Editio Self-Publishing discussion

I'm wondering if anyone has had any problems with their books being illegally distributed? I recently found my book, Into the Deep, on a number of sites being given away without my permission. I contacted all the sites and have requested to have my books removed, but does anyone know a way to keep this from happening in the first place?

There is no surefire way. However, there is one thing to avoid in my opinion...Smashwords. They provide no copy-protection and from what I've seen, most books that get published there end up on the two biggest book piracy sites.

I did a test run a while back, after seeing a lot of questionable information in Smashwords' documentation. I put out my novels via Amazon, but put out another book under a pseudonym on Smashwords. 48hrs later the Smashwords one had a single sale and was on the pirate sites. 1.5 years later, the novel from Amazon isn't.

Not saying it's 100% a cause and effect, but it's my advice. :)

I've heard similar things about Smashwords as well, but my book is soely on Amazon, so while the pirates may be more prevalant on Smashwords they're on Amazon as well. Still, I think that's good advice and I don't think I'll be posting my book on Smashwords anytime soon.

After posting this I was able to get in contact with all of these sites and have my book removed, it's just a frustrating process to go about e-mailing all of them knowing that damage has already been done.

Yep. Sounds like you got luckier than most. Some of the sites that host pirated copies will taunt authors that ask them to take down books.

What sites should we be on the lookout for?

The worst of the worst are some of the better advertised, sadly. But, at the request of librarians we aren't supposed to name names in public threads, so that we aren't advertising for them.

Jim

How can they taunt authors? Don't they have to take them down? It's illegal to post copywrited material like that. I guess I was lucky.

Basically if you write to them, they'll write back and tell you off in flowery terms. It's only illegal in some countries...needless to say, they're in one that it isn't.

Jim wrote: "Basically if you write to them, they'll write back and tell you off in flowery terms. It's only illegal in some countries...needless to say, they're in one that it isn't."

But wouldn't it still be illegal if it's copyrighted in the US?

It's illegal here...but you can't enforce US laws against somewhere else, such as the Ukraine (just a random example). You can yell at them all you want, but the site can basically thumb their nose at you, since US laws don't carry weight anywhere but the US.

Sucks, but that's the way dealing with problems originating elsewhere works. :(

I guess I'm confused because I'm thinking that they are, essentially, stealing. Taking your example, doesn't the Ukraine have laws against stealing?

I know in Germany pirating movies is quite easy, and they do pretty much nothing about it. But I do know that Hollywood is quite angry about it. I guess if even they can't do anything (with all their money), what can an individual do?

Not a whole lot, unfortunately. As for the example of "stealing" some countries either don't care, or don't consider copies to be stealing. *shrug*

About all you can do is help minimize the risks as best you can and try not to get too down if your stuff does appear somewhere.

I've heard that if they refuse to remove your content that you can then request that search engines, like google, remove them from their listing. Not sure if this is true or not.

Ugh. I read about pirating a lot on the Kindle Direct Publishing forums. Some of the authors think that means they've done well, because their work is now worth stealing.

I wouldn't like that at all. The only way I know of to keep your work from being stolen is to never publish it in the first place. Which won't happen, lol. I hope you get it all figured out. :)

"The only way I know of to keep your work from being stolen is to never publish it in the first place."

True! All DRM can be removed quite easily, so it offers no protection against piracy. I think you just have to look at the positive side, focus on the readers who want to buy your work and give them the best work you can.

Hello. I like your question. I was looking around and came across my ebook on another site. I don't know if I will get any royalties for that sale. I didn't get into it with them. All I told them was thanks for promoting my work. One person in another forum got a hold of one of my links and trashed it on one of the threads in the amazon forums. She went and told everyone how terrible my book was. That person I confronted. So there are ways that people will use your books and mine for their own means and there is nothing that anyone can do. It's sad, but I guess that being an author is like being a star. We are out on the limelight every day whether we want to or not. I still have readers coming through my site and reading my work. Those reviews didn't stop them and I guess that anyone stealing my ebook won't either. What I'm also trying to say here is that lets be thankful that at least they can't take away our books entirely. After all we are the authors. It's our work. Great success to you all. Let's see what happens with all of these things. I don't know when it will stop them. I'm also a photographer and this is the reason why I don't share my work anywhere else, but on my books. I feel like I have a bunch of sheeps that I have to protect, but they are still able to grab one of them. It's a mad world. We have to keep our smiles on. :-)

There is no way. But yes Smashwords have recently done a deal with Scibd which is a huge company supposed to be legit but it is not they are pirating the books and making money from piracy and no one seems to care because they used to be a legitimate company. What they are doing to authors is just terrible and now Smashwords have done a deal with them. Add them to Lulu as no longer legit. Lulu did a deal with the scammers Author Solutions