Is My Old Publisher Illegally Selling My Book?!

My book was first published by another Print on Demand company. I’ve since had it printed elsewhere.

Just this morning whilst searching the Heathrow Airport website for book retailers to contact in the course of my marketing strategy, I came across my book title, the old version, on Amazon.com, selling for £15.50. I am blowing like a volcano at those fraudulent (Bleeeeeep!!! Profanity removed by WritersWeekly!). How can they pull such a low-down trick when the copyright is registered in my name?

Please tell me Angela, where do I go from here? The thieving sods are selling stolen property that hasn’t been edited. Editing was the attractive part of their agreement that convinced me to go along with them, not being able to see properly to do it myself. Is their any way that I can nail them for what they have done, and are still doing today?

Sincere regards,
Frank

While that other POD publisher may no longer be printing your work, it is almost impossible to get online bookstores to remove listings for out-of-print books. Many of them not only have premium search services for locating out-of-print books, but sites like Amazon, which allow smaller bookstores to list Ingram’s books for sale (Ingram is your old publisher’s distributor), often just don’t care about removing old listings, even if they later have to tell customers they can’t obtain a copy of the book they’d posted for sale online.

I seriously doubt your old publisher is still printing copies of your book. But, having all those websites remove an out-of-print book from their databases will be an almost impossible task. The good news is that anyone trying to order the old version will very likely never receive it.

You might try to test it – try to buy a copy from Amazon and see what happens. Let me know what you find out. AND, just because your transaction goes through instantly doesn’t mean you’ll get the book. They will probably send you an email in several days telling you they can’t obtain the book.

I just looked at your book’s listing on Amazon and, sure enough, Amazon is no longer offering it directly. It’s only available through a reseller who, in all likelihood, doesn’t even have a copy in stock.

Hugs,
Ang