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Kindle ebook is either undifferentiated or barely differentiated

by tom parker
6 replies
Amazon sent me this msg,anyone faced this problem?

The eBook is either undifferentiated or barely differentiated from an existing eBook in the Kindle store. We remove such duplicate (or near duplicate) versions of the same book because they diminish the experience for customers. As a result, we will not be selling the following eBook(s) in the Kindle store.

I have received the same message from the last 3 kindle books i've tried to publish, I finally got a response from Amazon, below:
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"Hello,

Since we are no longer accepting undifferentiated or barely differentiated versions of existing eBooks in the Kindle store, we encourage you to submit original content.

We appreciate your interest in publishing with Amazon KDP.

Best regards,

Irene T.
Amazon.com: Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more "
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One of the books they declined had a Unique Cover, the content was put together from 20 re-written articles, all of which passed Copyscape at 95%

And the title was unique as well, and only 10 results found when searching my main keyword in the Kindle store.

I knew it was just a matter of time before they started rejecting PLR
#barely #differentiated #ebook #kindle #undifferentiated
  • Profile picture of the author Dennis Gaskill
    I haven't had that happen, but then I write original material. Seems to me that's what you need to do. Short of that...

    When you rewrite, are you just replacing words with synonyms? If so, you need to look at bigger pieces. Think in terms of replacing whole sentences and paragraphs at once rather than individual words. In other words, work at the idea level rather than the single word level.

    If you don't want to write your own material from scratch, that should help make your rewriting more acceptable.
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    • Profile picture of the author Alan Petersen
      There was a big thread about this a week or two ago (search for it for more info on it). But Amazon is cracking down on PLR, public domain, etc. Doesn't matter what copyscape says, only what Amazon says and they don't think your content is unique.

      Not sure where you got the articles but if it's PLR articles that have been doing the rounds in PLR warehouse type memberships sites, I wouldn't bother with that type of content and Amazon. Those days are over.
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    • Profile picture of the author tom parker
      Hey thanks for your reply and I do agree with you and that's what I'm going to start doing.
      The Kindle Cash method is obsolete now i guess. It's actually a good thing though, It will keep the duplicate spam publishers out and the writers will have a better chance.
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      • Profile picture of the author research
        Is this the start of the Amazon clamp down ?

        Maybe Amazon had not readied themselves for the onslaught of public domain, and plr ebooks that would be presented for publication in Kindle.

        On top of this, the many "ebooks" slapped together from plr articles would soon create a problem that Amazon would need to deal with.

        This is all probably for the good, but I am sure it will come as a surprise for many would be "publishers".
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        • Profile picture of the author Robert Boduch
          Originally Posted by research View Post

          Is this the start of the Amazon clamp down ?

          Maybe Amazon had not readied themselves for the onslaught of public domain, and plr ebooks that would be presented for publication in Kindle.

          On top of this, the many "ebooks" slapped together from plr articles would soon create a problem that Amazon would need to deal with.

          This is all probably for the good, but I am sure it will come as a surprise for many would be "publishers".

          I think that's exactly right. A big part of Amazon's success is due to their customer experience, convenience and service. You can bet that anything that lessens that overall experience for their users will not go unnoticed by Amazon. But it's a huge problem already, so who knows how they'll tackle it beyond these initial steps?

          Buyers aren't stupid. And they're not afraid to speak up either. Here's an excerpt from a real customer review:

          "On top of that, there are several books out with slightly different titles and different authors listed, but they are the exact same book....rip off by the "authors"....the same books are available (elsewhere) and they took the same books with different titles issue...so it's not amazon trying to pull a fast one, it's the authors/editors/publisher...bad bad bad."

          The whole Kindle thing is revolutionizing publishing as we know it. But when actual customers leave feedback that indicates their growing frustration at finding multiple duplicates of questionable quality - you've got to know that Amazon will respond.

          IMO, you're better off creating your own original products, or rewriting significantly and Dennis wisely suggested. "Copy and paste" publishing gives you zero competitive advantage, nor is it sustainable.

          Robert
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  • Profile picture of the author rickfrazier1
    Kindle has achieved critical mass. In order to get enough titles to get attention, and attain decent sales, they allowed pretty much anything for awhile.

    If you want a quick example, search for Atkins diet. Notice how many "different" copies of the "1000 Atkins recipes" there are avialable. It's the same for anything that is PD and PLR is not far behind.

    It took them a fair bit of time to get the 950,000 titles they have available, but now that they have the critical mass needed to get there, they need to clean house to stay there. So many folks want to publish they can be much more picky about content. Thus, they will (finally) be dumping a lot of the duplicate content that exists now in favor of new content.

    What does this mean to us?

    Well, if you use PLR or PD content, you should be using it for general information, guidance or inspiration while generating your own new ideas and thoughts.

    Unfortunately, there are only so many ways you can describe how to train your dog to sit, so if you are writing dog training books, you may have some difficulty in getting your new title accepted. With paper, every new book that came along was out of print in a few years, if not sooner. Thus, there was always room for another on the same topic, even if there wasn't a clear departure from the old methods.

    Today, with online publication essentially forever without additional cost (apart from server storage, which is incredibly cheap), this means that writers are going to need to be more creative, or explore areas that are "less well represented".

    I'm sure competition will increase as time goes on, but like times past, something else will come along and keep it all interesting...
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