Who are the popular indie authors banned from Amazon?

Hey, writeon, Welcome, Your, avatar, is, hilarious!!!

A bit of eruption going on there (KB) now started by Wayne Stinnett regarding some moderation he objected to. What I find ironic is it concerns the RH case and Christina Gardener. Though I feel sorry for her situation with Hamilton, the latter did recruit from KB, and her scheme was to game bestseller lists, which Gardener went along with until she didn't.

If KB let the bad players be known, there would be fewer victims like Gardener, who is now caught up in a legal mess, which KB has now deemed unworthy of discussion.

It's wasn't being in the boxset that was gaming the system. It was Rebecca Hamilton doing things like getting people to buy the books and then reimbursing them, asking her authors who had large mailing lists to do a mass giveaway (as in buy two hundred books on iBooks and give away one-by-one) and then reimbursing them. 

She also traded marketing for authors (buy this book and I'll promote you later!). 

She had groups of readers who were buying and then showing proof of purchase to enter giftcard draws. 

There are boxsets that produced 20+ "Bestseller" authors... most of whom still advertise their "letters" to this day. Michael-Scott Earle got his via Dark Humanity and not on his own efforts. J A Cipriano from another boxset. Connor Kressley. 

And whoops, look at that... they're all banned from Amazon. What a fucking coincidence. 

Basically, I consider anyone who got their "letters" via a Hamilton boxset to be illegitimate. There is enough proof that she was gaming the system. There are goddamn screenshots, which of course will never be seen on kboards. 

KBoards mods are learning a lesson about a principle that has toppled governments: there's a sweet spot for trying to control something. Past a certain point, exerting more and more control destroys the very thing you're trying to protect. Like a balloon squeezed too hard, it will deform and pop eventually. This is particularly true when the group in charge has no true diversity or inclusiveness. They are all of a certain type and mind, and were chosen (as time went on and other mods moved on) not to provide a variety of viewpoints, but rather, for their conformity to a certain vision. This naturally produces an echo chamber and a distillation of self-reinforcing behavior, in this case to censor, edit, mod, and ban more and more speech--all in the name of necessity, security, civility or some other virtue.

However, every virtue becomes a vice when practiced too assiduously.

My understanding is a little different. I thought it was because Christina signed up to be part of a low-steam/clean box set, but somewhere along the way, RH changed it to include spicier material. Christina felt the contract had changed, the new one was not one she felt comfortable with and asked for a refund. At which point the whatsit hit the thingummyjig.

Basically how it happened, except for the analysis part. 
Hamilton changed the original contract in multiple ways and required new terms; the change about KU exclusivity was one of several changes RH made to the contract.
When one party changes the contract, the other party is not obligated to agree to the new terms; RH was no longer offering the terms of the original contract and could no longer fulfill terms. The original contract was void due to RH's actions. It was a voided contract and Garner is completely entitled to return of her funds; it wasn't even a "refund" for RH to keep or decline. Contract void = RH is not entitled to the money.

Also, it doesn't matter what RH's excuse is; she has blamed Amazon & claimed they suddenly changed the rules (they did not; the exclusivity rule was in effect well before the contract was made. There are plenty of screen shots to confirm RH's claim Amazon suddenly changed the rules is FALSE). RH's actions are her own; if she sought to cast blame on Amazon for "forcing" her to break the contract, she should have sued them as a third party (like she sued a bunch of other authors). If she could prove that Amazon was culpable and shared part of the blame, she could spread out the consequence. Of course, she won't do that because she knows very well the rules were in place long before she was caught. It is flat out FALSE that Amazon changed the rules in the middle of that boxset deal. 

As to all the authors in the sets, they were not all involved nor did many of them know the shady tactics RH was using. For example, there are screenshots showing how the book boosts were run using incentivized sales (show her the receipt, get entered in a giveaway for a gift card) and with huge gifting rings. There are lots of innocent authors who simply had no idea that Rh was promoting their books that way, and it sucks big time. 

You're perfectly fine, @darketic, there are no mods here, just me. You're free to say what you feel and know and others are free to share, as well. Disagreements and misunderstandings happen, tis the way of the message board. I hope everyone sticks around to share and disagree and misunderstand until doomsday comes on the forty-twelth.

I saw enough screen caps (many taken before the statements were removed) and heard enough people report their experiences to know what happened. It's not opinion, it's looking at the evidence and seeing what was going on.

Amazon began enforcing certain terms and requirements because of Rebecca Hamilton. She can whine and cry and deny it and blame everyone else and whip her "friends" into a frenzy, but it doesn't change what happened. She is going to lose that court case, too, but if she's smart she'll take Christina's offer and settle. I'm not holding my breath.

I was in a box set that was hit by both the exclusivity rule -- which as written was rather vague -- and by the newly instated 3000 KENPC payout cap. None of us was doing anything "wrong", because Amazon said more than once that it was fine. Of course, we've seen that we can't take their word for that, but at the time that's how it was.

I actually never sold a copy of the book alone that was in the box set, so it wasn't like I was making double the money. That was a ridiculous notion to begin with, because the single book and the box set were aimed at two different markets. If anything, most of us probably lost money. In fact, I would have made more money selling my own book, because the box set was, I think, .99. It was exclusive, as well, unlike some of Hamilton's works, which were shown to be uploaded wide and in KU.

Christina was like many authors at the time, and didn't suspect what Hamilton got up to. Mainly because... drum roll... we weren't allowed to talk about any of it. Not one word. Not one shred of evidence, not one screen cap, not one verified email exchange. Christina just wanted her money back, rightly so, but what she got was a bunch of crap from RH and her gang. Christina's name was drug through the mud and she was vilified by people who didn't know what was really going on. I wish that old weebly site was still up, so you guys could see the screen caps of this happening.

So, my opinion? If those people who hung around with RH and engaged in dirty tricks are getting caught up and banned, then good. It will make the environment better for all of us. Someone will surely try to game the system again, and might succeed on a lesser level. There are probably people far enough below the radar that are doing it now. But I think Amazon finally has a handle on how these people work, and if they stay on top of it, we shouldn't see this level of shenanigans again.

I agree.

In earlier, pre-PC times (no, I'm not lefty-bashing per se, just observing the new-puritanism zeitgeist) it was axiomatic that people take a certain amount if responsibility for what happened when running with a bad crowd or choosing to take stupid risks. Nowadays, some are so afraid of victim-blaming that they're afraid to say this:

If they choose to associate with shady people, they can't claim to be squeaky-clean when the cops come calling. The fact they didn't actually commit the same "crime" (figuratively and sometimes literally) doesn't absolve them of consequences when they aided, abetted, associated, and benefitted from the crimes. The fact that they didn't know what they were getting into doesn't absolve them of due diligence. These things might be mitigating circumstances, but they can't claim (like MSE) to be a complete victim.


Even getting duped is, in the real world, a shared responsibility between victim and victimizer. "Should have known better" is a real thing, even if we seem to want to ban it from modern society. The desire to make sure victims are not blamed doesn't absolve those victims of taking sensible measures to protect themselves. Insurance companies may not pay your bills if you didn't buckle your seatbelt or if you used an unlicensed electrical contractor and your house burns down. That doesn't mean you deserved to be injured or your house burn down, but it removes a lot of sympathy and places a percentage of responsibility on the victim, especially when the victim engages in a pattern of risky behavior instead of merely a one-time mistake, and especially when it's for monetary gain.

Ew, plague. *sprays toxic insecticides everywhere*

Well said, David. There's a point where being new isn't an excuse for getting caught up in these sorts of things. Common sense should tell people that something doesn't sound right. Due diligence. It's a thing. Practice it.



I've used that phrase a few times myself.

Or you know, RH could have just paid back the money for a contract that she clearly couldn't perform. I mean if we want to get all technical and legal about it.

Exactly. The contract was breached. And Christina didn't DRAG anyone into it. She stood up for herself when many others could/did not. Others commented and supported her knowing the circumstances and chose to stand up for her.  The plaintiff is the one who DRAGGED them into legal proceedings. 

Christina's beef with RH was silly. Rebecca should have just gave her a refund and sold the spot to someone else but she wanted to play hardball since there was a "no refunds" clause. It was a contract dispute and both of them handled the situation poorly and allowed it to blow out of proportion.



Yeah Rebecca Hamilton is a cheater, we found that out later, but that wasn't what the dispute was about. Rebecca Hamilton is hated for legitimate reasons and people have sided with Christina because they share a common enemy but everyone donating to Christina's cause and acting like she's some kind of hero to indie publishing is a joke. Trying to game your way into bestseller status via a 20 author boxset was always shady.
Christina isn't the good guy in their feud.