Liz has some warnings for authors out there…

Authors Beware:  1 – Book Scraping

Image by AllThatChessNow at Pixabay

The sudden and overwhelming book scraping by AI has hit authors hard. Scammers are everywhere and book scraping by IT companies to train their dragons is currently being addressed by the courts.

If they’d bought the books, they would have got away with it, but they made the conscious decision to avoid paying for them and instead downloaded them from pirate sites. So stolen twice.

However, the Anthropic court case has thrown up other ways authors have been hit.

If you’re not up to date with this, here’s a link to what every author needs to know from The Authors Guild. You don’t have to be a member to sign up for their emails. There’s a link at the bottom of their home page.

Copyright

OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

Here in the UK, as with everywhere else in the world apart from the US, copyright is a given from the moment you put the words down on a document. No registration necessary.

In the US, copyright also applies from when you record your words, BUT you are only protected from copyright theft in law if your publisher registers your book with the US Copyright office.

It has become clear that some publishers have been a bit lackadaisical in that respect. The current court case – and undoubtedly the others that will follow – are being dealt with in the US courts. That means that unless your book is registered, even if your book has been illegally scraped from a pirate site, you won’t get compensation.

One publisher has already agreed to cover the compensation for authors whose books they have not registered. (Forgive my cynicism, but It’s cheaper than facing a class action lawsuit.)

Do it yourself 1

CDHGROUP on Pixabay

It costs $45 to register your book for US copyright. If your publisher isn’t doing it for you – and I doubt that many publishers outside the US would consider it necessary because, you know, there are laws – they will be losing out on compensation, too.

Something to bring up next time you’re negotiating a contract.

If you’re self-publishing, it might be worth doing it yourself. Go to Copyright.gov but watch out! There are plenty of others on the internet who will offer to do it for you. You do not need them.

Authors Beware: 2 – Marketing Scammers

A Wedding at Leopard Tree Lodge. Image: Liz Fielding

In an effort to let people know when I’ve republished one of my reverted titles, I post on Twitter.

Here’s one I did earlier.

I don’t do this because I want to shout out to the digital world that I’m a clever bunny. I do it because, otherwise, it’s just going to sit on the digital sites unnoticed and unloved.

In response, every day – yes, every day – I get tweets and emails from people who praise my book. Here are a few quotes:

“Wow, just seeing this book on Newly released on AllAuthors. It is a very great book. I am a great fan. Keep up the good work Liz.” Followed by – “Is this your first book by the way? Or you have other published ones.”

Firmbee at Pixabay

Some fan.

I suggested he Google me and got a slightly hurt, “I was just interested.” reply.

Was I supposed to feel guilty? Not when I saw that he creates promotional material for authors.

“Absolutely blown away by your book! The way you crafted the story is brilliant, powerful, engaging, and impossible to put down.” How lovely. A quick look at her profile revealed: “I guide writers on their journey to reaching more readers.” What a surprise.

Those are a taste of the tweets. The emails are long, glowing descriptions of my writing. They are really good!

“Liz, your career reads like a romance novel in itself secretary in Africa and the Middle East, Brecon Jazz Festival coordinator, two-time RITA award winner, and now a cozy crime writer with Joffe Books. Not to mention The Perfect Wedding, where Josie Fowler has to juggle taffeta, tantrums, and a grumpy, immovable Gideon McGrath. (Honestly, only you could make a man with a bad back sound irresistible. ) 

Copyright Harlequin Books

Lot of emojis with this one, although they got the title wrong. Could they have muddled it with a novella I wrote called The Perfect Wedding?  The book they’re referring to is A Wedding at Leopard Tree Lodge.

And of course this isn’t fan mail. Here’s the next paragraph:

“But here’s the kicker I peeked at your Amazon. And let’s just say the review section is looking more “empty dance floor after the DJ plays the Macarena” than “packed wedding reception.” 

One of them joked with me, teasing me that I had two Ritas. Greedy, what? they said. It makes the emails sound very personal. Very believable.

Should I be flattered by their interest?

Edurs34 from Pixabay

Er, no. And here’s why.

• No one read the book. They had a AI bot on the job, scraping reviews and bio information on the net. (More of that later.)
• I don’t believe in their crocodile tears over the fact that A Wedding at Leopard Tree Lodge has only one review. Series romance novels get very few reviews. It has nothing to do with the writing. My crime novels get thousands.
• Someone who did follow up one of these emails – purely out of  curiosity – discovered that they were offering reviews from their 2000+ circle of keen readers (they all have a 2000+ circle of readers) at $30 each. I repeat, EACH. So that would be $60,000? They should be targeting fantasy authors. They probably are…
• My latest, received yesterday, suggests that she (Nina has a graphic saying that she’s a real, ethical woman) doesn’t charge. And yet that same graphic says she’s a book marketer. She doesn’t do that free. The chances are she won’t do much, if anything.
• Like with anything I see on social media that grabs my interest (especially fashion), I checked them out on a scam site. Without exception the response was “caution”.  (Sadly, it’s the same with the fashion. So many beautiful clothes that are all fake news. Fake, fake, fake.)

Having ignored their first emails I’m now getting follows ups reassuring me how genuine they are. The first from a Samuel Wxxxxx didn’t have a photograph. The follow up did. It was of a woman. It did nothing to impress me with their credibility.

But it’s not all bad news

studiostoks – stock.adobe.com

I was never going to fall for these email lures. I didn’t reply to their lovely tweets, praising my books. However, since they were so eager to help me, I did repost them because why not?

And they’d taken so much trouble to get their AI companion to provide me with some great copy, pulling out great selling hooks.

I didn’t copy them – I respected their copyright – but I did use them to create my own PR.

Do it yourself 2

This is internet scraping to sell you expensive and almost certainly useless marketing. But, if the scammers can do it so, apparently, can we. One marketing site suggests using AI to scan your  book using chat.GPT and asking it for a selling blurb.

I haven’t tried it myself and while the scammers are doing such a good job for me, I’ll leave it to them.

Authors Beware: 3 – A final warning

papa – stock.adobe.com

At Writer Beware  there is a warning about scammers posing as reputable literary agents, publishers, and film producers in order to defraud writers. Remember that if it sounds too good to be true, it almost certainly is.

There are also emails from famous authors wanting to be mates. I had one from Donna Tartt this week. Would she think me rude if I don’t reply?

At the time of writing, A Wedding at Leopard’s Tree Lodge, which is available to download wherever you are in the world, still only has one review.

I’m happy to report that that number does not reflect the sales.

Liz