Unable to run an ad on Amazon?

NadiaBlair

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Hi all,

I was going to try to run an ad through Amazon to promote my self published romance novella. While it does contain some steamy love scenes, I don't think it qualifies as erotica, nor did I place it in that category when I published it. But when I tried to click the "create advertising campaign" button I got a message stating "At this time, books that contain mature or erotic content are not eligible for advertising." I am really confused, as I know I've seen ads for romance novels on the Amazon site, as well as on the lock screen of my Kindle, and some of those were definitely more risque than my book, with regards to tile/ book cover.

Can someone with more experience at this whole self publishing process possibly give me suggestions as to why I'm having issues? I've tried going through the various links on the relevant Amazon page, but I'm basically drowning in information at this point.

And please let me know if I should be asking this question on the Promotions forum or elsewhere.

EDIT: here's the link to the Amazon sales page if that's allowed: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082J3BDPP/?tag=absowrit-20 (If this isn't allowed, please tell me and I'll remove this. I don't want to spam you all.)

Thanks!
 
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cool pop

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I see you say you didn't place it in erotica? Maybe you had some keywords in your blurb the reason Amazon did. Sorry that happened to you. It did to me too. Once a book is in erotica either by your doing or Amazon's it's stuck there for eternity. They will not remove it no matter what you do even if they are wrong. They put a book of mine in erotica (wrongfully) in 2016. I tried to appeal several times and got nowhere. I just left it alone. It was a book I did under a pen name so no big deal but they put it in erotica though it wasn't. It's steamy but it's not erotica and I didn't have a subjective cover or a blurb that's any different from much you see in romance since it is a steamy romance. Amazon didn't care. I even tried to change the categories myself but it didn't work.

- - - Updated - - -

I checked your book, and it's the cover too. They will reject man chest covers. Some authors get through but most times, nope.
 

NadiaBlair

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Thanks for the replies, all! It should be categorized as contemporary romance, not erotica. Maybe I did initially have some erotica keywords, and that's what triggered that? But I swear I've seen "Billionaire's Obsession" type books with hunky men on the cover on ads on my Kindle screen. :/


For future reference, if I want to write steamy romance but NOT get it categorized (cough stigmatized cough) as erotica, what would you all suggest, with regards to cover art and keywords?
 

frimble3

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Not my genre, but my two cents:
Yeah, the cover, not just shirtless, but low and shirtless. Low enough to suggest that a shirt isn't the only thing he isn't wearing.
And the language of your blurb:
desperate to get rid of her good girl reputation.
just how bad she can be.
his kinky bad-boy reputation is well-earned.
his bratty angel
steamy
sizzling love scenes
little light bondage,

I am thinking that some of these words, on their own, might be fine, but as a group they are setting off censorial sirens.
 

KBooks

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What I've heard if you write steamy romance but not erotica (that's my genre, too), is that it's okay to get steamy in the contents of the book... but that you have to be super careful on the cover (yours is fine for romance, just not for ads) and make sure it doesn't look like erotica, in the blurb (this is probably your issue), when you pick your categories, and when you pick your keywords. <--not sure about these last two--check and make sure there is nothing in your categories or keywords that even hints at erotica.

In your case, you have:

--a little light bondage
--his kinky bad-boy reputation

<--kinky and bondage are likely words they flag for.

There are a few others terms that may be questionable as well. Sorry this happened.
 
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lizmonster

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Yeah, I'm wondering about the chosen categories here. I'm a bit ignorant of Amazon, but does the author choose the categories/keywords, or does Amazon?
 
Polenth

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lizmonster said:
Yeah, I'm wondering about the chosen categories here. I'm a bit ignorant of Amazon, but does the author choose the categories/keywords, or does Amazon?
Click to expand...

The author chooses them, but Amazon will add a book to other categories based on the keywords. Which you can use to your advantage if you want to be in a certain subcategory that you can't select.

This section links to the pages that discuss which keywords to use:
 
cool pop

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lizmonster said:
Yeah, I'm wondering about the chosen categories here. I'm a bit ignorant of Amazon, but does the author choose the categories/keywords, or does Amazon?
Click to expand...

Authors decide categories but Amazon has the discretion to put it anywhere they want. Amazon is notorious for miscategorizing books by putting them in cats the author or pub didn't even request. So if they want to stick your book in "erotica" or "cookie recipe books" they can. I had Amazon change my cats on a whim one day and stuck my book in a nonfiction cat! Don't know why. The book had been published for years and just changed. They changed it back to the correct cats once I got on them but when it comes to erotica or if you get stuck in that "dungeon" it's almost impossible to get out.

It happens to books with publishers too. It happened to a few of my books back when I was still with publishers. Publishers had to get Amazon to correct the cats after they put them in the wrong ones despite the pub picking the right ones.

The thing is KDP is run by bots not humans so that's the problem. They rely on bots to do everything for their book department so crazy things can happen at random.
 
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