I did not include interviews and re-posts of articles from other sites because, obviously, they’re not my sole work are they?
However after a lack of sales, I took it off sale. I thought “I’ll do something else with them another time.”
A few months ago, Amazon contacted me to ask if I could prove I had the rights to the content of The Fringe Scientist Almanac.
I thought “Fuck off” and didn’t bother replying. If they did a quick bit of Sherlockian investigation and deduction, they would have seen on my author profile that it clearly labels http://www.fringescientist.com as my website.
Hmmm.
Fringe Scientist Almanac.
Fringe Scientist dot com.
Is there a connection here?
Anyway, today they e-mailed to say that they’d suspended my account. Here’s the e-mail:
Hello,
We recently contacted you from kdp-quality@ regarding Kindle book(s) you have which contain content that is freely available on the web. You informed us that you have unpublished the following book(s):
The Fringe Scientist Almanac 2011 (ASIN: B0072NFKV2)
Because you have not proven that you hold exclusive rights, we have temporarily suspended your account. While your account is suspended, you will not be able to access or modify any books in your bookshelf.
To reinstate your account, please reply to [ip-inquiries@amazon.com] with the following confirmation: “I confirm that I will remove any content for which I do not have the exclusive publishing rights and that I will adhere to all terms in the Content Guidelines when submitting new content.”
Until you respond to [ip-inquiries@amazon.com] regarding this issue, your account will remain suspended. To prevent termination, we encourage you to review our content guidelines and unpublish any other books that may violate our policies
To which I replied with:
Hello,
As requested: “I confirm that I will remove any content for which I do not have the exclusive publishing rights and that I will adhere to all terms in the Content Guidelines when submitting new content.”
To clarify, the Fringe Scientist Almanac is solely my own content, and originates from my former website www.fringescientist.com
I unpublished it purely because it wasn’t selling, not for any other reason. The work is my own, I hold the rights to publish it. Follow the link above and you will clearly see that it is all my own stuff and has been since I created it.
I find it ridiculous that I have to prove that something like that is mine. How many other authors are putting together collections of articles from www.fringescientist.com, all written by Tony Healey? Not many I bet.
Hopefully this resolves the issue.
Tony
I don’t know. As Laurie pointed out, they’re just covering their arses in fear of a law suit. And I’m sure that in a day or so I’ll be able to access my books on kdp.
But is it right that Amazon have that much power? And are we authors fools for putting all of our eggs in one basket.
Obviously, Amazon Kindle is the best market for our work at the moment. I’m sorry to Nook and Kobo lovers, but it just is. Kindle is the leader of the pack. So at the minute, we author’s are under Amazon’s thumb.
If Smashwords could publish to Amazon I’d go with them, but at the moment I don’t think you can. You can publish it as a Kindle book for sale from Smashwords, but it won’t go onto Amazon just yet. That’s a shame.
There is one thing Amazon have that nobody can buy: a pre-established customer base. That means, millions of people who already shop with them. Unless you’ve got a huge internet presence, large enough to sell the books yourself, you’re stuck using Amazon as the means of getting your work out to people.
At the minute.
I’m hoping that in the future we authors will have more choice in where we sell our work, and who ultimately has the power to say whether we can or can’t. For now it’s Amazon. Hopefully one day soon it will be us.
Tony Healey is the author of the bestselling Harper & Lane Series, consisting of Hope’s Peak, Storm’s Edge and Blue Ruin, published by Thomas and Mercer. He is also the author of westerns in the Ralph Compton Western Series, including The Devil’s Snare, Blood On The Prairie, and Die Trying. He has several works published independently, including the crime novel Not For Us.
Tony Healey lives and works in Brighton, on the Sussex coast. He is married, has four daughters and a chorkie called Freddy. Tony is represented by his agent, Sharon Pelletier of Dystel, Goderich & Bourrett LLC.
The Harper & Lane Series: https://amzn.to/3hCmqoJ
Ralph Compton Westerns: Tony Healey | Penguin Random House
Not For Us: https://amzn.to/3hEimo0
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