards. Keeping the rose-tinted glasses on for a further moment -- that would have a dramatic positive effect on payouts.

Or something else could be up, possibly a glitch. I doubt it (weekend timing makes me feel otherwise), but it's not out of the question.

[Anarchist]

I fear someone who doesn't know you will miss the intended irony.

I know him quite well, and I don't see any irony. I see a very ugly comment mocking other people on this forum. On the other hand, it's about what I would expect.

You must be fun at funerals...

This.

[Not Lu]

That's certainly possible, but it's equally possible that Amazon has found some botted pages, or at least suspected some.

We know that bots will, under some circumstances, target legitimate books to make their activities harder to detect. Since Amazon is cracking down in some ways, it wouldn't surprise me.

The problem remains transparency. If Amazon disallows some pages, it should explain why--always. We shouldn't even have to ask.

As someone pointed out, reviews occasionally disappear, then reappear. This appears to be caused at least part of the time by the reviewer being suspected of something. The reviewer clears his or her name, and the review reappears. Perhaps that will be the same with page counts. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

I suspect this is the problem. Amazon is likely removing accounts they suspect botting page reads. Any page reads from the botting account will disappear.

If this is the case, then it should only happen to authors who get A LOT of page reads because I suspect the bots target the same books over and over again.

[KateDanley]

Will you keep us updated when the official payouts are announced?  Hypothetically (and again, just hypothetical) overall payouts per page should increase dramatically if the mass quantity of these page-reads have been removed from the pool.  I'm very interested to hear if the money you've lost levels out with an increased payout or if it remains a loss.