Not to alarm you but to ALARM You! Whether it is Amazon or the marketplace in general, this is not new but happens more often than you think. Authors, be aware.
The truth of the matter is, and I have said this repeatedly, being a published author is being a business owner. The degree to which you treat your book and platform like a business determines your degree of success. If you take your business seriously, you constantly monitor it and protect the brand at all costs.
Author John C. Boland says he discovered fake editions of his books on Amazon advertised as hundreds of years old, with one on sale for 144 times its $7 list price. He is suing Amazon over the matter, saying he discovered a “fraudulent scheme” of third-party sellers.
Per the lawsuit, Boland found fake listings involving eight of his own books, plus a further eight to which he claims intellectual property rights through his publishing company Perfect Crime Books. Boland says that he alerted Amazon to the fraudulent editions in April. He told The Times that Amazon did not start removing the listings until he filed his lawsuit in August. But Boland is not the first person to claim this.
In Published! Magazine’s debut Winter Issue, soon to be released, I will discuss this in more detail and what you can do if this happens to you. Until then, just remember that you must continuously monitor your author brand, including for fraud, copyright infringement, and intellectual property violations. (You can click here to read the full article detailing the Boland vs. Amazon case.)
See you in the winner’s circle,
-Alesha Brown, CEO, Fruition Publishing Concierge Services
Award-Winning Entrepreneur|Publisher|Transformational Speaker
