First off I'd like to thank all of you for your support.
Now that I'm no longer exclusive to Amazon by being in the KU program, I'm free to put my books up on other booksellers. I just started putting them up on Barnes & Noble (B&N), and will be putting them on Kobo soon as well. Apple (iTunes or whatever they call it for ebooks) and Smashwords will probably follow.
It will take a few days, I have a lot of stuff to move over.
As far as contacting Amazon, I would suggest jeff@amazon.com. BE POLITE!! Ask for them to restore Michael-Scott Earle, or at least to provide evidence. Ask the to consider if perhaps this was a third party seeking to remove competitors? Let them know that other authors are leaving KU out of fear, because of Amazon's draconian actions (no warnings, no removal from KU, just a total ban).
I don't know Cipriano, so I can't speak about him (though I honestly doubt he was gaming the system) though I do know MSE, and I know he wasn't doing anything illegal or wrong. He had no reason to, when you consider how many fans he has. I may someday return to KU, IF they stop acting like complete idiots. It's incredibly sad that after years of working with Amazon, that they would engage in this kind of treatment to people who have toiled long and hard and made them a fair deal of money.
Again, thank you all.
not giving up on Sean so where ever you go with the ebooks I will find and purchase we have a world to free LOL
ReplyDeleteWhat does this mean for the audiobooks, will they keep being released on audible or somewhere else?
ReplyDeleteThey'll still be released via Audible/ACX.
DeleteI'm not leaving Amazon, just the Kindle Unlimited program. My ebooks and paperbacks will still be sold there, as well as audiobooks.
Already sent an email..
ReplyDeleteSince you mentioned the Amazon pull out and finding out that may be what happened to cipriano (been waiting for more of his books). I am considering leaving KU.
ReplyDeleteIn case no one noticed, I see that Cipriano's books are back. Not the kindle ones (at least not yet), but the paperback listing has returned.
ReplyDeleteI just looked at his page on Amazon and the vast majority of his books are still gone, and all the ones i have read/listened to are gone form both Amazon and Audible still. Might be a region thing though since I`m in Scandinavia, if you can actually see them. Pretty sure the only reason Doomed Infinity Marine is still up is because it is Co authored with Conner Kressley.
DeleteIt seems that this has be mainly effecting authors with strong male leads in the books and far less of a "Mary Sue women can be and do anything better than men can" pandering.
Only books that he co-authored are still listed. The rest are still MIA.
DeleteThey are willing to sell his physical copies too, I noticed his PAPERBACKs were there. I also suspect if he put his ebook files on media (like a USB stick) they would be willing to sell those too.
DeleteI`m glad it is getting settled for you then, and that you are now free to sell through different places, competition is always good to have.
ReplyDeleteI would like it if you told us your preferred place for us/me to buy your books where you get he most out of your deal with them though. Dosnt matter to me where i buy it but i would rather you get the most out of my purchases than the retailer.
I have tried to contact amazon about the situation and i have been lied to by everyone on their Chat program hung up on 2 times, and put into some kind of a call back function which they dont call me back on the third try.
How has this effected the ETA on the next book btw, i cant wait =D ?
Agreed I will follow what ever preferred vendor. I am there for the books not the mediam.
DeleteI don't mind where you buy them, for now Amazon is probably still the best deal. As for the next book, this has added at least a week to the release date. I haven't written a word in days. Too much stress and crap going on.
DeleteAlright :) Hope you will get back on track as soon as you feel up to it. Your fans are here for your books regardless of whatever platform you are on. I see you have a donation option but if you havnt already i suggest you get a patreon account as well. Post it and I will sub tomorrow.
Deleteit turns out that MSE's account got deleted because of some recently updated terms of service related to the KU program about some copy write infringement, and but because its a newish agreement Amazon has said that there is a good chance he will get his account back in the next few weeks
ReplyDeleteAnd can we set our eyes for book 10 around the second week of next month?
DeleteCan you point to a cite on this please? I haven't seen anything about this, anywhere.
DeleteI heard about MSE's copyright trouble. Something about him trying to copyright any book with Dragon Slayer in the title. Not sure if it is related or just weird timing. Not sure if it is true or not, internet stuff not always being true an all.
Deletehttps://www.reddit.com/r/litrpg/comments/906fln/is_michaelscott_earle_aiming_to_trademark_the/
Humm that seems like he has caused these issues himself then if that's the case. TMing tings like that just makes him an asshole because the only reason he got to name it that is because others wernt assholes. I get protecting ideas, but stories are extremely rare to be original enough to TM, titles much less so. TMing Dragon Slayer is like TMing Shadow as a name in games. Unless this is all BS or a Third party ruining things on his behalf.
DeleteIf it's true, why "dragon slayer"? Why not tamer or star justice? Seems to me that those titles would be much more unique and slightly easier to TM. I saw a TM request (or however it's submitted) under the name of MSE Media LLC, but I don't actually recall seeing his name. Could easily be a third party try to run a scam.
DeleteTMing book names is a ridiculous notion either way imo, it does nothing but harm both readers and Authors in every way. Books have added information like "By "Author"" for a reason.
DeleteBooks like Game of Thrones get a big name not because they attack everyone and keep them from using the same name, they do it because they are great books and people are fans.
Third party companies doing copyright is a big business now on platforms like Youtube, so it wouldn't surprise me at all if it was.
DeleteA third party makes the most sense to me. I would think that a guy who has written 13 titles (11 of which are serial) should have the mental capacity to understand that TMing dragon slayer is a non-starter.
DeleteJust to clear a few things up.
DeleteNo one knows why MSE got suspended. Amazon hasn't said a word beyond a vague 'manipulating KU' which is why I left KU.
The Trademark issue is unrelated. It's not something in which Amazon involves itself. He's not trying (as I understand it) to trademark anything beyond a particular type and style of cover within his series. (That's what he said at least). Because he's being copied.
MSE wasn't attacking people, he's being ripped off a lot, (and pretty much by one person) he's just trying to stop that.
MSE sent an email to his newsletter subscribers this morning. It says his account was blocked due to 2 of his novels tripping some red flags for copyright infringement due to a software update amazon put out to monitor that type of stuff. If that turns out to be the truth it might not have anything to do with KU spamming and that might make KU safe? Mabey?
DeleteMSE posted on his Facebook group that he's been contacted by Amazon. Actually contacted, not a "piss off" contact.
DeleteJust bought all of the Valens books. Kicking myself for not buying all of MSE's Star Justice books and reading them on KU. I've written and had 2 separate help desk chats. One for not being able to get them on KU, and a separate one once I realized I couldn't even buy them outright. Goes to show that if you like an author, it's always better to just buy their stuff and support directly.
ReplyDeleteI would like to get the old books but I am kind of poor. That's what has me the most disappointed by Amazon, the loss of KU will greatly reduce how many books I can read in a month. Any chance of a bundle deal?
ReplyDeleteRight now, I don't know. I'll have to see once everything settles down.
DeleteMSE just sent out a email with what he thinks went wrong because he still hasnt recived a proper reason from Amazon, here is what he said:
ReplyDelete"I really, really, really appreciate this. I still don't know for sure why my account was suspended on Monday, but a few of my fans actually work on Amazon- and from what they have dug up, it seems that Death Ship #3 and my latest release, Monster Empire, were flagged in the system for copyright violation. Apparently, Amazon just implemented a new back end software to search for that stuff, and it has suspended a lot of authors erroneously. "
Amazon: shoot first, don't wanna ask questions.
DeleteI wrote a letter to Amazon yesterday, asking, very politely, that if I came back to KU, would they at least be kind enough to give me a warning before doing something like this.
DeleteWe'll see.
MSE's account has been down for almost a week now. JAC's for several weeks.
Now if they have MSe's back up tonight, then maybe it won't be so bad. But the whole fact that he probably lost a very large sum of money isn't cool. The last time I had a problem with Amazon due to an accident, a plagiarist snuck and weakened by brand while vacuuming up a bunch of money.
Believe it or not, it will take him months to recover from this. Some of his series may never recover from this. Everyone who went looking for him and saw he was gone? Quite a few of those people will never come back. That's a lot of lost opportunity.
I would seriously consider legal action, if I were in MSE's place.
DeleteTrying to look at it objectively, if the issue is indeed a back end program issue as stated above, that sort of thing tends to have issues that will pop up no matter how well tested and labeling Amazon as an uncaring corporate juggernaut because of a screwy algorithm is a bit unfair. Still, accidental or not it sucks badly and Amazons lack of communication is inexcusable and just bad business. Also, the crap communication with customers and vendors is, however, a good reason to label Amazon an uncaring corporate juggernaut...or at least one with some management issues in a key area.
DeleteI know that you can't catch every bug, but Amazon should know that too and should never give an algorithm the power to ban accounts without human overnight.
DeleteJust format your novels using the software approved by our robot overlords.
ReplyDeletehttps://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/GHU4YEWXQGNLU94T
Just in time for a new villain to step forward in the series: Amazon imitates good ole Aztechnology! Good luck Sean, my advice? "Never Deal with a Dragon"
ReplyDeleteSeriously, thank you for the entertaining novels you have produced. I was already planning to purchase the novels, this just made the decision easier. I'm torn on whether to terminate KU on my Amazon account. On the one hand I have come across some real gems and I don't know that I would have ever read those authors without KU. On the other hand I want to give Amazon a big middle finger.
Another author that has been "disappeared" from Amazon is Terrance Thorndyke. Is there any way to tell just how many authors have been impacted by this rather draconian purge?
ReplyDeleteI do believe that he was "disappeared" as you say because he more or less plagiarized the Valens Legacy.
DeleteIf I remember correctly early versions of the book had characters that was almost identical with identical names to characters in the Valens Legacy.
I do believe there's an earlier blog post about it somewhere.
My apologies if I offended anyone. I do admit TT's book does push the limits of 'borrowing' ideas pretty hard, and that would certainly explain his disappearance. I had gotten so far along in Jan's story that I failed to recognize just how closely TT mimicked the start. Can't see the forest for the trees, sometimes. Thanks for the info.
DeleteIt's not nearly as prevalent a series as most of the author's already listed but Kristopher Cruz of the spellscribed series actually went through this issue just recently and he was able to get this resolved but I believe it took a couple weeks. So there is hope that this is something that just umbrella caught a lot of people and is slowly being reviewed case by case.
ReplyDeleteAs a totally unrelated side note, I know Kristopher. We used to play D&D together way back when, when we both lived in Portland at one of the gaming clubs. He's a pretty cool guy. I've been meaning to read his series for a while now, because I really enjoyed the way it started. Haven't talked with him in a couple of years, I had no idea he was dealing with issues like this as well.
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