Forum: Author Hangout

Need info on the several sites: Which are legit?

Vincent Berg 🚫

Amazon, after holding a book hostage for the last week, has just BANNED a book I've been publishing through them since 2012, but they haven't bothered to notify me, alert me that there's a conflict or even ask me to verify that it's MY book.

Given that complete lack of info, I started searching and found my books on several sites I know nothing about:
1) fictionDB - I suspect this is an outlet that Smashwords feeds content too, mostly because they have incomplete information on OLD copies of my book (after SW deleted my account after I complained about service to an operator, and they CONTINUED selling the books ever since).
2) idefix - I suspect this is an international library service, probably linked to one of my various services
3) baigiangphatphap - This too appears to be a library service, but I can't find anything about it (Google simply returns dozens of book listings)
4) pinpdf - I can't even figure out this service, as they DON'T seem to offer, sell or market books, simply listing them. But again, I have no clue WHERE they get their books from.

Clearly, Amazon has NO interest in checking with me, or even INFORMING me who's stealing my books, but these were the only ones I DON'T recognize.

D2D and SW both have several library services, so I'll have to validate each one they operate through, however those sometimes have secondary sites, so tracking them all down is difficult. :(

Replies: Ernest Bywater

Ernest Bywater 🚫

@Vincent Berg

Number (1) seems to be a site a lot like Goodreads, based on its home page. The other three seem to be country based library services in Turkish, Thai, and German. Not sure if their feed is D2D or Amazon or SW or anyone else.

I do know that Amazon does feed a lot of other e-book sellers as, in the past, I was able to run a check of what odd sellers were selling my book Rough Diamond which Amazon had been selling without my permission then due to a different quality and font in the cover art. However, since I put the book up on D2D it's turned up in a heck of a lot of places, but not generated much income for me via D2D. While what is there is still up I no longer update D2D or post new stuff to it.

Replies: Vincent Berg

Vincent Berg 🚫

@Ernest Bywater

Not sure if their feed is D2D or Amazon or SW or anyone else.

Amazon has no distribution deals with anyone else (i.e. they don't feed anyone else their books, but they accept them (sometimes) from other sources). Or they're not supposed to, but if recall correctly from past conversations, your book got onto Amazon from another source, so that's probably how your book got cross-posted.

I also checked SW and D2D, but they don't list any of those sites, so again, I'm guessing that one library service feeds books to others, so there's really no way to track who ends up with your books. :(

FictionDB is my known problem site, as the screwed up entries were because SW decided to be jerks and deleted my contract, meaning all those books are orphaned and any sites selling the products (and SW) get keep selling but I earn NO money, and they also can't get updates or new copies.

I guess I'll need to register a 'take down' notice for the out-of-print SW books.

But D2D has been going hot and heavy with new library services, so they're likely to outlet responsible. So far, all those links seem legit, so I can't figure out who Amazon is having a snit fit about (since they won't talk to me about it)! I'll have to check again to see which books each one has, as that will explain whether they're coming from SW or D2D.

Replies: Ernest Bywater

Ernest Bywater 🚫

@Vincent Berg

Amazon has no distribution deals with anyone else (i.e. they don't feed anyone else their books, but they accept them (sometimes) from other sources). Or they're not supposed to, but if recall correctly from past conversations, your book got onto Amazon from another source, so that's probably how your book got cross-posted.

I know how the book got to Amazon when it wasn't supposed to, I even pulled it but Amazon keeps it up. It was a database mistake which has since been fixed. However, Amazon has a list of other distributors it part owns, owns outright, or has arrangements with who they share their books with for distribution by them which is why the Amazon Terms of Service include in 5.5 Grant of Rights - You grant to each Amazon party, throughout the term of this Agreement, a nonexclusive, irrevocable, right and license to distribute Digital Books, directly and through third-party distributors, in all digital formats by all digital distribution means available.

Note the section I bolded in the italics of the quote of their ToS.

Amazon own ABE Books who have agreements with eBay, Half.com, B&N, BibliOZ.com, JustBooks GmbH, Book Finder.Com, a 40% stake in Library Thing. Also Amazon own a dozen or so publishing houses as well as many other book distribution services around the world. They have so many fingers in so many pies it's hard to follow them all. Then you have the many companies they have agreements with.

Dinsdale 🚫

pinpdf appears to be a site where people can upload information to an "open cloud". Anything uploaded there - and you would need an account - can be accessed by anyone.
They appear to be based in or near Frankfurt in Germany but their users are worldwide with a large proportion being in India. I can't see that people can charge for documents there but you can test that by trying to read your own work. They have a decent search facility, probably based on Author / Title
It looks to me as though someone is file-sharing your book for free, although I suspect that they would amenable to a takedown notice.

baigiangphatphap is nominally based around free access to ebooks but the Search facility appears to take you to a semi-random external site and my one attempt to download a pdf also ended in failure. They may possibly be based in the Netherlands. I could not even find an address to send a takedown to - illegal under EU law I believe.

idefix is definitely Turkish, I suspect it is a local Amazon competitor rather than an affiliate.

Replies: Vincent Berg

Vincent Berg 🚫

@Dinsdale

Good. So I can at least send takedown notices to pindpf. That's at least a start.

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Forum: Author Hangout

Need info on the several sites: Which are legit?

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