4/29/2024 Update: Amazon reached out to me earlier today to notify me that the reported content listed in this article has been removed. I still have some lingering questions such as what is happening to the rest of the titles this thief has stolen and resold (I haven’t had a spare moment to check on this.) Also, I was swatted a couple months ago and my title was taken down, but unlike this situation, they never told me who was accusing me. However Amazon noted that my personal information was forwarded to the party I reported. I find it very strange that they applied one rule to me, but another to them. I’ve been vindicated and it’s clear this person reused my work along with many thousands of others. How is this at all legal or fair?
I just came across an unauthorized copy of my work, The Art Nouveau Coloring Book: Hats, Cats, & Vintage Romance which is sold on Amazon, now being sold by a third-party independent seller on Amazon. This unauthorized version is listed as being spiral bound. Please note that while I would love to provide a spiral bound version of this title (I would do this in a heartbeat along with perforated pages if it ever were a choice,) I started with Amazon KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) which does not offer this is a current option.
For the time being, I have called Amazon KDP and was told that this wasn’t their issue, which unfortunately for those that know my stumbling blocks has become an expected response. They told me that I needed to reach out to a separate Amazon copyright reporting team and to report my issue there. Then I had to file a report, which immediately came back as rejected, insert a code from an email that I received and report all of this again.
Now, there’s a background story to all of this in which I was falsely swatted for copyright infringement just over a month ago. Amazon Content suggested that there was something wrong with the cover and wouldn’t tell me what it was, and told me the quickest way to get my book listed again was to resubmit my book with a different cover. Problem was, I never did anything wrong. Secondly, I read horror stories on the web in which other authors supposedly waited weeks and months to have their titles reinstated, sometimes costing them thousands in attorney fees. I refused to follow what most authors would do and made a huge social media stink about their practice.
I suggested to the Amazon Executive Team that they revise their copyright reporting system as it was ripe for false reporting. Some of the suggestions included asking for links as to where original materials could be located (check—now implemente,) where the offending material could be located (check—implemented,) and additional contact information to help prevent abuse (check—implemented.)
The irony is that I now just had to face the very same thing while reporting this latest incident that I argued Amazon Content to put in place in order to prevent further reporting abuse. I ended up creating more work for myself. But with a pat on my own back, those suggestions will save Amazon tens of millions each year in reduced manpower. Too bad I probably won’t see any of this.
Anyways, getting back to the topic:
If you have made this purchase by an unauthorized third party seller, unfortunately it’s something you will have to reach out to Amazon Customer Service in order to discuss as I am not allowed to speak on anyone else’s direct behalf. I would typically be glad to help out, but I’ve tried on a few rare occasions beforehand and didn’t get anywhere. I would add that Amazon tends to compartmentalize every department, and there’s an enormous amount of red tape or firewalls of communications between their moving components making it challenging (for a better word) to navigate.
Unless of course someone at Amazon KDP or one of their printers stole the original PDF files for resale, any copy beyond what I officially sell is most likely a poor-quality illegal scan of my original work. I would assume that whoever is running this operation (here’s looking at you, “Personalized JoyCrafts”) had to cut out each page and rescan them all in. I’m also not about to waste $18.99 (their listing) to try to find out if it’s a direct lift from an unauthorized PDF that was internally and illegally released.
For the record, I saw this “spiralization” happening to other books on Amazon but I didn’t realize until now that it was being allowed by them through unauthorized third parties.
As for how Amazon works, let me try to briefly explain:
- Amazon KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) is one division of Amazon. I believe it goes back to 2009. They handle both digital Kindle releases but also have a “convenient” platform for releasing paperback books. This is who I started off with using for the sake of simplicity.
- Amazon Content Team is their reporting division. They are very insular and often secretive for legal reasons. Very little communication ever occurs between them and even Amazon KDP or other departments. As an author, you also very rarely hear anything from within their department. You can trust me on this one. Because of their intentional secrecy, the alarming part is that they can almost choose what to do or not to do and according to some, even refuse to sell your books without providing any justification. So it’s a department people are afraid to mess with good reason. Simply by my posting this, I risk potential retribution and it’s very worrying.
- Amazon Retail is their direct to customer division. This is where you buy things. This division has nothing to do with what I sell through KDP. If there’s a problem with a book from a consumer’s end, KDP they will tell us to contact Amazon Retail instead. Then Amazon Retail will tell us KDP authors to tell the original buyer to contact them as they can’t speak to us on their behalf. See how that works? I can’t even argue on a buyer’s behalf, which is both convenient and frankly annoying. The best part is that sometimes I’ve seen people get upset when in fact it’s nothing to do with the seller/author, and they leave a negative review when in fact the responsibility lies at Amazon Retail’s feet instead.
- Third party sellers. This is most companies and people selling outside of Amazon KDP. It also includes other, non-KDP books and publishers. This is also the where the organization is selling the “spiral bound” copy of my book. KDP won’t talk to Content Review or Retail. Content Review won’t talk to KDP, Retail, or the KDP Author. KDP sometimes recommends talking to Retail, but Retail won’t talk to the KDP Author, KDP, or Content Review. Now for the sake of going insane, throw on that an additional layer of clusterf*—the icing on the cake. The third party. Now, try to reach them.
Now you can probably see how ineffective a large organization can be. Plus, let’s face it. People don’t want to do any actual work most of the time. Who can blame them?
Enter the SoundCloud book smuggling connections:
To make things even stranger, if you read my previous post, there’s thousands of links on SoundCloud to illegally download books, including well over two dozen links back to titles which I had reported to SoundCloud for copyright infringement. Is there a connection? I’d say yes. In order for people to go through the major hassle of listing tens of thousands of books repeatedly (and I do believe it’s manual) only to have their accounts banned then bothering to re-list those titles again, it has to make some financial sense. It’s an awful lot of effort so something must be working otherwise they wouldn’t bother. It also only takes a few people to fall victim to having their credit cards stolen out of tens of thousands that would be wary in order for a scam such as this to be financially worthwhile.
The reason I speculate their actions are manual is that I had to repeatedly report those listings for all four books over the course of several months. It happened to me about 50 times in total. Now when I search for my books, they have completely disappeared. I think they finally got the hint to avoid my books.
When I first approached SoundCloud, they told me (via email) that it was somehow my responsibility and not theirs to report illegal materials I’ve noticed on THEIR website. Victim blaming much? Yes. And don’t get me wrong, I actually love SoundCloud but this sort of thing shouldn’t be happening in the first place and it’s something they should remedy.
I’ve ended up fixing my own titles on SoundCloud and even created my own Hello Charlie Coloring Books SoundCloud page as a result to maybe help combat future abuse, but there’s still tens of thousands of other artists/authors works being listed on SC and I can’t spend my energy advocating for them.
Back to my current copyright drama:
In the meantime, I have to sit and wait for a separate Content Team department to review this third-party unauthorized seller listing of my work. I’m more concerned to be honest that it’s possibly diluting my search engine rankings both within and outside of Amazon search results. Duplicate content can really penalize a product’s position on the Internet as well as overall sales.
Oh, and did I not mention the unauthorized copies of my books being sold through third parties on eBay? That’s a different story for a different day, but it’s very similar in nature.
I’m just so tired of this. It’s been so much work and honestly little to show for it other than at least seeing other people gain some enjoyment out of these books, which is the brighter side of things. Who knew making and selling books would be so much work, and presently unprofitable even with a best selling coloring book.
