Why Did eBay Remove my eBook?

You have written your very 1st eBook, you have created a killer sales page and you list your eBook on eBay. Your eBook starts to sell and your excitement builds at the prospect of 100s of dollars in your PayPal account, then bang! EBay end your auction for a violation of terms. Now you feel like giving up.

The 1st thing is not to panic as this happens a lot. I have had many listings ended over the years for silly policy violations. Anyone who has been a subscriber of mine for a long time will remember I had my $10,000 auction eBook ended when I had only sold half of my inventory. The reason eBay ended my auction was because I said I accept 'cash at your own risk'. This is a big no no with eBay but at the time I never realised it.

Anyway, this has got me thinking of the most common reasons eBay will pull one of your eBook auctions.

1. Wrong, category. EBooks must be listed in the Everything else > Information products category. List them anywhere else and eBay will eventually catch up with you and remove the offending item(s).

2. Not stating you are the copyright holder. If you have created your own eBook you are the copyright holder and you must let eBay know this in your listing. Just a simple statement at the end of your auction, something like "Note to eBay staff, I am the copyright holder of this item" will do.

3. Not stating you are licensed to sell the eBook you are selling. ebay.com's downloadable media policy states you must be the owner (copyright holder) or authorized to distribute the downloadable product by the intellectual property owner. (This means you have resale rights)

You should let eBay know this in your listing(s) so it's best to state something along the lines of "Note to eBay staff, I am licensed to sell this product". You can also use the following statement if the material used is from the public domain (freely available) "Note to eBay staff, the underlying material is in the public domain".

4. Misleading title. Make sure your title accurately describes the item you are selling and does not mislead. EG, 'Make a million dollars in a day' is a misleading title.

5. Keyword and trademark violation. Try to avoid using keywords that are not related to the product you are selling. EG, If you were selling a weight loss eBook don't include the names of famous diet plans. This can also apply to the trademark violation rule.

6. Selling a lot of 1p/1c eBooks. If you sell only 1 cent eBooks you will eventually get suspended, eBay don't like it as it is seen as feedback solicitation. The same goes for buying nothing but 1 cent eBooks. You will end up suspended so don't risk your account. If you want proof just look at the 'no longer a registered user' in the feedback profile of any 1 cent seller. Unless you want to join them don't do it.

7. Selling copyrighted material. This goes without saying. If you have any doubts about an eBook don't sell it. Always double check any eBooks you sell actually have resale rights and can be sold on eBay.

I could go on but from emails I receive from fellow eBook sellers the above reasons seem to be the most common. Just remember that there is never a guarantee your listings will never be ended as there are so many eBay policies and in fact the rules differ slightly for each country.

So what should I do if eBay end one of my auctions?

The most important thing is you shouldn't relist the offending item till you clear things up with eBay 1st. Find out why eBay have ended your item, this may take time as eBay usually send pre-written responses and it can sometimes take 2-3 emails to get a proper answer. Just don't give up and you will get to the root of the problem.

Also try and keep things polite as the person at the other end is not the person who ended your listing so there is no need to have a go at them. Once you find out why your listing was ended make adjustments to your sales page and and get the all clear from eBay. This is crucial, just get eBay to check out your sales page and let you know if everything is ok.

I usually just re-list the offending item that I have corrected and contact customer support to get the all clear. Once you get the go ahead you are free to re-list and this also keeps you in eBay's good books as they can see you are making an effort not to break their rules.

I know getting listings ended can be very frustrating and believe me I have been there but at the end of the day we have to abide by eBay's rules and as long as you correct any violations when notified by eBay you should have no further problems.