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Strange results when googling my own book
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Hmm...it looks like a site offered people to download your book for free. You might want to look into it and see if you can get it taken down or something.
My book's called Diamonds Fall so when I google images my book it always just comes up with pictures of diamonds falling haha! And I get random research papers come up as well a few pages into a web search.
My book's called Diamonds Fall so when I google images my book it always just comes up with pictures of diamonds falling haha! And I get random research papers come up as well a few pages into a web search.
That is very bizarre. looks like a free download,no?
Thanks for giving it a try to decipher.Here is another one of the same series, btw:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1z...
I've actually pressed the 'download' button, so along with acquiring myriad of viruses probably it redirected me to some strange site, which contains also a link to reqular Amazon purchase page.
It's some strange google docs form and I'm clueless about what it means... And they occupy almost top spots on google search results
The website red.e-dbd.org that the download link points to is hosted in France, but registered to a guy in Krakow, Poland, with a polish post code and phone number on record(see here: http://www.scamadviser.com/check-webs... )
Also the text underneath the link is just random word gibberish.
I would suspect that people who click on that will not get a copy of your book, but either get asked for contact details, payment details, or in the worst case get malware.
Thanks, that's some lead already! Maybe it is some kind of scam, indeed.Nice tool this Scamadviser, btw. Didn't know such existed
Surely these people have better things to be doing with their time than scamming people. You'd think they'd put all that thought into a legal business!
I was surprised to find a phone number there. I wonder what would happen if we actually phoned up and said:"Hello, this is the SIA. We'd like to know what you're doing with Nik's ebook?"
*grin*
Just did the same thing out of curiosity and the same thing happened to me. That's crazy. He has my cover image and buttons to download or read online or even "sign up for free trial".
first page result Google link
I wouldn't touch those buttons under the cover image with a ten foot pole.
I'll try them out when I'm on a safe machine tonight, and see what actually tries to download.
Kat wrote: "I was surprised to find a phone number there. I wonder what would happen if we actually phoned up and said:"Hello, this is the SIA. We'd like to know what you're doing with Nik's ebook?"
*grin*"
This Piotr would answer in Polish "Dzien Dobry" and then would go with a kind of gibberish they give on those links -:)
Kat wrote: "I'll try them out when I'm on a safe machine tonight, and see what actually tries to download."
When I hit download it takes me to the book on Amazon.com.
When I hit download it takes me to the book on Amazon.com.
Your book has either been pirated (welcome to the club), or it's a phishing link designed to make people think they can download your book for free. It happens to all books. Just ignore it. There's nothing you can do about it, unless you have a massively hell of a lot of money.
Googled my book out of curiosity and I got the same result.
I wouldn't touch those "DOWNLOAD" "READ ONLINE" or "SIGN UP FOR FREE TRIAL" buttons with a ten foot pole.
I found somebody to whom I gave a review copy for free passed this along to http://mobilads.org, and they are distributing it for free. I registered with them and posted on their forum a "cease and desist" order.
Well spotted, Morris. Just goes to show you have to be on your toes. I hope they take it down!
Me, too. If it wouldn't have been for this post, I would have never looked. I am just too busy with life, work, and editing and reviewing projects.
Nine times out of ten, these sites do not have your book. They are phishing for information. Last night a friend alerted me to a YouTube video that had my book cover and book name in the title and was nothing more than a robotic voice with poor grammar skills teling people they can 'read this books for free by to follow the link in the description.' Shady link in the description was followed by info clearly copy/pasted from my Amazon paperback product screen.
Your best bet is to do as April mentioned and ignore it.
Guys, thanks a lot for your care and helpful advice
I'm glad I'm not alone here. Both my books seem to have been pirated, with forums flogging them for free. While it's disgusting people can get a book you've poured your heart and soul into for nothing, it's probably inevitable. I've given up being angry about it.
Same thing happened to my book and is still happening. I contacted Amazon, they told me not to worry about it. As others have posted, these are pirating or phishing sites and often exist solely to download malware. They don't really have your book. As with everything, it's Buyer Beware. People who are looking for a free download will be scammed, not you.
Morris wrote: "I found somebody to whom I gave a review copy for free passed this along to http://mobilads.org, and they are distributing it for free. I registered with them and posted on their forum a "cease and..."Crap, I googled my book and found it's on this site too. The main download link was already taken down, but the mirror still had it, so I went there and flagged it for copyrighted material.
That is strange but when it comes to scams unfortunately it happens all too often. I remember once seeing my first book listed on a book purchasing blog for over $400. I felt like messaging them and saying hey if you can sell my book for that much I want half! lol. On a serious note though I find it weird that they did it through Google docs. I personally can't stand all those darn apps they have and this is another reason why it alarms me.
I went to http://mobilads.org this morning and my post had been deleted. I checked google this morning and I can't find an active free download link for my book.
Hi. I came to this party late, but I've been handling this problem for my own book for months now. You have to Google your book every day and file orders on every one of these things. I've filed 6 reports on YouTube and one on Google to address these same types of copyright infringments on my work.
Thanks. Don't know whether every day is not too often, but every once in a while - for sure.I do it mostly because of the reviewing blogs that accept books and state specifically that they don't notify if and when the review comes out, but now there is another reason, it seems
Please see this links for discussion of what's going on: http://www.kboards.com/index.php?topi...http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/playste...
At one point, they were posting on YouTube every 18 hours.
Mine is on YouTube, I didn't even bother to check what it is. Why, it's also some downloading option?
It's someone using your work to create traffic for themselves. File a complaint.
I know choosing DRM for your e-book doesn't stop people who want to pirate a book from doing that but I wonder if it makes it just a little harder to do.
i lucked out i guess. i found my old 20% smashwords sample copies floating around (but under the guise it was a full book for free download). this was before i changed it to 5% because 20% of a doorstopper nets about 100-150 pages... anyways a few i was able to shut down with cease and desist orders. some i found amusing because they listed some books wrong (my old cover art for the agency #3 in december before i moved it to #4) and most times i came across just malware.
it takes me up to 4 hours a day hunting and sending notices...
what really irks me is that i see my books are rated well (from the 20% some have managed to find) and im like why not buy my stuff dammit
Can someone explain what this link is and what the wording means:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1i...
It appears on the first page of google search no less and I've seen some more of the same type further down.
Thanks in advance,
Nik