Hi All,

 

Since we're talking about Amazon a lot lately, I just came across Selena Kitt's blog. I heard about this but hadn't checked it out so now I'm sharing it here. I found it very interesting and it shows things authors should be aware of if they do decide to publish with the big A.

 

http://theselfpublishingrevolution.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazon-in-b...

 

Best Wishes!

http://www.stacy-deanne.net

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Oh and about that thing Amazon can do about removing books people have already purchased, this is one of the main reasons I got a Sony Reader. Didn't wanna deal with Amazon yanking ebooks I've paid for.

They promised never to do that again. (How ironic they yanked 1984 though.) I tend to believe them. Their rep would be totally shot if they ever did again.

I’m a bit naïve to the whole ebook thing.  Can Amazon pull a book from your Kindle once you purchased it, and did they really yank Orwell’s 1984 at one point?  Good old George must be shaking his head in his grave.  Talk about one’s predilections coming true.  That’s crazy. cj

Yes, they can and did wipe the book from tens of thousands of Kindles, and it really was 1984. Truth is stranger than fiction as they say.

I have a dim memory of that and may be wrong.  Wasn't it due to the fact that there were copyright issues???

Yup.  They were pirated copies.  Frankly, if they took one of my books without permission and sold copies, I'd also want those removed.  This was a salutary lesson to all those who think they can make money from anything in print. Amazon at least corrected the situation.  Google took my books and refused to take them down.  They had to be sued to stop pirating.  To this day I haven't received the pityful amount of $ 60.00 per book, and I believe sections of both books are still up, including one that gives away the solution of the mystery.

So let me get this straight.  Google copied your book, posted it on their site, sold many copies of a pirated version, got successfully sued by you, refused to pay you back, and they still have it posted there? Those bastards.  We should show no mercy for crime book criminals.

I think the plan was to make the books available for free. The 60.00 is the punitive damage amount that the Authors group agreed to (without my input). I haven't checked lately.  No idea if they are still up.  I formally objected to this use of my books a few years ago.  Mind you, they copy only about a third of the book, but as I said, in the case of one of them that included the solution to the crime.

Wow!  That’s wrong on so many levels.  The future equivalent of mass book burnings will look something like this.  It’s scary.  cj

Sorry, I can't get riled up over some perceived violation of an author's rights who produces erotic fiction about incest.

More power to Amazon!

I look at it like this, is it anything Amazon finds offensive? Just anything they wanna say is offensive but not spell it out? I guess so. That's what raises my eyebrows. What if they just start deciding what is offensive outside of erotica? Course it's their choice but this could have easily been a crime book or mystery novel. What if a mystery author has written some gruesome crime book that has nothing to do with incest, sex or whatever but because it's "violent" they wanna say it's offensive and yank it? That wouldn't be fair either.

It's not just the genre of this particular book, it's about Amazon obviously not being clear on what they find offensive and that is something people should really think about when they are publishing with them. It might be erotica today, could be a religious book tomorrow, a detective book, romance, etc. To me it's how they did it and the author clearly said that "she wasn't aware".

They should be clear on what is offensive and what is not. I don't read what Selena writes either but to me, it's the bigger picture that's worrisome. It could happen to any writer of any genre and next time it might.

 

Best Wishes!

I read more of the comments and someone mentioned "Lolita" and "American Psycho" two of the books I was thinking of. American Psycho for instance, what if Amazon decides next time they don't wanna sell books where the protagonist is the villain or killer? Now that would screw a lot of crime writers right there, for example. Things like this effects every writer no matter the genre.

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