Hey, guys! So… I recently discovered, thanks to a friend on Facebook, that a site called Bookinistika.com is pirating authors’ ebooks and selling them for a higher price, which obviously means that all the money goes to them with no royalties to you. My books were on there. They removed Bane of Ashkarith, but they have yet to remove the anthology I’m in that I also found on the site.
I am beyond angry about this because I know how much work has gone into the anthology, and I definitely know how much effort and creative work went into Bane of Ashkarith. Please, if you are an author, go check to make sure your stuff isn’t up here. Search all book titles in addition to your author’s name as their search engine is, intentionally perhaps, not well-designed and won’t pull up everything by author’s name. If you’re a reader, a word to the wise! If the price is way higher or lower than Amazon, Kobo, or Barnes and Noble (or any other well-known retailer) or you don’t recognize the seller, then they probably are pirating the ebooks. I’m not going to 100% say they are, but you should check with the author if you can to make sure they know their work is up on that third party vendor’s site. Chances are good that indie authors and publishers are not putting their books up for sale on some obscure site that doesn’t have an established name in the market. Don’t buy if you think there’s even a chance that it’s pirated! You’re hurting the author instead of helping.
Usually, you can double check on authors’ sites to see what platforms they are listing the book for sale under. For mine, I always post book information for new releases, and those new release info sheets include the links to all the places I or my publisher have chosen to list it for sale. If a new site is added, I add it to the list. If you don’t see the book listed for that site, then it’s not on that vendor’s site legally, and either you should report it or you should get in touch with the author to let them or their publisher report it. Being an indie author is tough enough without having your work stolen! Help us out and let us know if you see something suspicious. Thanks, guys!