Back in April, I blogged about the duplication of one of my ebook titles on the Kindle Store. I had uploaded a novel Falling Bakward, via Amazon’s DTP website, creating a Kindle version of that title. Amazon had used it’s tie-in with Mobipocket to also make a version from the mobi format that is distributed to dozens of resellers via their Ebookbase system. For several reasons, this isn’t good. For one, the versions I upload, do not have the DRM that prevents the Kindle from speaking the text, and the converted mobi versions do. I had the solution, I thought. I had used the web interface on the Mobipocket site to explicitly remove the authorization that allowed Amazon to make their version.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough. When I created the Kindle version of this new anthology I’ve been talking about, Time Quadrants, I did a search on all Henry Melton titles in the Kindle Store. Up popped 11 entires. Two versions of each of the five novels, and the just released anthology.
Some time after I had revoked Amazon’s permission to make their own copies of the novels, they had done so with my remaining novels. Tsk. Tsk.
So, following a pointer I dug up in the Amazon forums, I found the company’s digitalrights email address and sent them a firm but polite email requesting that they remove the duplicates (and specifically listing their codes just to make sure). According to their auto-responder reply, they should get around to reading my email in 72 business hours (whatever that means) and maybe I’ll get a response.
Until then, potential buyers have an additional problem. Amazon’s converted versions are a few cents cheaper than mine (Amazon does like to play price games) but those versions have the DRM. It’s also likely that any royalties due me from the converted versions will be caught in minimum-payment limbo and I’ll never see them. All I can do is wait.