Hi. If you’re here looking for info about the Kindle scammers, etc, I’m going to give a short run-down. FYI, if you asked me a Q on Facebook or Twitter or email and got directed here, it’s because I’ve already addressed the Q, or because the answers lie in everybody figuring things out for themselves. I can’t keep answering the same Qs or explaining it.

But first, if you’re here and you’ve never read any of my books…

Maybe try one. Doing all of these takes a lot of time and I’m not made of money. Doing this post to answer all the Qs I’m getting lately via messenger & DM takes time… and I’m not made of made of money. I’ve got kids and bills and when I’m working on these, I’m not working on books and I can’t keep working on these because my son’s room & board is due and if it doesn’t get paid, he can’t go to prom, so maybe consider supporting the author writing these if you’re finding them useful.

If you’re into romance or urban fantasy, I’ve almost certainly got something, whether it’s my FBI Psychics, Secrets & Shadows or the Ash Trilogy for romantic suspense lovers or the McKay trilogy or the Barnes Brothers series for those who love contemporary series about family/siblings. I’ve got paranormal/UF romance in my bastardized fairy tale series, Grimm’s Circle (opens at my J.C. Daniels site), my urban fantasy series, The Colbana Files (also opens at J.C.’s site) and then my Hunters series. And those are just my series books. And save for my Secrets & Shadows, the McKays, the Ash Trilogy & the Colbana books, just about all my books stand just fine on their own. I’ve got also got a huge list of standalone titles.

If you’re looking for a place to start? You can always try the book that re-issued this week, Blind Destiny, one of my Grimm tales, or maybe Cocksure, which was my smart-mouthed response to #cockygate.

Seriously, if you’re getting useful information out of this blog, consider supporting the author, yours truly, because I can’t keep providing useful info that’s taking away time from freelance projects if there’s no support coming in.

On Hot Takes & Copyright Fakes

People have been asking me how & where? How I found a list of scammers and where I came across it. It’s not a list. A reader on twitter, Nikki, has been trying, without much success, to tell a lot of authors that this shit has been going on and she’s been being ignored. More than that, she’s actually been being hassled & stalked in a non-related matter.

I found the how & where because I was paying attention when somebody pointed out that a queer WOC blogger was being harassed and mocked for speaking AAVE by a couple of newbie authors who really don’t know jackshit about writing. (FYI, I’m normally a little more diplomatic than this, but they’ve gotten on my last nerve and the gloves are off). Because I was paying attention, I saw the tweets Nikki posted about scammers.

The posts included these screenshots.

[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”5″ gal_title=”Spotting Scammers”]

How did I find other scammers?

That’s the other question I’m getting asked.

I did the work. I looked at the emails Nikki had screenshotted. She did a lot of legwork here and I took the information she provided and did my own work. That’s what you’ll have to do. Grab a name from that screenshot of email sign-ups. Download a sample of their latest book from Kindle. It’s easier to do a web search with the app on your phone than with the desktop app. You just do a search for that text.

They match word for word.

Go here, here or here more details on that. These are nothing but walk-throughs and screenshots of how I find a scammer, from picking out a name, to finding the book. It’s not hard, just tedious as hell.

The original rights owner, Scammer A will sell the book for maybe six months. The sales start to lag so A pulls the books and turns around, sells then to Scammer B, who then dust them off, puts a new cover, title & author name on it, changing nothing inside (except the copyright date which is BS, because that copyright date remains unchanged).

Scammer B will sell the book for maybe six months. The sales start to lag so B pulls the books and turns around, sells then to Scammer C, who then dust them off, puts a new cover, title & author name on it, changing nothing inside (except the copyright date which is BS, because that copyright date remains unchanged).

Scammer C will sell the book for maybe six months. The sales start to lag so C pulls the books and turns around, sells then to Scammer D, who then dust them off, puts a new cover, title & author name on it, changing nothing inside (except the copyright date which is BS, because that copyright date remains unchanged).

I’ve tracked a book that was published and republished four times in under thirty months. There isn’t any infringement going on, because the rights owner does sell the rights to the book, but there is an outright intent to deceive, which is where notifying the FTC and complaining to Amazon comes in, which I talk about here.

There’s no trick to this, no science. The books match word for word, even down to the names in many cases although some of the scammers do change the hero & heroine names.

I’ve listed several authors who do this, but only a book from each of them. They all write in series. If you find those authors and grab another book? You’ll find another regurgitated book. It’s easy practice.

Okay. I think that covers it.