Publisher of Book by Real Author Blocked from Publishing It Due to Amazon’s Crackdown on Scam Publishers Claiming Well-Known Authors Wrote an AI-Generated Book
Here’s a press release an associate wrote about a new dangerous development due to a publishing scam using AI-generated books and attributing them to well-known authors. So Amazon has been cracking down on such books. But the other side of that crackdown is targeting small publishers with books by real authors, blocking their books, and entrapping them in a maze of requirements to prove they have the right to publish the books. This happened to one of my publishers several times, and after three months he’s still having trouble publishing several of my books. Here’s what happened.
While Amazon is rightly cracking down on fraudsters using AI to write books and claiming well-known authors wrote them, some publishers trying to publish a book by a real author have gotten wrongly blocked by Amazon. Even if the publisher has previously published books by that author, it may not matter. Instead, Amazon’s Content Review Team may wrongly block the book and require all kinds of documentation to show that the author has given permission to publish their book.
Unfortunately, it can take weeks for the publisher to straighten out the problem by proving they have the right to publish the book. And making this proof even more difficult is the publisher can only communicate with the Amazon Content Review team members by email, and they may get a different team member each time they exchange emails. In the meantime, their books remained blocked from publication, which occurred when publisher John Pluff of J. Michael Publishing struggled to published Ask the AI Wizard by multi-published internationally known author Gini Graham Scott. In the book, AI is asked about problems from real people, mostly about relationships, and gives is advice, which has been deemed good advice by real counselors and life coaches, and then it includes a party game where people take turns giving their advice to the problem, vote on who gave the best advice and see what AI had to say.
John Pluff previously published two of her books without any problem — Once Upon a Time in Ukraine, featuring 200 photos she took on a citizen diplomacy trip to the Ukraine 35 years ago in the Glasnost years, and The Ethics of AI, featuring responses by AI to questions about its code of ethics. Fortunately, Gini Graham Scott was able to publish Ask the AI Wizard through her own company, but J.Michael Publishing is still struggling to publish it on its own site.
About six months ago, there was no problem publishing the books by Scott. They sailed through the publication process in a few days, and Scott could easily publish the books through her own publishing company.
But suddenly everything changed due to Amazon’s crackdown on fraudsters who published AI books falsely attributed to popular authors, such as Jane Friedman who reported that five books about writing and publishing were falsely listed as being written by her. So after Friedman complained, Amazon finally took the books down, which is fine. Amazon should take down any books falsely attributed to an author to promote sales.
However, Amazon also blocked a series of books that J. Michael Publishing hoped to publish by Gini Graham Scott and created a series of barriers for the company to prove that Scott was the author for over three months beginning July 12. At first, Gini Graham Scott called to state she was the author, but that wasn’t enough, so she wrote a letter to Amazon to state that. But that wasn’t enough because the letter had to come from the publisher, and even the publisher’s letter of explanation didn’t work. Instead Amazon’s Content Review Team asked for even more documentation to show that the author granted Pluff the rights to publish her book and that the rights were reverted to the author from the previous publisher. Pluff also was warned he had to confirm his publishing rights within 5 days, or the books would be unavailable for sale on Amazon.
So Pluff tried his best to comply and sent a letter from Scott showing the title page of the book, the copyright notice in her name, and her statement that she had granted the publishing rights to J. Michael Publishing. However, that still wasn’t good enough. Rather, July 13, the publisher received a letter from another Content Review Team member, stating that they still couldn’t confirm that he had the necessary publishing rights, because “they did not have a contract signed by all the parties.”
Again, he tried to provide a contract, since the previous agreement with Scott had been worked out through emails, phone calls, and a personal meeting. This time, Scott drafted a contract Pluff could send. But even that wasn’t enough, since the contract lacked her personal signature assigning the copyright, according to still another Content Review team member. And there was no one Pluff could talk to personally to straighten everything out.
At this point, Pluff was so frustrated that he put his correspondence with Amazon aside for a while, and after a title change to Ask the AI Wizard, he was ready to try again. Though Amazon now had added questions about whether the book was created with the help of AI to generate or assist in providing content, the Kindle book was published within a day. But oddly the Amazon Content Review Team cracked down on publishing the paperback book. At least this time, the publisher was ready with a contract signed by the author and a signed letter from the author providing the publisher with the rights.
So finally Ask the AI Wizard was published in paperback and Kindle editions on Amazon, with a hardback coming soon. But then the saga began all over again when Pluff tried to publish Ask the AI Wizard: The Book and Ask the AI Wizard: The Game, since the original publication combined both and readers might only want one. So again both were blocked, though Scott quickly published both books through her own publishing company. So it’s back to square one to send Amazon contracts and letters affirming the rights from Scott, even though the Review Team already approved the original combination Ask the AI Wizard by Scott, and after three weeks Pluff wonders why this Amazon publishing nightmare should happen to him. “Why can’t they see that I already published three books by Gini Graham Scott: Ask AI’s Advice, The Ethics of AI, and Once Upon a Time in Ukraine. Why do I have to prove I have to prove I have the right to publish these books again and again?”
Pluff’s saga illustrates how independent publishers seeking to publish books by other writers can be caught up in a crackdown on fraudsters falsely claiming well-known authors have written books they have nothing to do with. Amazon seems to be targeting small publishers with a small number of books, since they may seem the most suspicious for being fraudsters. But there should be a simpler, faster way to facilitate the proof process — such as a phone number to call or a key department to call to affirm ownership of the rights. Or an Amazon Content Review Team member could look at the publisher’s prior history and if they have previously published books by a particular author, they shouldn’t have to question the publication of additional books by the same author. It would seem like an obvious no-brainer not to challenge a publisher for publishing another book by that author. But for now, the big problem is that legitimate publishers can find themselves stuck in limbo while they try to figure out what to send Amazon to prove that they really do have the rights to publish the book from an author. And in the meantime, they and Amazon are losing months of sales.
In short, J. Michael Publishing’s exchange with Amazon’s Content Review Team reflects what appears to be a new policy of cracking down to avoid AI-generated content being used to create books falsely attributed to well-known authors. But the policy can also ensnare some publishers, most notably new small publishers, into a confusing trap where they have to provide documentation that they may not initially have to show that they have the rights to publish an author’s work.
Thus, according to author Scott, there is a need to balance out the needed removal falsely attributed AI-generated content when authors protest that they didn’t write those books with the opposite situation where a publisher validly publishes the work of an author. As Scott states: “If the author is claiming the publisher has the right to publish the work and is not asking Amazon to remove it, that should be enough to show the publisher can publish the book. A publisher shouldn’t have to go through all kinds of legal hoops to affirm the right to publish an author’s book, which could discourage some small independent publishers from publishing the work of outside authors. Or going through an extended verification process could increase their costs of publishing, leading to increased charges to customers or reduced payments to authors they publish. So there should be a balance between cracking down on AI-generated or other books falsely attributed to real authors and not extending this crackdown to publishers trying to publish the work of real authors.”
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Gini Graham Scott, Ph.D. is the author of over 50 books with major publishers and has published 200 books through her company Changemakers Publishing and Writing (http://www.changemakerspublishingandwriting.com). She writes books, proposals, and film scripts for clients, and has written and produced 18 feature films and documentaries, including Conned: The True Story and Con Artists Unveiled¸ distributed by Gravitas Ventures. (http://www.changemakersproductionsfilms.com). Her latest books include Ghost Story and How to Find and Work with a Good Ghostwriter published by Waterside Productions; The Big Con, I Was Scammed, and Love and Sex in Prison, published by American Leadership Press; and Ask the AI Wizard, published by J. Michael Publishing