The underside of what I'm doing is the fear that somehow, someday I've run afoul of one of the zon's rules. A friend of mine got her account suspended because she'd had another account. Is that all it takes? Lots of people have or at least use two accounts. Am I then not allowed to operate out of two different log-ins?

I'll admit that's probably a way of gaming the system, and it's a way I've never done, pretty much. I considered it, but never did it. And it's probable that lots of people use that system one way or the other. And, I don't really know the rules. I've never read them completely.

It could be that they target people who are prominent, who move in lots of social circles, so that when they cancel their account everyone knows about it. It could be that after a week or so on the phone, they'll put your account back in the running. I have no idea how they do it. I'm terrified of it, of course. My account, with its measly 27 books and income of about $20 or $30 a month, could be endangered.

For the most part I've gotten all my reviews legitimately. The zon sometimes wants to know if I'll review my own (since I've read them), but I always politely decline. Of course I am one of my own best customers - I always read my own work on kindle, because I always want to know how it comes out. I long ago let myself do that, because it was pretty obvious the zon didn't care.

So you get to read your own work. And you get to buy it too - lots of people do that. Here they set up an "author's price" - buy it cheap, but then they charge you up the yinyang for postage, so by the time it's done it's cheaper to just buy it. You get it faster, and you get the ratings jump, and you get some of the royalties back eventually. It's a way of investing, or hiding, money. You put it into your own books, and eventually you can turn those into money.

hope the zon's not too worried about that.