Just a Heads Up to all you purchasers and sellers on Amazon. An author has discovered his title on Amazon at a much higher price pitch than the one he posted, after investigating with Amazon it turns out to be a pirated copy of his work. It is on sale via a company called Book On Demand Publishing - So Beware!

This is his comment -

I only discovered it today when Author Central decided to link the pirated copy to my (genuine) Kindle edition.

While this move alerted me to the fraud, it also gave legitimacy to the pirated edition, as well as the benefit of my 74 reviews in the US, and 14 in the UK. A quick call to Author Central today got the editions de-linked. And the (slower) legal process of getting this book removed has been put into motion with Amazon’s Copyright Agent.

Worryingly, the “Look Inside” feature on the pirated book displays the Kindle Version (because they had been linked). This could cause customers to think they are either getting something official, or something formatted far better than the pirate version is likely to be.

I also contacted the seller directly – a company called Book On Demand Publishing – via their contact form on Amazon Marketplace. They claim to be a “self-publishing service” and don’t know who is responsible for the book!

Frankly, I don’t trust them and don’t believe them. They seem to have zero web presence. They said they would take down the pirated book straight away, but haven’t done so. And the email was barely literate.