Finally, a little professionalism!
I sent obooko an email last night querying how Darkside: Waking the Dead ended up on their site without my permission. I received a reply from them at 03:45 in the morning. (I have no idea what they were doing up at that time of night, but okay. After all, they didn't question the fact that I was up, too.) Anyway, here's their response:
Hi S.K.S.,
Please accept my sincere apologies: we received a submission form
(attached) in your name, along with the PDF file. I'm fairly new here and assumed this was from you; I can now see the email addresses differ.
This is obviously a prank and I should have been more vigilant. I will have your book removed immediately.
They even sent along the submission with the sender's email address.
Would that Amazon had acted with even one tenth the professionalism and concern for an author's rights.
I find it interesting to note that most people are happy that I managed to resolve the issue with Amazon. Sure they took the stolen copy down—eventually – but nothing has been done to prevent this from happening again to someone else. As far as Amazon is concerned it's business as usual.
As for obooko, on further consideration I decided to let them leave Darkside: Waking the Dead up on their site—something they were only too happy to do.
I mean, why not? A quick Google search only proved that both books are available for free on at least half a dozen sites now, and I have neither the time, resources, nor inclination to try to take them down. At least obooko keeps track of how many times they've been downloaded so that I have an indication of whose reading it, and they're in .pdf format which is great for anyone who doesn't own a Kindle. (To be honest, the formatting in pdf is probably a gazillion times better, too. Heck, I don't even own a Kindle, so I couldn't tell you what my books look like on that platform.)
I have no illusions that I'm going to strike it rich selling Darkside or its sequel. I had a lot of fun writing them, and at one time I had hopes that they would be commercially viable enough that I could continue to write more of them, but I don't see that being the case.
So you can read Darkside for free, online here. *
Or you can read both Darkside and Darkside: Waking the Dead for free on obooko here and here.
Or you can pay a modest fee for the Kindle downloads here and here and in the U.K. here and here. **
Or you can pay a lot more and get the hardcover copies at lulu.com here and here.
Or you can go read something by George R.R. Martin or Jim Butcher—but you'll have to find them yourself. Thptttt.
I'm at the point now where I've put my books out there—if you want to read them, fine; if you want to pay me for them, even better. If you read them, and you like them, drop me a line at sks_perry@sympatico.ca and please let me know. Better yet, review them.
In the meantime I'll be over here working on my new book.
* Someday when I redo my website I'll put up Waking the Dead as well.
**Apparently it's also available now at Amazon.DE, whatever that is.
Hi S.K.S.,
Please accept my sincere apologies: we received a submission form
(attached) in your name, along with the PDF file. I'm fairly new here and assumed this was from you; I can now see the email addresses differ.
This is obviously a prank and I should have been more vigilant. I will have your book removed immediately.
They even sent along the submission with the sender's email address.
Would that Amazon had acted with even one tenth the professionalism and concern for an author's rights.
I find it interesting to note that most people are happy that I managed to resolve the issue with Amazon. Sure they took the stolen copy down—eventually – but nothing has been done to prevent this from happening again to someone else. As far as Amazon is concerned it's business as usual.
As for obooko, on further consideration I decided to let them leave Darkside: Waking the Dead up on their site—something they were only too happy to do.
I mean, why not? A quick Google search only proved that both books are available for free on at least half a dozen sites now, and I have neither the time, resources, nor inclination to try to take them down. At least obooko keeps track of how many times they've been downloaded so that I have an indication of whose reading it, and they're in .pdf format which is great for anyone who doesn't own a Kindle. (To be honest, the formatting in pdf is probably a gazillion times better, too. Heck, I don't even own a Kindle, so I couldn't tell you what my books look like on that platform.)
I have no illusions that I'm going to strike it rich selling Darkside or its sequel. I had a lot of fun writing them, and at one time I had hopes that they would be commercially viable enough that I could continue to write more of them, but I don't see that being the case.
So you can read Darkside for free, online here. *
Or you can read both Darkside and Darkside: Waking the Dead for free on obooko here and here.
Or you can pay a modest fee for the Kindle downloads here and here and in the U.K. here and here. **
Or you can pay a lot more and get the hardcover copies at lulu.com here and here.
Or you can go read something by George R.R. Martin or Jim Butcher—but you'll have to find them yourself. Thptttt.
I'm at the point now where I've put my books out there—if you want to read them, fine; if you want to pay me for them, even better. If you read them, and you like them, drop me a line at sks_perry@sympatico.ca and please let me know. Better yet, review them.
In the meantime I'll be over here working on my new book.
* Someday when I redo my website I'll put up Waking the Dead as well.
**Apparently it's also available now at Amazon.DE, whatever that is.
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