Writing & Publishing Bestselling Books by 22 Lions Publishing - HTML preview

Chapter 14: The Dark Side of the

Book Industry

After more than two decades publishing thousands of titles through virtually every major ebook aggregator, print-on-demand service, and distribution platform, we’ve reached an uncomfortable but undeniable conclusion: there is not a single reliable, competent, and ethical company in the entire self-publishing and book distribution ecosystem.

We’ve worked with KDP (Amazon), Kobo Writing Life, Draft2Digital, Smashwords (now merged with D2D), PublishDrive, StreetLib, MyBestseller.com, ElevenReader (ElevenLabs), IngramSpark, Lightning Source, Barnes & Noble Press, Google Play Books, and many smaller players. Every single one — without exception — has shown serious flaws ranging from incompetence and theft to outright racism and prejudice. Here are the hard truths we’ve learned the hard way:

Amazon KDP – Arbitrary Account Terminations Without Proof: Amazon KDP has terminated our entire publishing account multiple times – most recently just yesterday (December 2025) – each time claiming that 22 Lions does not own the rights to one single book we ourselves published and have held the copyrights to for years.

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Every accusation coming from Amazon picks a different title, but the pattern is always the same: a single, completely baseless copyright complaint triggers the immediate and permanent termination of the whole account – wiping out over 1,000 legitimately published titles in one click. No investigation. No request for proof of ownership (which we have in abundance). No meaningful appeal process.

Amazon’s policy is clear: one unverified, often malicious or mistaken complaint about one book equals total destruction of your entire catalog and livelihood, no questions asked and no way back.

Every single copyright accusation Amazon has ever leveled against us was 100% false – provably, laughably false. The most infuriating example: a plagiarist stole one of our books word-for-word, uploaded it under their own name, and Amazon’s brilliant response was to terminate our legitimate account (the original rights holder) while leaving the stolen copy live and for sale. They never bothered to check publication dates – a 30-second task that would have instantly revealed who the real thief was.

They never asked for copyright certificates, original manuscripts, or any of the ironclad proof we keep on file. No human review. No phone call. No warning. Just an automated termination email: over 1,000 legitimate titles wiped out overnight because Amazon’s team apparently decided – without evidence or investigation – that an account operating from outside the United States must be the guilty party. The bias is blatant, consistent, and unforgivable.

Amazon KDP doesn’t protect authors from plagiarism. It actively rewards plagiarists – especially when they are based in the United States –, and destroys the real creators – especially when those creators aren’t based in the U.S.

Appeals are ignored or answered with copy-paste responses. Once they decide to pull the trigger, the account is dead forever – no matter how much proof you provide later. This is not an isolated mistake; it has happened to us repeatedly over the years, always on baseless or easily disproven copyright complaints.

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Amazon KDP operates a guilty-until-proven-innocent system where the punishment is instant and irreversible, and the burden of proof is effectively impossible to meet because they simply stop responding. In short: Amazon KDP will destroy your entire publishing business in seconds over false accusations and refuse to even look at evidence that you own your own work.

Kobo Writing Life – Ghosting Publishers They Don’t Like: Accused us of not owning rights to books we ourselves published. Zero response to emails, zero chance to fix anything. Account terminated, end of story.

Draft2Digital – The Absolute Worst Offender: Theft, Abuse, and a Year-Long Royalties Heist. Draft2Digital (D2D) isn't just unreliable—it's a predatory machine designed to exploit authors, especially non-U.S. ones. We terminated our partnership after they locked us out of our account for daring to question their shady distribution restrictions (like arbitrarily blocking sales channels without explanation). What followed was a masterclass in corporate malice.

Their support team didn't just ignore us—they laughed at us over the phone when we called to resolve the issue, mocking our concerns like petulant children. Zero empathy, zero professionalism. This isn't customer service; it's outright hostility toward creators who challenge their opacity.

But the real theft? They kept our entire catalog live for a full year, raking in royalties from ongoing sales while denying us access or a single penny. Hundreds of our titles—books we'd poured heart and soul into—continued generating revenue that lined their pockets. We're talking thousands in withheld earnings, all while they pretended we didn't exist.

Emails went unanswered. Appeals were stonewalled. It took hiring a lawyer and threatening a full lawsuit for them to finally cough up the money and release our books. Even then, no apology—just the bare minimum to avoid court.

This isn't a one-off glitch; it's D2D's playbook. Their Trustpilot page is a graveyard of similar stories: 83% negative reviews from authors worldwide reporting stolen royalties, account bans, and racist dismissals. One employee, Tara Robinett (Director of Customer Support & Operations at Draft2Digital), even bragged in responses about destroying more lives in the future—chilling proof of their toxic culture.

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The Smashwords merger only made it worse: a once-decent aggregator sold out to D2D's corruption, turning it into another bag of trash. CEO Mark Coker handed over his competitive edge to these mental retards, dooming both platforms. D2D is like the KKK of the book publishing industry for good reason —their prejudice against international voices is blatant and systemic. D2D robs you blind, laughs in your face, and hides behind "policies" to justify it all. Skip the so-called YouTube "experts" shilling them—they're enablers of this evil. Go direct or hybrid; anything but this nightmare.

Smashwords lost all credibility the day it merged with D2D — we immediately closed our account to avoid the same treatment.

PublishDrive – Stagnant Sales Despite 10× Growth: We uploaded nearly 2,000 additional titles and audiobooks over the years. Result? Exactly the same monthly revenue as 10 years ago. Staff assigns irrelevant categories, ignores author input, and paradoxically recommends using AI for editing while rejecting books that trigger their (often wrong) AI detectors.

StreetLib – Childish Retaliation and Endless Delays: Books sit undistributed for weeks. When we complained to the CEO about professionalism, staff retaliated by demanding individual copyright proof for every single title as punishment.

ElevenReader (ElevenLabs) – Blatant Prejudice and Endless Excuses: A Textbook Case of Moving Goalposts. ElevenReader, powered by ElevenLabs, started strong: they eagerly approved our Portuguese and Spanish translations of bestselling titles, which quickly climbed to the top of their newly launched platform's charts – earning unanimous 5-star reviews from readers. Weeks later, they begged our CEO for an exclusive interview, hyping our dominance as "the top-selling titles" that proved their platform's potential. Then, out of nowhere, rejection emails flooded in for the original English versions – the very books those translations were based on.

We provided irrefutable proof: timestamps, original files, and publication records showing the English editions predated everything else by years. Their response? Suddenly, the translations (professionally handled by native-speaking university professors) were riddled with "errors." No specifics, no examples – just vague claims we debunked point-by-point with side-by-side comparisons.

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When that flimsy excuse crumbled, they pivoted again: "AI-generated content detected." We countered with screenshots from the world's top 10 AI detectors (including Originality.ai, GPTZero, and Copyleaks), all scoring our books 100% human-written. Still, no dice. They doubled down, insisting their "superior" (but unnamed) tools knew better – despite zero evidence or transparency.

Exposed lie by lie, their final move? Full account termination without a single apology or explanation. This, mere weeks after the interview pitch, from a team that had positioned our success as their own. The prejudice here isn't subtle: it reeks of bias against non-US publishers. Yet U.S.-based accounts peddling admitted plagiarism sail through unchecked. ElevenReader doesn't just reject books; it rejects creators who don't fit their narrow, bigoted worldview. This isn't support – it's sabotage.

MyBestseller.com and Other EU Platforms – Open Racism: Insulted and banned our team members simply for uploading from IPs in Croatia (an EU country), and the Philippines.

Google Play Books – Rigged Algorithms and Discrimination: Sales numbers that mathematically don’t add up. Whether a book sells for $0.10 or $9, the monthly payout stays identical — as if they pre-determine what each publisher “deserves.” Adding 10 or even 50 extra categories changes nothing. Publishers from “undesirable territories” are still denied free AI audiobook narration tools given to authors in other countries — discrimination that has lasted years.

Barnes & Noble Press: Claims zero sales for over a decade on many titles. Their system either doesn’t work or doesn’t report accurately. Publishing ebooks there is essentially free advertising for readers — little to no revenue for authors.

Lightning Source: Prohibitively high costs with zero sales guarantees.

IngramSpark – The Only Semi-Tolerable Option: Wildly fluctuating monthly revenue (thousands one month, zero the next), but still the highest royalties and the best POD system for direct-to-reader sales when you control distribution yourself.

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The Only Real Solution We’ve Found After 20 Years? Sell directly from your own website! Margins are 3–5× higher than any aggregator. Readers overwhelmingly prefer signed paperback copies anyway. Be transparent about shipping times and costs to every country — we regularly ship to Australia, South Africa, Germany, and beyond with zero issues. Hundreds of direct paperback sales prove customers are happy to wait a few extra days for the real book from the real author.

The book distribution industry is broken beyond repair. Too many companies are run by incompetent, prejudiced, or outright dishonest people hiding behind automated systems and vague “policy violations.” Trustpilot is full of similar horror stories — the few that slip through before being deleted.

To every author reading this: Stop believing the fairy tales these platforms sell you. Protect your rights, your income, and your sanity. Build your own audience and sell directly whenever possible. The aggregator dream turned out to be a nightmare dressed in marketing copy.

The industry is evolving — new honest players may eventually appear — but as of 2025, the dark side dominates. Proceed with extreme caution.

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