My book, Show Networks and Control Systems, has been in publication since the mid 1990s. I did three editions with a publisher, and then they decided they didn’t want to continue. I was depressed about this for a day, and then asked for my distribution rights back (I had always kept the copyright) and decided to self publish. I found CreateSpace, which was then owned by Amazon but operating (very well) separately. It was great, and they provided excellent support and I was very happy with the whole experience; my first self published edition came out in 2012, and I issued a second edition in 2017. Today, I’m writing to talk about how Amazon has completely destroyed what was once a great and powerful service, leaving me in a horrific purgatory where I’m no longer able to update my book, make any changes (like price) whatsoever, or even recover my ISBN (which I own) so I can move the book elsewhere, all because of a PDF file.

TLDR Update January 2021:

After this long saga, and after grossing more than $200,000 for Amazon, I decided to walk away in utter frustration and dismay. The print book has moved to IngramSpark and is now available via many booksellers (including Amazon); the EBook is now available as open PDF. More here.

Background

Even though I’m not really a graphics person, to get the book layout I wanted I have done the graphics production work myself on the book since the 2007 edition. Back then Adobe FrameMaker was really the only solution powerful enough to easily handle a technical document this complicated, so that’s what I used. The current book is 475 pages, about 132,000 words, and contains around 200 embedded graphics, dozens of tables, and hundreds and hundreds of cross references, index marks, glossary entries, etc. So when I started self publishing in 2012, I simply updated FrameMaker to a new trim size, hired a cover designer and a copy editor, and continued on. I remember having to contact CreateSpace’s customer support a couple times but had a very good experience overall, and got the book uploaded just fine in both print and Kindle EBook format.

And the results were great. Amazon was selling the book, and I could order author’s copies at a reasonable print cost and sell them myself or even give them away. The print quality was better than any of the editions with the publisher and did not degrade with subsequent printings. If an educator wanted a free review copy, I would simply type their address into CreateSpace and they would affordably ship it anywhere in the world, handling any customs hassles. In 2017, it was time for an update to the book, so once again I just worked directly in FrameMaker, exported it out to PDF, and the file was accepted by Createspace and everything went smoothly. This time, with a new feature available from Amazon I made a “print replica” Kindle edition using Amazon’s Textbook Creator, and that worked great, giving readers the same graphics layout of the printed book, but with search and cross linking features. Between the two editions I’ve sold over 3,800 print copies and 600 kindle copies (I did a talk about the process and the economics for the Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE) conference in 2014 which you can watch here).

Amazon’s Destruction of Createspace

In July 2018, Amazon announced that it was going to absorb CreateSpace directly into its Publishing division as part of Kindle Direct Publishing. Since I had (fortunately, in hindsight) completed a major update the year before I didn’t follow things closely, but over the last couple years it became slowly apparent that things were changing, and not for the better. Here’s a few things Amazon has killed off:

Easy international shipping was killed off. Now to order a copy for an educator I go to the same interface I use to order shampoo to get “author’s copies” of the book, and they get processed through the main Amazon system. For international shipping, I can select a market in the US, Germany, Spain, France, England or Italy, UPDATE 8/16: It looks like I either missed the way this is done or they added it back.
Originally, the integration with KDP offered a great feature—the ability to sell the Kindle Ebook edition at very low cost (like $1) to people who bought the print edition. That was quietly killed off in 2019. They claim to have contacted authors but I searched my email and don’t see any notification from them. I found out when a customer wrote to me.
But the worst change of all is that Amazon has industrialized, contracted (I assume) and thereby destroyed the quality of the once great CreateSpace customer service. Apparently authors are now just grist for Amazon’s relentless profit mill, and there are a lot of well meaning, polite people in India (apparently) who are now tasked with supporting authors with a pathetically broken system that services neither the customer nor the Amazon tech support contractor. Let me explain why I feel that way.

Kindle Direct Publishing’s Broken Technical Support

This year, I decided to make a few small changes in the book (replacing the words Master and Slave). I worked in FrameMaker 2020 (yes even though most people have never heard of FM, it’s still current product and has an active user base used for large, complicated multi-language technical documents delivered on multiple platforms), changed about 20 words, didn’t touch anything with the graphics or the layout, and used the same PDF export process as I did in 2017 (I took notes) to create the “interior” file for the book (the book is made up of two files, a PDF for the interior and another for the cover). The Kindle print replica file (converted from PDF) was accepted by Amazon on the first try, but the PDF for the print edition was bounced with this completely worthless rejection message:

What the hell am I supposed to do with that? Why was the PDF rejected? I should “check the file” for what? Try again with what? Apparently rejection reasons are a secret, one that can only be unlocked by contacting KDP technical support. I started out trying them via email (which I like because it’s self documenting), and quickly realized that was a dead end, getting one platitude laden, scripted response after another from one of an array of poor bastards at a call center somewhere. So I started calling. Every rep truly tries to be helpful and do their best, but they are stuck in some Amazon contractor hell with, apparently, less information than I have, and inadequate training. Many try to solve the problem without reading the now extensive records (I must be marked as a disgruntled asshole in the file by now, embarrassingly). Infuriatingly, I was told by various tech support agents to clear the cookies on my browser, to convert the book to Word, and-best of all-to upload the processed Kindle EBook file instead of the PDF. That, ironically was accepted by the KDP system but, predictably, looked stupid and horrible. The text was fuzzy, the graphics terrible, additional page numbers were added, etc etc.etc. What a joke. This did nothing but frustrate and aggravate me.

This went on for days and finally I navigated the phalanx of bullshit to get someone to contact the “technical team”. Like the wizard behind the curtain, no customers are allowed to actually talk to the “technical team”, who responds-not to the customer but to the support agent—in 3-5 business days. And of course the agents rarely return calls or emails, and you can’t contact an individual support agent directly even if you just spoke to them on the phone 10 minutes earlier or they sent you an email 30 seconds ago. So, while waiting, I tried nearly a dozen different ways to export and process the PDF file, just shooting blind because, to discover each rejection reason I would have to…call tech support, spend an hour getting escalated and then…wait 3-5 business days to hear back from the “technical team”.

I won’t bore you with all the details but in the end the technical team’s answer was the cryptic, “the interior file contains complex graphics and multiple layers and the file features complex vector images.” Alternatively I would get “You should rasterize the backgrounds to single images to reduce the complexity of the file.” They sent me a couple wireframe screen shots exported from their apparently 19th century pre-press system showing graphics that look perfect in Illustrator, FrameMaker, Acrobat Pro, etc, but are completely broken in KDP. And remember, this same book—with these graphics—is currently being printed and sold by Amazon and everything looks just great there:

what the same thing looks like in Acrobat

FrameMaker is complicated, and I’m certainly no expert. So I posted these details on the Acrobat, Illustrator, and FrameMaker Adobe forums. No one there (or on the abusive KDP forums) could understand why this was happening, what the error really meant, or how to fix it in FM or Acrobat. And KDP offers only rudimentary guidance and compliance with an ancient PDF standard from 2001 (which I complied with, converted to, ran “preflight” analyses to ensure compliance with, etc). And so I hired a top FrameMaker expert consultant/trainer, and she was also completely stumped by this as well. Because I could never get specific details from KDP, I don’t know if the problem is 3 graphics that are breaking their stupid system or 30 or 200. The only work around anyone could come up with was to un-link each of the 200 or so embedded Illustrator files, export them out to some untested graphics format, and re-embed them in the 475 page document. Because I intend to keep updating this book indefinitely, de-linking the source files is a huge and incredibly stupid step backward. And given the KDP support chaos I have absolutely no confidence that this would even get the file accepted by Amazon. And even if this was the only solution, because I’ve been planning a move off of FrameMaker to InDesign anyway, I want to invest the days of work this would take in InDesign, which has a more modern PDF engine.

So after 10 days and probably 50 hours working on this nightmare with no hope or resolution in sight, I decided to just give up, abandon my changes, and return to the original 2017 file. I couldn’t find any way to do this on my end, so, beaten down and dejected, I called technical support again, and asked them to revert to the original 2017 file for me. And now for the secret surprise they don’t tell you: When you upload a new file, THE ORIGINAL WORKING FILE IS DELETED !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was dumbfounded. I got escalated again, and what was the solution recommended by a ”tier 2 escalation” customer service rep? Re-upload the original 2017 file. I was dubious that this would be accepted, but I dug out the original 2017 PDF file, dutifully uploaded it, and. What did I get from KDP? You guessed it:

Yes, “Error processing interior”. Remember this is the file they are currently printing today if you buy a copy!

So to summarize, I changed 20 words in my book, and spent about 50 hours over 10 days talking to very nice, but ill equipped contractors in India and fighting with PDF files, and the outcome is that my book is stuck in Amazon KDP purgatory.

Why purgatory? I’m stuck now and apparently forever in a loop where it says I have “unpublished changes” although it invites me to “Continue Setup”.

What are the unpublished changes? You guessed it—the rejected interior file. Clicking “Continue setup” takes me to…the page telling me to “Try again” on the interior file. And because I’m stuck in this loop I can’t get through to the pricing or distribution or marketing features, so if I want to lower the price, or choose another distribution channel, I can not. Surprisingly and thankfully, the book still seems to be on sale on Amazon.

In addition, after the initial disaster with their support. I started making simplified test PDF files as additional print book projects. And guess what? While Amazon happily deleted my working PDF file, those new test projects can not be deleted by me or the tech support, and so my KDP “bookshelf” is now littered forever with great titles like “fuck KDP” and “Garbage test 2, will this ever work?” Oh and the answer? No.

What Should Amazon Do?

I get that FrameMaker is arcane software and I don’t expect Amazon to hold my hand with that. But here’s what I do expect, especially since Amazon has grossed a couple hundred thousand dollars off of my work:

Provide detailed pre-press requirements. Their competitor Ingram has a 43 page guide. KDP has a bullet point list with three items. How about providing an Acrobat Job Options file? That would provide a working baseline.
Provide direct, detailed, immediate reporting of rejection reasons for interior files, specific to pages and with graphic examples. It’s 2020, you are the biggest tech company in the world, this is not that hard. “Try again” is not helpful feedback; it’s insulting, infuriating and worthless.
Provide a pre-submission pre-press test feature for all interior files so you don’t have to break a successful title to attempt to update a file. Link the file to the project ONLY AFTER it has been accepted and reviewed.
Provide the ability to communicate directly with the mysterious “technical team”.
Provide the ability to communicate directly with ONE tech support rep or a small team. The other day, when the book was rejected for the umpteenth time I called back to speak to the rep that I had spoken to 10 minutes before. They knew who he was but I was not allowed to talk to him.
DO NOT delete working files until prompted and with a successful replacement
WARN authors that the working files will be deleted.

I get that KDP can’t provide detailed support for thousands of people uploading their life story in a word document and selling two copies (which is apparently their business model now?). But I would happily pay for “KDP Pro” service providing the things above. Or, better yet, if an author sells 100 copies (or whatever number gets out of the long tail) Amazon should upgrade that customer to “Pro” status and provide enhanced support.

In trying to get back to the working 2017 file so I can give up and move on, I’ve been communicating with a very helpful, “tier2escalations” rep named Siyam. He was literally about the 20th person to whom I relayed the entire epic saga and told him my that my previously working 2017 file had now been rejected. He was very understanding, empathized with my dejection, said he was embarrassed (something he should not be but the Amazon corporate overlords should) and he said he would check into it and get back to me. Amazingly, he did follow up, and said he was…checking with the “technical team”. I responded to him and told him my FrameMaker subscription access ended in about a week. Shortly after, “Ingrid” responded to my email, adding insult to injury with, “the file contains complex graphics and multiple layers“. Ugh… Should I…call tech support? Uh, no.

Shame on you, Amazon, for destroying CreateSpace, which was an awesome, innovative way to leverage technology so that authors and Amazon alike could make money. I guess KDP now stands for Keep Dollars Pouring … into Jeff Bezos’ pocket.

Update 8/4/20:

I got an email from a customer support rep whose job is apparently “get rid of troublesome customers who ask too many questions”. Here’s the exchange (rep’s name redacted with “X”)

On Mon, Aug 3, 2020 at 6:43 AM Amazon.com wrote:
Hello John,
My name is Courtney X with KDP Executive Customer Relations. Jeff Bezos has received your email and asked that I respond on his behalf. I have reviewed the previous correspondence and been in discussions with the technical department. The only way that this particular file will be ingested is if you rasterize the images to single images to reduce the complexity as they've suggested. I am aware that the file may have had no issues prior to this when uploaded to CreateSpace, but the new specifications will have to be adhered to in order to publish the changes to your book.

If you are unable to make the necessary changes, I would suggest that you recruit the services of someone who is proficient in book formatting to assist you.

Thank you.
Courtney X

Customer Relations Specialist
Kindle Direct Publishing

On Mon, Aug 3, 2020 at 9:38 AM John Huntington .com wrote:
Thanks for your response. It's nice to hear from someone who might be able to help.

Unfortunately, however, your response gave me no further information or clarity. As I detailed in my blog, I already hired an expert, consulted many hundreds of people on various Adobe and KDP forums, and no one knows what Amazon means by the generic term "rasterizing" because Amazon doesn't provide enough detail to make it possible to comply with the Algorithm (Ingram publishes about 40 pages of guidance). And the experts I have consulted with have all said, "They want compliance with PDF/X-1a? That is ancient!". (p.s. I ran through Acrobat Preflight Prepress analysis and confirmed that one of the many files I submitted was compliant with PDF/X-1a--it, of course, was rejected). (p.p.s. There are probably 20 variants of PDF/X-1a--which one should I use?)

Here's a specific way you could really help me. I have about 200 images in the book in at least three different formats. WHICH ONES need to be "rasterized"? Sometimes I got from tech support that the "backgrounds" need to be rasterized. The only "backgrounds" I have are a few grey solid squares. Do those need to be "rasterized"? (If so, please explain to me how to rasterize a grey shaded box.) Amazon has the most powerful computer systems on earth, can't I get a detailed report? Is it 2 graphics or 100 that are offending the system? If the answer is "everything" needs to be rasterized, then it's likely a PDF problem. Adobe Framemaker, which I use to write the book, is built around industry-standard Adobe Acrobat. How about sending me an Acrobat Job Options file? That would give everyone a workable baseline. And what to what specific pre-press standard am I supposed to "rasterize" the graphics? To what graphic format should I convert the hundreds of embedded Illustrator files?

The path forward Amazon is offering me (which is the same path that existed before your email): Convert and re-set 200 or so graphics into...one of many rasterized graphics formats (setting me back years in future editing flexibility). Then, convert that to a PDF into one of about 1000 variants and...maybe it will be accepted, maybe not? Assuming the answer will be no, I have to call in, speak to another helpful but powerless contractor in India, wait a week for tech support to respond and they may just tell me "REJECTED!" again with no guidance. Repeat until forever.

Also, in the big picture all I'm trying to do now is get back to the point before I embarked on this (I thought simple) effort to change 20 words in my book. I can not believe that amongst the recordings of my tech support interactions and shampoo purchases that Amazon doesn't have a backup of the working 2017 file somewhere?

The most frustrating thing is that someone within the Amazon KDP organization knows the answers to these questions, and if they spent a few minutes on this issue they could save me literally hundreds of hours of work and frustration. I believe that the role of human representatives of companies with complex systems is to help customers work through (or around) the rigidity of the system (as a college professor in a large bureaucracy I do this for my students all the time). Can't you at least connect me with a single contact with whom I could work to just get back to where I was? Can't you empathize with me as a human being, acknowledge my frustration with Amazon's byzantine system and throw me a lifeline? Amazon has grossed, by my calculations, over $200k on my book and I feel like they owe me at least that--just so I can get back to where I was a month ago.

John

On Tue, Aug 4, 2020 at 8:33 AM Amazon.com wrote:

Hello John,

Due to the shear number of different programs/applications which are available on the market we cannot provide specific instructions on how to perform specific tasks with all of them. It is for this reason that the formatting of KDP publisher's books are primarily their own responsibility. The only information that I can provide is that the file that you are currently attempting to upload is too complex to successfully be uploaded to KDP and a process of rasterization is proven to resolve this type of issue when it arises.

As a suggestion I would request that you recruit the services of a professional or consult with Adobe Support to request information on how to perform this with their program which you're using.

Thank you. Courtney X

On Mon, Aug 4, 2020 at 9:13 AM John Huntington wrote:
You wrote: Due to the shear number of different programs/applications which are available on the market we cannot provide specific instructions on how to perform specific tasks with all of them.

This is maddening. I DIDN'T ASK FOR HELP ON MY SOFTWARE! I asked Amazon to detail its automated rejection, NOT HOW TO FIX THE ISSUES.

Also, the second thing I asked for was for Amazon to fix the projects in my Bookshelf so I could get to the pricing and other information on my book. That is 100% Amazon's problem and something I have no control over. You didn't even acknowledge that.

You wrote: The only information that I can provide is that the file that you are currently attempting to upload is too complex to successfully be uploaded to KDP and a process of rasterization is proven to resolve this type of issue when it arises.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Rejected" and "too complex" is not enough information!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I asked you a number of specific questions and you did not answer a single one!

You wrote: As a suggestion I would request that you recruit the services of a professional or consult with Adobe Support to request information on how to perform this with their program which you're using.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I HAVE HIRED TOP EXPERTS. THEY ARE BAFFLED. Please stop condescending to me. They and I asked for rejection details. Amazon refuses to give me any, so I'm just supposed to trial and error this for weeks to run through a gauntlet of mysterious and unknowable "complexity" criteria when someone in KDP could just tell me what the criteria are? Why is it my job to figure out WHY AMAZON IS REJECTING MY FILE? Why can't Amazon just give me a PDF Job Options file that would ensure that I'm submitting exactly what Amazon's creaky pre-press system wants?

I also made a number of significant suggestions on ways that Amazon could vastly improve this system but you didn't even acknowledge them.

If there is blood in your veins and not electrons (I'm convinced I could be conversing with a bot) I hope Mr. Bezos is paying you well to ruin other people's livelihoods. Your job now, I guess, is just to get rid of me as a customer, and you're doing a very good job at that.

"Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company."

lol

John

Update 8/11/20:

Well Courtney X just told me to “rasterize” the graphics and kicked me back to regular tech support when I asked them to turn off “Expanded Distribution” for me. It took a few days for them to reach out to the “technical team” and their answer? Even they can not turn off Expanded Distribution unless…I upload a file that can be accepted! Absolutely incredible.

Update January 2021

After learning how to navigate IngramSpark with my new book, Introduction to Show Networking, I took the same PDF file for my older book—the one that Amazon repeatedly rejected—and uploaded it o IngramSpark. They accepted the file with no problem! I tried one last time to get my ISBN back from Amazon, but to no avail. I got the cover updated and ordered a proof and the print quality from Ingram is just as good as anything KDP ever did. So, with a bit more work I am now abandoning KDP completely. More info here.

Amazon to Self Publishers: Drop Dead Or: How I Got Stuck in Kindle Direct Publishing Purgatory