[Keri Knutson]

Recieved this email this morning:

Hello,
We haven't received confirmation that you hold the necessary publishing rights to the following book(s):

A Certain Doorway (ASIN:B004Z207ES)
Dead Girls and Other Stories (ASIN:B008GTILEO)

Consequently, we've blocked the book listed above from being sold in the Kindle Store. If you have the necessary publishing rights, please reply to [email protected] and provide any documentation or other evidence that proves you have retained rights for the book listed above.

It's important that you can prove you retain the necessary publishing rights, as per our terms and conditions. Publishing books you can't demonstrate you hold rights to could lead to suspension or termination of your account.

If you have any questions regarding the review process, you can write to us at [email protected] To contact us about a different issue, please visit: http://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/contact-us

Best regards,

Kindle Direct Publishing
http://kdp.amazon.com

The only thing I can come up with is the short story "A Certain Doorway" was published in a charity anthology last year or the year before (where all contributors retained all rights) and was published years ago in the (now defunct) pro magazine Black October, which retained the rights for one year. Is this the probable cause, or am I missing something? Anybody know exactly how I prove my publishing rights?

 

[Cherise]

This has come up in the forum before. A search might yield some answers.

 

[SunHi Mistwalker]

As the other poster said, this has come up before. I would send them a simple email saying that while the stories were published in an anthology all rights reverted to you as of (insert date).

 

[Ian Fraser]

I had a similar thing at some point. I just sent them mail stating that I was the original writer of the title in question, and gave them a linky to my Wikipedia page, which presumably demonstrated that I was who I said I was.

In your situation, I'd reckon simply stating what you've stated here, ought to be enough for Amazon. Just set out the mail simply:  I am the writer of ____.  Proving this, I can state it was previously published in (charity anthology name)...  and was also printed in the magazine Black October.

Provide approximate years as well, if you can. Amazon likes facts.

Send that off, and then await their response. Touch wood it should fix the problem. I think you shouldn't take it personally, they're just trying to stem the flood of scammer uploads - and most scammers can't/won't provide data stating they 'own' the titles in question...
/2 cents worth

 

[katiemoe]

They have a software bot that handles the first round of alerts, so a person at Amazon has not established this - the software bot did.

I also had it happen, given the nature of my topic, and the initial email for me sounded quite threatening that I'd never be able to do business on Amazon again. I read all the hysterical posts at the time, but I stayed calm. A simple email to them, explaining why I owned the copyright, links to my blogs, etc solved the problem. Then a live person looked at it and reversed the block. Took about 5 days, though, for it to be looked at.

For my second book, I registered the work and I was prepared, but Amazon's bot never questioned it. Still, registering the work was a good habit for me to get into. Peace of mind.

 

[Speaker-To-Animals]

It sounds like you didn't reply to the first message you should have gotten about this. You can probably clear it up by saying the work is yours originally and that the anthology and magazine had rights to publish it, but you retained rights to publish it yourself.

Also, let's not forget that Amazon isn't just out to be a big meanie, there are people who just grab other people stuff, particularly if its been free online, and publish them, hoping to make some money before anyone notices. For the most part, if you say you own it, they are most likely to believe you. I get the impression the pirates scatter like cockroaches once light is thrown on them.

 

[katiemoe]

I get the impression the pirates scatter like cockroaches once light is thrown on them.

This is the same analogy I use about internet scammers. Cockroaches hate the light.

 

[Guest]

Sounds like you missed responding to the first email. I get these once in a while. When you get the FIRST email (which it seems you missed) they usually just ask you to reconfirm your rights by rechecking the little box in the set-up. But even at this point, just send them an email that you retained the rights to the story and all should be well.

 

[13893]

I received a letter like this from KDP several months ago about one of my books. I replied simply that I am the author and publisher of the title in question and that I personally hold the copyright for the book. They responded with a thank you and all was well.

 

[Adele Ward]

Yes, it has happened with both books we uploaded this year, one last month, one this month. The reason is that both books were published by other publishers before. They email us and we then have to tell them the rights reverted to the author and we then have to resubmit the books. They also blocked my own novel for ages, and we think it's because it has the name 'Free' in the title which may have made them think it was sales spam.

 

[tensen]

Usually you can just respond to those emails and state that you have the rights. Those emails do come up now and again even if it isn't something that you published elsewhere (although in those cases I'm not certain what triggers it.)

What triggered yours was likely the Select though. I see Dead Girls is currently in select. You shouldn't include a short story in select if it exists elsewhere under their conditions of exclusive.

 

[Keri Knutson]

Thanks for the help!

This is the first email I've seen, so if there was one before it must have slipped past me.

You shouldn't include a short story in select if it exists elsewhere under their conditions of exclusive.

I'm sure that must be it. I actually hadn't thought about it because it was a charity anthology -- which is certainly my own fault. But at least now I don't have to worry about why it happened.

 

[George Applegate]

I wonder if Amazon is using one of the plagiarism detection services.