What do you do when a review of your book appears on Amazon that is fake or abusive? Or when you find copies of your book being sold on Amazon that infringe on your copyright? Worried someone has pirated your book? Have a problem with your product listing? Third-party sellers set as the default setting to buy your book? You discover someone selling Advance Review Copies of your book as new?

You can communicate with Amazon directly, of course. And you should. Infringement of your copyright or trademarks should be reported to your publisher, too. But many authors have found Amazon to be unresponsive or unsatisfying in their response to their concerns.

The Authors Guild now offers to help resolve authors’ complaints with Amazon. They have opened a direct dialogue with Amazon and have been reporting these types of incidents to them on an informal basis for more than a year. They have learned which issues represent legitimate use cases and which do not, and they have been able to get some of these issues resolved.

By collecting and amplifying authors’ complaints, the Authors Guild is able to work on these issues on behalf of authors everywhere. When Authors Guild members believe they are being harmed as authors (not customers) by Amazon practices and policies, or online communication has not yielded a timely response, the Guild is your advocate.

Authors Guild members may now file complaints with Amazon directly with the Guild. While you should report your complaints to Amazon, members now can file complaints directly with the Guild. The Authors Guild will review all of the author complaints to determine whether they raise problems that Amazon can or should address. They may not be able to address every issue, but where there is clear violation in Amazon’s policies, they will work with Amazon to resolve them. Amazon has at least been willing to review policies that adversely affect authors with the Guild.

If you aren’t already a member of the Author’s Guild, now you have one more reason to join.

Writing and Listening — an Interview with Brooke Randel

2 weeks ago

As a young girl Brooke Randel knew little about the Holocaust—just that it was a catastrophe in which millions were murdered, and that her grandma Golda Indig barely escaped that fate. But her Bubbie never spoke about what happened, and the two spent most of their time together making pleasant memories: baking crescent roll cookies, playing gin rummy, and watching Baywatch. Until an unexpected phone call when Golda said, out of the blue: “You should write about my life. What happened in the war.” What results is a fascinating memoir—about one woman’s harrowing survival, and another’s struggle to excavate theRead more…