Hello, Everyone. Something I thought everyone should know.

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Earlier this week, I was informed by a very nice person via my fan mail account for
Sarah Lynn Morgan, that in perusing a listing of TG Romance fiction on Amazon,
that they had run into a work that looked suspiciously familiar:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07VTRWS6D/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...

It is a word for word copy, with a global replace on a couple of the main character names.
Chris Morgan, has become Christian Morgenstern... etc.

Now, I have done all that I could via the standard notifications to Amazon, but given
that I am not a self publisher on their site, I expect them to make all the quick actions
of a long beached, and very dead, whale.

Unfortunately, I think that the best way that I can resolve this issue, will be to somehow
find the time to put these stories on Amazon, which if nothing else will help me block
this one avenue for theft of my works. In the meantime, I intend to keep the stories
available on this site, their only home, for now. However, as I publish them on Amazon,
I'll likely have to unpublish them on this site, which pains me, far more than ever I
thought it might.

Although I have not had the time to be active on this site for quite some time, I can tell
you that I have always felt a kinship, and an abiding friendship, both with operators and
the many authors and commentators who have given back to me so freely. It is my fondest
hope, that should I be able to address the soul-sucking work situation I've lived with for
almost ten years now, I'll once more have a little time to enjoy some of the fine fiction, as
well as the fine generosity that have always been a staple of this site.

Sincerely,
Sarah Lynn Morgan.

Comments

From what I have heard on this site:

Hypatia Littlewings's picture

It is only necessary to unpublish here on BC if you sign up for certain programs to promote your works on Amazon.

I do not know the details, I am not an Amazon author, I have however seen it discussed here. Hopefully you can get direct advice on that from other authors on this site who have published on Amazon.

Publishing on Amazon

WillowD's picture

Here are some quick and not quite complete notes on publishing on Amazon.

If you publish your book with the Kindle Unlimited option then you get 35% of royalties for books sold and a royalty of about $0.0045 for each page read in a borrowed book. While it's in Kindle Unlimited you are not allowed to have digital copies of your story available else where on the internet. Dead tree format is OK.

I believe there is a second option that also gives you 35% royalties, does not allow borrowing and does allow you to publish digitally elsewhere.

Then there is a option that gives you 70% royalties, does not allow borrowing but charges you $0.15 per megabyte in delivery fees and does allow you to publish digitally elsewhere. Note: If you use this option then make sure your entire book, including cover image, is under 1 Mbyte.

That's correct.

Patricia Marie Allen's picture

Opt out of KDP . They don't as high a percentage per sold copy, but when you consider that anyone with Amazon prime, can read for free, so don't have any reason to purchase and that they pay fractions of a penny per page read resulting in less money in your pocket even if they read the whole book, and claim exclusive rights to publish I'm not sure that KDP is such a good deal. By opting out of KDP, you can leave your stories up here and publish elsewhere such as Smashwords. For a list of where Smashwords distributes, go here You get a much wider distubution, get to keep your stories up here and retain the right to publish where you want.

Hugs
Patricia

Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt

Looking over Smashwords legals

BarbieLee's picture

Now that is something I could lean into. Thanks Patty.
For those who want a copy of their stories on the coffee table or to leave at their local library you might look over Lulu.com an on demand book publisher. It isn't really that expensive to have your very own published storie(s) in your bookshelf.
always
Barb
Life is meant to be enjoyed, not worn until it's worn out

Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl

If this is the same as you 'Boys School'

I'll look forward to the opportunity to buy it from you.

I'd buy it over and over, I loved it so much.

The only thing I wish is that it was much longer!

I love the way you wrote this story, I enjoyed it very much and have read it many times, so I relish the opportunity to pay you for it and to read it again.

Ouch!

You have my commiserations.

So I went to your link, and below it, unbelievably, I found this...

Hello, my name is...

Sound familar?

This business is getting dirtier and dirtier by the minute.

Penny

Hi Penny

Enemyoffun's picture

Yeah, I published that one. Thanks for looking out for me though :)

Hi hi EoF

WillowD's picture

I just noticed something odd.

"Hello My Name is...", "It's Just A Skirt" and "Burning Bright" are all under the author page https://www.amazon.com/Matthew-Potter/e/B0778KTX6C/ref=dp_by...

"Just Roll With It", "For The Fairest" and "Season of the Witch" are also published by a Matthew Potter but aren't under this author page. Did you write all of these books or are they written by two or more authors?

I think you are right, Penny.

I think that it's become too easy. Apparently publishing on a site like Amazon is too easy for
anyone familiar with computers... which is just about everyone these days. The tools to grab
and reformat works are powerful.

In my story, clearly the person, or company, or criminal organization that did this, is counting on
getting a couple of checks out of it. The only thing they did, that was stupid was to charge ten
dollars. That probably kept the sales low. The reason I think it's a person, and not the russian
mafia, is that they didn't lift the whole story. They were planning on making another one, if this
one sold. Their descriptions prove that they didn't read or understand the story, which if you
think about it, is probably par for the course.

Times are so different now. Now, being transgender is just one more check box. When I was
young, and told our family doctor that on the rare occasions that I do dream, outside of children's
nightmares, I'm always a girl named Sarah. He gave my parents some pills that sedated me.
He said that I was 'hyper-active.' Even though he knew I had an IQ nearly double his, and even
though I'd never caused a single problem, I spent three days tranquilized until my mother said
enough of that bullshit.

I never said anything to anyone else, for fifty years... other than my wife before we were married.

And... In a way that's the thing about all of this. We create an offer these stories on a site like
this for many reasons. Two of the most important for me are a need to share dreams and
feeling for which most of us never had an outlet. The second is a genuine pleasure in knowing
that we've reached someone who might feel the same.

Today, All you have to do is to look on the internet to see an unbelievable number of transgender people
who are beautiful and feminine, or in the case of ftm, masculine. I'm not saying that it's a path
that I would have taken, but even if I had wanted to, and I didn't wind up getting shock treatments, or killed
while going to the store, the best my generation could hope for was, after the ravages of testosterone,
would be to spend your life as looking as if you were a russian beat farmer's wife. All in a world that
neither accepted nor understood any part of that feeling that I carried every day of my life. Today,
the results and the treatments make it easy to forget just how miserable it was thirty years ago.

As for the thieves...

There is nothing we can do to the people who do this to us. Unless some of your are dot.com billionaires,
the costs to lawyer up and stick it to these people must needs be a life passion, because in this genera,
the money just isn't there. I just want the Amazonians to pull my story, and to make sure that these
scum are not profeting by this. I gave these stories to provide just a small vision of what might be, which
was the only satisfaction available to people like me. And it's made me very sad.

I've got to lie down, now. I have to work tonight, and it will be hell, as always.

Love,
Sarah Lynn

two things

One is Amazon does react if the real author complains.

Two is Amazon will pull a book if it is available for free or cheaper elsewhere, All you have to do it point to Boy's School here and say - look it's free and this thief is charging $9.99 - which I did in a review also that will hopefully post shortly.

Amazon even asks if you've seen a lower price and free is definitely lower.

Commentator
Visit my Caption Blog: Dawn's Girly Site

Visit my Amazon Page: D R Jehs

Sex Change Bootcamp

I'm currently reading it. Vaguely familiar, so when done, I'll do some searches through my collection of TG stories to see if anything comes up.

That was quick!

I was just on at 10:20 am edst and found the pirate book. At 10:27, it was gone, replaced with a "SORRY..." message.
Good!
I'll buy yours when it is published; even though I have the online version in WORD. (NB: I keep them just for myself, or for the author)

Areader

The book does seem to be down

The book does seem to be down, which included my contacting amazon via every avenue every day. However the Person's other book is still up with seems to mean that there is absolutely no penalty nor risk to the thief should they get caught doing this. The note I got from amazon, indicates that making the book unavailable is the end of this, and as a cease an desist, it is. I have, however, sent a message back asking
what about the money they have already collected, and what about the identity of the individual(s) doing this? I suspect this will never even
be read.

If this is just a strike against a plagiarizing account, and they get to continue selling another book from god knows where, then this reminds me of a monty python skit: "You killed 'em!" "Well, yeah, a bit..."

My review got rejected.

I got an email on the review that I left on the stolen book page. It got rejected:

[ "Thank you for submitting a customer review.
[
[ Thank you for submitting a customer review on Amazon. After carefully reviewing your submission, your review could not be posted to the
[ website. While we appreciate your time and comments, reviews must adhere to the following guidelines:
[ http://www.amazon.com/review-guidelines"

Bad Boy Becomes Good Girl ★★★★★ from Charles R. Coffey II on August 20, 2019

I know this is an excellent book, because I wrote it.

To any and all readers of this page, I am the author of this work, which I published under my
nom de plume: Sarah Lynn Morgan on January 2nd, 2009. The work is, and has been, freely
available to all readers for the past ten years on the Big Closet, Topshelf website. Under the
Name:

Boys' School By Sarah Lynn Morgan
https://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/fiction/11243/boys039-school-...

Of course, I have filed the appropriate paperwork with Amazon, and I hope that they will act to
remove this plagiarized copy in the very near future.

Given the obvious penchant of others to take advantage of my creative efforts, among I am
sure many others, I will be making the whole story, and in this case the whole nine chapters and
not just the first four chapters which were offered by Jenn Walker for ten dollars, in the very near
future.

Sincerely,
Charles R. Coffey II A.K.A Sarah Lynn Morgan.