[BilboMaggins]

This question has come up several times in past years. Given the recent wave of KDP account bannings, I'm wondering what the 2022 answer to this question is.

Many of the nonfiction top writers on KDP seem to all be inserting lead magnets in their books.

I attached a sample from Patrick Edblad’s book here:

His lead magnet is pretty typical.

So the question is, is this legal in KDPs eyes?

The KDP hyperlink guidelines states:

"Some examples of prohibited links include:

• Links to pornography
• Links to commercial eBook store sites other than Amazon
• Links to web forms that request customer information (e.g., email address, physical address or similar)"

Hyperlink Guidelines

kdp.amazon.com

It appears that half the nonfiction KDP books on Amazon contain “Links to web forms that request customer information” in some form or another.

Ideas?

Thanks!

 

[RPatton]

The key, as it's always been, is that you can't link directly to a form, but you can link to a landing page on a website.

I know a lot of authors just include a link to the form via any of the ESPs and haven't heard of any problems yet (key word being yet), I'm not sure if it's enforced. However, I use a landing page on my website and always have. If you're worried, you could probably use BookFunnel's landing page without risk or design a landing page that has a button for readers to click that brings up the form.

 

[BilboMaggins]

The key, as it's always been, is that you can't link directly to a form, but you can link to a landing page on a website.

i link to a custom coded email form on my author website. I always thought I was safe.

But it seems unlikely that the letter of the KDP law would allow you to link to this:

StephenKing . com / signup

but not this

MailChimp . com / form25

why would it matter?

My fear is that they might use such links as fodder to ban an account someday.

 

[RPatton]

i link to a custom coded email form on my author website. I always thought I was safe.

But it seems unlikely that the letter of the KDP law would allow you to link to this:

StephenKing . com / signup

but not this

MailChimp . com / form25

why would it matter?

My fear is that they might use such links as fodder to ban an account someday.

There's a big difference between the two. One is clear, it is part of an author's website so therefore it has the same credibility as the author. The other could be for anything since the ESP is hosting it. For all the reader knew, they were adding their name to a list that was just going to be sold. If there's a landing page on a domain, it's less likely signup form is a way to harvest emails.

If I'm part of KU and I sign up for a few authors through an ESP form and then suddenly receive a bunch of spam, I'm going to assume it was one of those KU authors, but I'm also going to blame Amazon and would probably complain to them. When Scamphlets were a thing, I imagine this was a much bigger deal. Adding a hoop of a landing page probably made it a little more difficult for the scamphlets and gave Amazon an excuse to yank down problem books.

With few exceptions, Amazon is almost always reactive. They look for reasons to yank books after there's a problem. If you're a "good neighbor" and not engaging in questionable tactics, chances are Amazon won't ever look closely at your signup form. If you're consistently skirting the rules and costing them money in dealing with complaints, then they'll take a closer look at your account and the books on your account.

I think of that part of the TOS as sort of like the seat belt law. It's there and yeah there are some officers who will enforce it regardless, but chances are you won't get cited for it unless you get pulled over for some other traffic violation and don't have your seat belt on.

 

[unkownwriter]

My fear is that they might use such links as fodder to ban an account someday.

Amazon can pretty much ban an account just because it's Tuesday. They don't really need a reason, though it's best if we not give them one.