My Beef with Amazon.com & "Glinda Good"

When I first put my stories into an eBook format in 2001, I contacted a couple of eBook directory websites and submitted it for downloading from those sites. Over the years, in true eBook fashion, my various volumes (there were three originally; I have since compacted them into one) have proliferated on the web, to where they are now available at some of the unlikeliest of places. Just out of curiosity — and especially after the Russian fiasco — I do a search every now and then to see where they've ended up.

Imagine my surprise when, in early 2008, I encountered my eBook being auctioned off on bidorbuy.co.za, as well as being sold on the auctioneer’s “eBook store” website! An entrepreneur in South Africa was trying to make money selling a volume that is widely available for free, without having asked permission of either the author or the true copyright holder. (Okay, so I know she didn’t ask me, but I’m betting that Fox and Ten Thirteen were also not asked to approve this little bit of creative marketing.) Unlike my unresolved Russian fanfic adventure, this time, a simple email to the “entrepreneur” in question succeeded in having the item pulled.

But then things just got curiouser and curiouser.

In late 2011, I found out that I was a published author on this side of the ocean too. Really! How did that come to be, you ask? I got an email from another kind soul who informed me of the fact that my fanfic was being sold on Amazon.

Needless to say, I emailed Amazon.com with a cease and desist order. On December 14, 2011, I received a reply from Garth Skovgard (Copyright/Trademark Agent at Amazon.com) stating that they "are in the process of removing the following Kindle titles from Amazon.com: "All fourteen of xgirl's X-Files fanfic stories..." [Kindle Edition] ASIN: B005WKG0VG It typically takes 2-3 days for a listing to disappear once it has been removed from our catalog. We trust this will bring this matter to a close."

Do you? I certainly "trusted" that it would come to a close. But to this day, if you do a search on "xgirl's x-files fanfic ebook", you will see Amazon results. The eBook was in fact submitted twice. One has a publication date of September 8, 2012 and was submitted by X-girl-y. Another shows a publication date of September 18, 2012 and was submitted by X- Girl.

After making contact again with Mr. Skovgard, I received another reply on December 10, 2012, stating that "The ability to purchase the title you reference below has been disabled. The detail page may still exist for a period of time, but the title is no longer searchable on our site. We trust this will bring this matter to a close."

So is this "solution" good enough? It's no longer available for sale, so it's fine? I don't think so, because one of the links shows that, on September 21, 2012, an Amazon.com reviewer (who goes by the name of Glinda Good) was sufficiently bothered by the idea of someone trying to cash in on fanfic to leave "me" a review, shown here:

And the thing is, you would think that a legitimate business like Amazon.com would NOT let someone brazenly sell fanfic. (Or so I thought, until I saw this.) Or, if they did, they would do a lot more due diligence to confirm just who it is that should be profiting from it.

That said, I do have a bit of a bone to pick with Glinda Good, concerning the fact that certain fandoms do have ways and means for "fan fiction" to be published and it is therefore not considered "infringement". (I read Star Trek fiction long before I ever wrote TXF fanfic.) To that end, her comment of "Write your own stuff and try to sell that" bothers me. I did write my own stuff; I just used someone else's characters. The point is, there are real authors out there doing exactly that. In the end, this is just an example of someone being too quick to allege wrongdoing without establishing the facts. And the accusation now sits out there in full view for everyone to see and I can't do anything about it. 

The bottom line is, I did not submit my eBook(s) for sale ANYWHERE and am not making nor have I ever made even one penny from it/them. I will say for the record one more time: if you have paid for any volume of my work, you've been taken. The stuff is available for free all over the internet.