So I realized about a week ago that my book series, The Fucket List was not showing up in Amazon's general search results. I thought this was odd and tried to place the books in a more non-erotic category thinking it was the erotica category that had gotten my books banned from search results. But as it turns out, that wasn't it. They had been flagged as "Adult" books. In other words, they had been given the kiss of death. When a book is labelled "Adult" it is being filtered by Amazon as inappropriate for the general public. My books were still there but not being found through any search words or also boughts. In other words, you could only find them under my author's profile.
I searched all over the internet trying to figure out why they had been and how to get them removed from the dungeon. A place naughty books would never see the light of day. There was no nudity on the covers and the words used in the titles were not any of the ones usually not allowed through the filter. Such as incest, bestiality, etc., which are genres not allowed at Amazon. I had been playing with keywords and worried my choices were too risque, so cleaned them all up, but still the books remained in the dungeon.
That's when I had to relook at my series title, The Fucket List. I knew using it would be a bit risque but wondered since the word fuck was actually part of the work and not the word itself, it would pass the filter. I even searched amazon to see how often fuck was used. It's used several times . The term itself "fucket list" had a whole lot of merchandise with those exact words on them from t-shirts to mugs. So I concluded it was a safe word to use. But since my books landed in the dungeon it was the only explanation I could come up with.
So I replaced the "u" with an "*" both on my one cover where it appears (The Billionaire's Jilted Bride) and in the Series title on each of my listed books. I also made sure the word fucket was not used in my blurb, then resubmitted all three books. Still nothing.
Finally, I gave in and emailed Amazon's help desk. I head read everywhere that it was almost impossible to have the Adult flag removed once it had been applied. I thought it would be a useless effort, but gave it a shot. The reps there responded the very next day and told me that they were removing the flag as a review showed the books passed the filter. I am not entirely sure if the word fucket was the reason for the filter but just in case, I will refrain from cussing in future titles.
I searched all over the internet trying to figure out why they had been and how to get them removed from the dungeon. A place naughty books would never see the light of day. There was no nudity on the covers and the words used in the titles were not any of the ones usually not allowed through the filter. Such as incest, bestiality, etc., which are genres not allowed at Amazon. I had been playing with keywords and worried my choices were too risque, so cleaned them all up, but still the books remained in the dungeon.
That's when I had to relook at my series title, The Fucket List. I knew using it would be a bit risque but wondered since the word fuck was actually part of the work and not the word itself, it would pass the filter. I even searched amazon to see how often fuck was used. It's used several times . The term itself "fucket list" had a whole lot of merchandise with those exact words on them from t-shirts to mugs. So I concluded it was a safe word to use. But since my books landed in the dungeon it was the only explanation I could come up with.
So I replaced the "u" with an "*" both on my one cover where it appears (The Billionaire's Jilted Bride) and in the Series title on each of my listed books. I also made sure the word fucket was not used in my blurb, then resubmitted all three books. Still nothing.
Finally, I gave in and emailed Amazon's help desk. I head read everywhere that it was almost impossible to have the Adult flag removed once it had been applied. I thought it would be a useless effort, but gave it a shot. The reps there responded the very next day and told me that they were removing the flag as a review showed the books passed the filter. I am not entirely sure if the word fucket was the reason for the filter but just in case, I will refrain from cussing in future titles.