Indie writers, beware of ghost publishers at Amazon

If you are an indie author, who is publishing books on many platforms, including the ones where they are available for free, you should read this post. If your books have a large number of downloads and/or are distributed with a Creative Commons licence you may end up with a ghost publisher at Amazon.

Here is my story.

I’ve self-published my two books Password Incorrect and Failure Confirmed through Kindle Digital Text Platform in mid-January, a couple of days after Amazon opened a system to authors from outside USA.

Last Friday I’ve noticed that there is another edition of Password Incorrect, published on Feb 15 – by somebody else. The link to this book is here (I hope it’ll be removed soon). It uses a cover of a free edition, which I’ve published at many places including Feedbooks, Manybooks, Kobo and Wattpad.

I’ve downloaded a free sample – enough to check who originated this edition. A publisher calls himself Sugar Land Press (link to a site is here). I’ve never heard of them before. They have never contacted me referring to this book or anything else. After checking their site and other links they provided in an intro of a book, it looks like they live on Google ads and affiliate programs, including Amazon Associates. This book costs $11 ($14,95 outside USA), is terribly formatted and full of other mistakes. I analysed the content and I’m almost sure it was downloaded either from Wattpad or Manybooks.

Important thing is, that the Sugar Land Press edition is sold with “All rights reserved” legal notice. Correct me if I’m wrong, but if they take Creative Commons stuff from the web, they should redistribute it on the same conditions. What’s more, they put a “Material Connection Disclosure” which says:

For me it’s not the money I won’t earn (I sell my editions anyway), but the fact, that anybody who will buy it, can feel cheated. And this is actually my major concern. When you’re an indie writer from Poland, looking for readers globally and slowly getting recognition to your niche fiction, every new, satisfied reader is like a gold.

It’s possible, that such a “publishing activity” results from a fact, that many authors from around the world self-publish their books for free, f.e. at Wattpad. Guys like Sugar Land Press want to benefit as long an author is either not aware or not eager to publish at Amazon himself.

Things will get even worse, when more and more foreign authors will start to self-publish worldwide. Chasing a ghost publisher in US, by an author from Poland or France would be a very difficult thing, especially that the publisher’s site is powered by a WP Robot.