Hello Chris,
I am sorry to bother you, but I am writing to you to ask for help. Something really strange has happened to me.
I am selling my book on Amazon ONLY.
Two days ago I found my book on lots of different internet book selling pages, which I have never heard of before. I did not upload it there. Who did? Is somebody pretending she/he is me?
I also saw all my books in all formats for free download. Accompanied by a really horrible article about the importance of reading, supplied with lots of grammatical mistakes.
I asked Amazon if they own these pages. Amazon replied was this:
Please note that CreateSpace is not affiliated in any way with the websites mentioned in your message. I recommend contacting them directly to acquire additional information. I apologize that we are not able to assist you further. You may also contact your attorney if the websites doesn’t remove your work from their website.
But then I found this article in The Guardian.
I do not know what to think.
I contacted all the internet bookshops where I found my book and asked them to explain and to tell me who uploaded my book there. I am waiting for the answer.
I still can not believe that somebody could upload my pdf to some book shop and pretend he/she wrote the book. Terrifying thing is that it would actually be easy. In the time of internet, nicknames, . .
The only people I send pdf, mobi file or ePub (depends what they wanted) were my reviewers. I was also working for a short time with a different (and not very reliable) designer.
I would be happy if you could write me what you think about this. Thank you!
Iva Vyšohlídová
Czech Republic
PS – here are the links to the pages I was talking about:
WARNING from TSRA
I will not embed the links, but here are the sites FYI ONLY
Do NOT attempt to access them
bookdepository(.com)
whitcoulls(.co.nz)
bokus(.com)
bookutopia(.com.au)
msgeocachers(.com)
and more.
Here are the ones for free download (I did not write the article):
They even have Word file???
Be careful, these pages look like a kind of virus.
google(.com)/site/lcugcllo
google(.com)/site/mjicvoea
google(.com)/site/aaplgas
Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog 
Reblogged this on Die Erste Eslarner Zeitung – Aus und über Eslarn, sowie die bayerisch-tschechische Region!.
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Reblogged this on theowlladyblog.
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I gave up counting the number of sites my books have been uploaded to without my consent. This piracy is so pervasive, it makes one wonder if anything can be done to stop it. As soon as one site is taken down, another one goes up. Definitely the down side of the Internet. Short of hiring Big Brother and the Internet Police, we’ll either have to get famous fast or just live with it.
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The Book Despository was listing my books years ago but when I clicked on them to order they claimed they were out of print. Whist I welcomed their apparent promoting my stuff, this misinformation was likely to have done more harm than good. I guess all this discussion means we need to read the fine print before we upload to any site, and keep monitoring to see where our books are on sale.
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We’re learning more with all these comments – Thanks Barb 😃
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Reblogged this on HarsH ReaLiTy and commented:
This has been happening to many people. I don’t even have a book I am selling and yet people are “creating books” with my blog content in them to mooch off my SEO site value. They know exactly what they are doing and these people are vultures and thieves. There is also very little that can be done without a lawyer and some major motivation. Spreading the word is a good start though. -OM
Note: Comments disabled here, please visit their blog.
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It happens a lot. It happens to ME and I don’t even have a book I am selling. They grab my blog posts and create ebooks with them so they can use my site SEO… it is really annoying.
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That’s a new one on me Jason…
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It has been happening for nearly two years now man. I gave up trying to fight it….
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All very nice comments, But what can we do against it? Take it as it is. I am happy that my books are everywhere. They are seen and that, for new authors, is the main thing, Right?
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Sure Gigi.
Just I like having things under control. I saw my book on Fishpond.co.nz and asked them who is the supplier of my book. As Amazon suggested me to ask them. They replied that due to the privacy act, they are unable to release this information and provide me with their suppliers details. Which seems a bit weird to me.
Some others did not have trouble to write me the supplier. For example Whitcoulls wrote me that my books are on their site via their US wholesalers data feed – Ingrams.
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Thanks for sharing! I’ll share too… 🙂
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