Copyright "Publisher" is selling my book without my knowledge...What are my options?

[Leah Martin Dagher]

Jurisdiction

Indiana

I am a self published author, and have one "published one book. Lately, I have been receiving calls from book marketing & sales representatives wanting me to authorize them to sell my book. Yet, for the past two years, received worthless compensation for the book.

How is it that all these salesmen know about my book, AND Where are they getting the information? The pitch they throw at me seems to be that my book was selected by a team of "Expert Reviewers" and it has great marketablility but needs an agent, or agency representing it. I don't want to be scammed .. are there some resources out there to help?

 

[adjusterjack]

Look into Amazon's self-publishing system if you haven't done so already.

We have a self-published author here (cbg) who has two books on Amazon. She'll be around in a while and might have some helpful comments.

 

[Zigner]

I am a self published author, and have one "published one book. Lately, I have been receiving calls from book marketing & sales representatives wanting me to authorize them to sell my book. Yet, for the past two years, received worthless compensation for the book.

How is it that all these salesmen know about my book, AND Where are they getting the information? The pitch they throw at me seems to be that my book was selected by a team of "Expert Reviewers" and it has great marketablility but needs an agent, or agency representing it. I don't want to be scammed .. are there some resources out there to help?

The title of your thread is "'Publisher' is selling my book without my knowledge...What are my options?", but you don't mention anything about a publisher selling your book without your knowledge in your post. Why?

 

[zddoodah]

I am a self published author, and have one "published one book.

You began a quote but never closed it. Assuming you intended to put the word "published" in quotation marks, why did you do that?

How is it that all these salesmen know about my book, AND Where are they getting the information?

Well...you said your book is published, so why would it come as a surprise that someone would know about it?

That said, why would you expect anyone here to know how some unknown people became aware of your book?

I don't want to be scammed .. are there some resources out there to help?

Help with what?

Your post doesn't seem to raise any legal issue. If you're concerned about someone handing you a legal agreement that you won't understand, the resource to help with that is called a lawyer.

The title of your thread is "'Publisher' is selling my book without my knowledge...What are my options?", but you don't mention anything about a publisher selling your book without your knowledge in your post. Why?

I had the same question.

 

[Leah Martin Dagher]

The title of your thread is "'Publisher' is selling my book without my knowledge...What are my options?", but you don't mention anything about a publisher selling your book without your knowledge in your post. Why?

I should have said :" I believe this to be the case. " Don't have any tangible evidence, except that I also don't get a sales report from the company which is the content distribuitor. Maybe the book is really bad and has zero marketability? Why then, amd I getting calls from marketing reps. Also, the ones I have actually had conversations with say the book has global interest, and rates well in two separate categories {self-Help} and {educational}

 

[flyingron]

Once you use any of the online companies (IngramSpark, Amazon, Blurb, etc...) to make even one copy of your book, or you apply for an ISBN for it, there are people who mine these sources to send out shotgun unsolicited offers of representation. Same thing happens pretty much when you register a corporation, obtain a business telephone number, or even obtain an internet domain (without hiding your identity).

In fact, I'm getting stuff as a result of uploading some in-progress stuff to IngramSpark and I've not even published yet.

 

[Zigner]

I should have said :" I believe this to be the case. " Don't have any tangible evidence, except that I also don't get a sales report from the company which is the content distribuitor. Maybe the book is really bad and has zero marketability? Why then, amd I getting calls from marketing reps. Also, the ones I have actually had conversations with say the book has global interest, and rates well in two separate categories {self-Help} and {educational}

Of course they say that - they're salesmen (or saleswomen). How much do they want you to pay them?

 

[Leah Martin Dagher]

Heh-heh, I,m self published and my book is being sold somewhere . Definitely not by me.

 

[flyingron]

Heh-heh, I,m self published and my book is being sold somewhere . Definitely not by me.

Would you like to amplify that? Sold where? By whom? How did you determine this?

Understand, that offering your book for sale is probably not illegal. Making copies of it to actually fulfill the sale is. If you've not made your book available, how is it going to be copied to sell anyhow?

 

[adjusterjack]

Heh-heh, I,m self published and my book is being sold somewhere . Definitely not by me.

But you just wrote:

I also don't get a sales report from the company which is the content distribuitor.

That presumes that you voluntarily engaged that distributor to distribute your book. That should answer the question as to how anybody knows about it.

As for not getting a sales report, ask for it.

Maybe the book is really bad and has zero marketability?

If it was, I think you'd have figured that out by now.

 

[cbg]

Leah - with whom did you self-publish and who is your authorized distributer?

 

[Michael Wechsler]

I get requests all the time from marketers who often get information from a sold list which may have been harvested from a place where your publication appears. The most important question is what do they really want? You need to determine who these people represent, what they are actually doing (or not doing ) for you, whether they are asking you to pay them a certain amount, whether they want some type of exclusivity, how compensation works, and the duration and termination of the agreement.

Some of them may be looking to sell you services that some have referred to above. Their primary goal isn't to make you successful, only to make you believe you will be if you pay them to make an effort to give you a chance at selling your book. Don't be surprised if part of it is an ego trip as part of the sale, e.g. you're doing well on someone's website.

We published a very successful law app for a long time. Information is harvested about the author and support. I can't tell you how many developers and marketers send me "personal" emails to let me know how impressed they are with some prior version that hasn't existed for a long time. Determine whether this is happening to you and what services are being sold before you worry about getting into the contract stage.

 

[Leah Martin Dagher]

Would you like to amplify that? Sold where? By whom? How did you determine this?

Understand, that offering your book for sale is probably not illegal. Making copies of it to actually fulfill the sale is. If you've not made your book available, how is it going to be copied to sell anyhow?

That is what I am trying to find out, the initial agency was Xlibris publishing. I guess I will have to open a discussion with them. Thanks for the help , seriously i am not being snarky it just seems like one conundrum leads to another.

 

[Leah Martin Dagher]

I get requests all the time from marketers who often get information from a sold list which may have been harvested from a place where your publication appears. The most important question is what do they really want? You need to determine who these people represent, what they are actually doing (or not doing ) for you, whether they are asking you to pay them a certain amount, whether they want some type of exclusivity, how compensation works, and the duration and termination of the agreement.

Some of them may be looking to sell you services that some have referred to above. Their primary goal isn't to make you successful, only to make you believe you will be if you pay them to make an effort to give you a chance at selling your book. Don't be surprised if part of it is an ego trip as part of the sale, e.g. you're doing well on someone's website.

We published a very successful law app for a long time. Information is harvested about the author and support. I can't tell you how many developers and marketers send me "personal" emails to let me know how impressed they are with some prior version that hasn't existed for a long time. Determine whether this is happening to you and what services are being sold before you worry about getting into the contract stage.

My very thoughts! I felt like I was being sold a bill of goods for something that was not really out there. These guys claim to represent agencies which have the inside track to major publishers. I am going to contact my initial publisher and try to get some answers.

 

[flyingron]

It's like pulling teeth talking to you. What makes you think someone is selling your book? All you've done is made conclusory statements without describing anything that would indicate what is happening.

 

[Michael Wechsler]

My very thoughts! I felt like I was being sold a bill of goods for something that was not really out there. These guys claim to represent agencies which have the inside track to major publishers. I am going to contact my initial publisher and try to get some answers.

Maybe they do. From what I can see from the publisher you mentioned, they appear to be a group that takes books beyond just the writing stage, which many authors prefer not to handle. There is absolutely nothing wrong with or illegitimate about a party who takes the product the rest of the step of the way. There are just some who actually do it and others who claim to do it and are actually provided very little value add. You need to investigate what the do, what they are offering, how risk is divided and make a decision.

 

[Leah Martin Dagher]

Leah - with whom did you self-publish and who is your authorized distributer?

The self publishing entity is (was) Xlibris . My (ever so small, but reasonable) Royalties used to come to me from them on their check. NOW... I get a check from a company called Content Distributors, LLC in Bloomington, IN. I don't know who they are. With the recent research that I have done, they are associated with at least one global logistic service called Panjiva.com. Today I will probably focus on those three

 

[adjusterjack]

This you?

leah martin dagher at DuckDuckGo

Are you marketing the book direct to schools?

 

[cbg]

My books are currently also being sold on a Norwegian website and a South African website, in addition to the authorized sites. I've been advised by a friend who is a many-times published author that there's not much point in arguing the foreign sales. You might want to think about publishing through Amazon and using Ingram Spark as your distributor. There are always going to be illegal sales in this internet world. But I've had very little issue with it using these options.

 

[flyingron]

Content Distributors is the company that fulfills the shipment of XLibris stuff. You almost certainly agreed to all this when you signed on with XLibris.