Amazon KDP has spent the past few weeks doing its best to convince me there are no humans left who work there.

Then a fellow author and moderator from the Facebook group, We Love Memoirs, restored my faith in humanity. I won’t name her (in case she doesn’t want an unexpected influx of requests from other authors like me desperate for help), so let’s just call her…

the Sanctified Patroness of Writers One Automated Reply from Madness.

After KDP abruptly terminated my account and removed my memoir, I Wore the Names, claiming my identity couldn’t be verified even though KDP had already confirmed in writing that I’d passed verification, she didn’t just tell me she was sorry. She actually tried to help.

This virtual stranger, dare I say, the Mediatrix of Baby Authors Forsaken by the Help Desk, contacted KDP through chat more than once, explained the whole mess, followed up when the first attempt went nowhere, wrote to them on my behalf, copied me into the conversation, and asked them to please find a real human who could review what had happened to me.

She even gave me advice about other ways to distribute my book, because apparently she wasn’t satisfied with merely being kind. She also had to be useful.

And she did all of this for a debut author she’d never met, while also getting ready to travel.

My KDP account still hasn’t been restored, so the bureaucratic nightmare continues. Naturally. But this whole disaster did give me something I wasn’t expecting: my first real connection with another writer.

When I started putting my work out into the world, I hoped I’d meet people who understood how strange and vulnerable this whole process can be. Instead, I mostly met algorithms, automated replies, and emails that answered every question except the one I’d asked.

The strange part is that I’d broken one of WLM’s rules by using a hashtag in a comment. It’s something moderators deal with a lot, I’m sure. Something that is likely incredibly frustrating for them, especially when they post their rules just about everywhere.

(In my defense, I’d just copied and pasted my comment from my personal page to let people know why my book had suddenly disappeared. But I could’ve done the bare minimum of checking the rules again before leaving the hashtag in.)

Enter the Merciful Protectress of Minor Hashtag Offenders; a person who saw me struggling and decided to step in.

Because instead of simply deleting my comment, as she easily could’ve done, she reached out. Not to scold me for breaking the rules, but to offer her assistance.

Honestly, that one act might seem small. I might sound joking when I call her these names, but I only joke when I’m hiding something more serious.

She would’ve been completely within her rights to delete my comment, but in that moment, I don’t know how I would’ve taken that small rejection. Even though the rule was posted, I didn’t know I’d broken it. With my first ever book already taken down for no good reason, that small rejection would’ve landed like a blow.

It reminded me that we never really know what someone else is carrying, and a small act of kindness can go a long way toward helping someone who is already struggling.

My memoir is deeply personal, and it took a lot for me to share it. Seeing that “termination” notice on my account sent me spiraling into despair. Knowing that someone out there cared enough to help helped stop that spiral.

So, to the We Love Memoirs moderator currently wearing an invisible cape: thank you. You made a new author feel a lot less alone.

If you love memoirs, please consider joining We Love Memoirs on Facebook or Goodreads. I’ll link both below.

I’m also including the best purchase link I currently have for my book. It should also appear through some online retailers, though it’ll cost more there than it did on Amazon. I still hope to get the book back on that platform. But I’m still waiting on that response from KDP, so fingers crossed an actual human answers!

Amazon KDP may still be searching for a human being to hire, but I found a real one.

Stay tuned, y’all.

inspo: KDP’s bureaucratic nightmare // one woman across the world proving there are still actual humans on the interwebs // wanting to exploit my love of making up incredibly detailed and entirely ridiculous names // seeing this prompt and immediately knowing my answer, mostly

Kinsey Keys

aspiring memoirist rummaging through my noggin, stubbornly clutching the past to my chest like it’s a newborn babe starved for mother's milk.

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