Notice about fradulent Amazon MoL sale
Added 2021-01-25 22:33:04 +0000 UTCSo. Recently someone started selling Mother of Learning on Amazon, completely without my permission or knowledge. I have send a request to Amazon to take this obvious case of plagiarism/scam down, and they've said they would respond in '1-2 says'... but I still haven't heard back from them.
I won't link to offending Amazon sale, as that would just give it traffic. I just want to make it clear to everyone: this has not been done with my support, and is not official in any way. I am working on publishing MoL, but things aren't done yet. When they are, I will surely notify people here well in advance and not just quietly put the story on Amazon like this.
tl;dr It's a scam, don't buy.
Edit: Amazon has taken the story down. Goodreads has also taken down the person impersonating me. I guess this situation has been resolved, then. Thank you all for reaching out to me and helping out.
Comments
I'm working on it.
Domagoj Kurmaic
2021-01-29 16:46:50 +0000 UTCGlad the situation has been resolved, but maybe beat the next scum trying to steal MoL to the punch and publish it for real.
2021-01-29 16:43:29 +0000 UTCThey have. I guess I should edit the post to note it, now that I think about it.
Domagoj Kurmaic
2021-01-29 09:35:10 +0000 UTCI cant find the US listing of MoL, i think they've taken it down.
HenryMorgan
2021-01-29 05:28:18 +0000 UTCThanks for the info.
Jason
2021-01-29 03:33:30 +0000 UTCThe Amazon (US) listing Iβm looking at now has three reviews, all five star.
2021-01-27 14:23:25 +0000 UTCAs far as I can tell, itβs just a generic response: 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: Amazon Community Guidelines
2021-01-27 14:19:50 +0000 UTCWhy was the review denied? I can see that not a single review was posted, at all.
Kalliope
2021-01-27 12:33:54 +0000 UTCI tried posting a one star review and was just notified by Amazon that my review was denied. Here is what I wrote: *WARNING* This is not legit! This is a fraudulent listing, the author has confirmed he has not published Mother of Learning on his Patreon. That being said, the story is truly amazing and currently available for FREE to read on Royal Road.
2021-01-26 23:53:13 +0000 UTCThere are also posts with both your name/nobody103 and MoL on amazon.de. - the one time i want to report something i can't find the button... i'll look harder. Such frauds!
Kalliope
2021-01-26 19:13:04 +0000 UTCYou're right and I'm feeling a bit of an idiot. I'm afraid I was looking at the UK site, not amazon.com. Usually kindle novels are available on both regardless, so it never occurred to me he'd have only put it on the main site. My bad. Disregard everything I said in the previous comment. Instead I recommend posting a link to the store page here and asking all your patrons to post reviews revealing that it's been stolen and that you have nothing to do with it. Being nice, reporting it and then just waiting quietly for them to get back to you rarely works out. The more fuss you make the better. That's the only way to make them actually care. There's a good chance they won't bother unless they're actually contacted by a lawyer and threatened with legal proceedings. I was being way too charitable before. I think I'll edit all that stuff I said out of the comment to stop my embarassment. This is what I get for forgetting to be cynical and actually giving these people the benefit of the doubt. So yeah, post about to to your fans here, on fictionpress, royalroad, wherever anyone reads your novel and let them know. You need to make a scene. Hopefully you won't have to actually start a lawsuit but it may really come to that.
DiabolicalGenius
2021-01-26 15:38:04 +0000 UTCUmm... wow. I don't think there's anything actually illegal about naming yourself Domagoj Kurmaic, and I suppose it could just be a fan... but the fact the exact same novel is also published on Amazon by the same account that plagiarized my story means there's probably more going on than that. I don't intend to do anything about this in particular, but it's a curious thing and I thank you for calling my attention to it.
Domagoj Kurmaic
2021-01-26 15:34:01 +0000 UTCTimelord might not be yours, but according to the post here, seems like someone has tried publishing it under your penname: https://www.webnovel.com/book/the-legend-of-the-timelord-the-vanished-village_19041442606188305
Julia O
2021-01-26 15:17:49 +0000 UTCIt's still up as far as I can tell. Both the search for 'Mother of Learning' and a direct link still take me to the page. Not sure why you can't see it but I can't. Does Amazon have some sort of filtering where you can see content depending on what you visited in the past?
Domagoj Kurmaic
2021-01-26 15:08:41 +0000 UTCEverything I posted in this comment before I edited is a brainfart. Please refer to my reply below.
DiabolicalGenius
2021-01-26 14:48:51 +0000 UTCIf they don't get back to you by the third day, contact them over the phone. You are harder to ignore when you don't give someone the chance to ignore you.
Faren
2021-01-26 03:22:02 +0000 UTCSorry you're going through this. People are the worst.
J H
2021-01-26 01:38:08 +0000 UTCDo you mean the 'World and Character Guide'? First time I hear about this. What could that even be? It says its 200+ pages. Of what? I'm not even sure what they're copying there. Weird. In any case, I didn't even know about that one until you told me about just searching amazon. I guess I should get into a habit of periodically doing that search myself.
Domagoj Kurmaic
2021-01-26 00:06:09 +0000 UTCYeah, me and another person I've never heard about. I don't really know to be honest - this is the first time this has happened to me, so I'm not sure what to tell you.
Domagoj Kurmaic
2021-01-25 23:59:20 +0000 UTCThey definitely are. The author of Epilogue (Etzoli on Royal Road) also had his book stolen by him. But Timelord isn't one of mine; I'm not sure where that particular book is lifted from. As from some old fanfiction, MoL is the only story I published on the internet.
Domagoj Kurmaic
2021-01-25 23:57:36 +0000 UTCThey're claiming to be you too?! Shows your name as the author! Any way we can help by reporting it or something?
2021-01-25 23:23:41 +0000 UTCAlso I just realized that the 'author' listed as being used for this might be connected to other stolen books. Is this one yours too? The Legend of the Timelord: The Vanished Village
Corwin Amber
2021-01-25 23:22:23 +0000 UTCI just posted a single star review on amazon (still awaiting 'approval' to show up) with the comments that it is a scam/stolen/not supporting the author. Hopefully amazon takes it down soon.
Corwin Amber
2021-01-25 23:15:18 +0000 UTCI'm not the only person that account has done this too, and they haven't managed to get it taken down either. I understand they can't check every upload, but the slow response once they are made aware of the issue is kind of concerning.
Domagoj Kurmaic
2021-01-25 22:54:12 +0000 UTCThankfully, I still have a prety active fanbase and they notified me very quickly. I'm very grateful for their diligence. However, since I've gotten a lot of questions asking me if this is legitimate as well, I figured I would make this post as a basic precaution.
Domagoj Kurmaic
2021-01-25 22:49:14 +0000 UTCSame.
JDG
2021-01-25 22:48:29 +0000 UTCMade sure to review both of the copies as stolen and gave them 1 star.
Draith
2021-01-25 22:47:53 +0000 UTCi am waiting till there is an audiobook (hopefully)
Jeff091
2021-01-25 22:42:48 +0000 UTCThe Zenith is by definition never on the horizon. π
Luke Hanks
2021-01-25 22:38:17 +0000 UTCI just searched Amazon. There are at least TWO such entries, plagiarizing not only you, but MoL fan art.
JDG
2021-01-25 22:36:41 +0000 UTCDamn that's sick. Still plan on buying the book when you release it just so I can have it on a shelf and reread every now and then.
2021-01-25 22:35:44 +0000 UTCWoah, how did you catch the scam? I'm so glad you did. What garbage.
JDG
2021-01-25 22:35:25 +0000 UTCYou would expect Amazon to have some quality check.
Young Youghurt
2021-01-25 22:35:23 +0000 UTCScumbags. I hope editing is going well for you! Patiently waiting for some sign of Zenith on the horison.
Armo
2021-01-25 22:34:34 +0000 UTC
