I’ve been publishing ebooks online since 1999. A standard process for me is to write articles about a topic – for example meditation – and then to gather the content together to make an ebook out of it. This allows me to get feedback from visitors along the way. It also helps create interest in my content so I can then market the ebook version on those pages.
I’ve never had any problems from the publishers. I’ve done this with Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble Nook, Kobo, Google Play, and many more.
Suddenly, in January 2021, Draft2Digital decided that it would start scanning all incoming books to see what type of content they held.
Draft2Digital already had indicated they wouldn’t ever take public domain content. They didn’t want to have to deal with 8,000 copies of Pride & Prejudice, all exactly the same. I understand that concern. I never posted public domain content. All content was always 100% written by me.
However, when I went to republish my Low Carb recipes book, which has been continually published since 2004, Draft2Digital wrote back and said they would NOT allow my book to go through to their various external systems because they found some of my articles on the web. They said that therefore those articles are public domain.
WHAT??
I wrote those articles. I clearly label every single thing I write on the web with my name and a copyright statement. These are NOT PUBLIC DOMAIN. It is concerning to me that a big publishing house believes that anything they find on the web is public domain and free for use. They are mine! Written by me! Under copyright to me! It’s not even as if I’m using a pen name or anything. Everything is labelled with my real name, Lisa Shea, and I publish my books under my real name, Lisa Shea.
If they are saying that no book can have any of its content anywhere on the web, that would shut down ALL books from being available. Pretty much every single book has content and excerpts online from reviewers, promoters, analyzers, you name it. It’s the nature of the book industry.
All of these types of changes happen because scammers try to take advantage of the systems. Scammers try to scrape content from other authors and then use it. I realize that Draft2Digital is making their change to try to fight against the scammers. But along the way, they’re catching legitimate 20-year-plus authors in their system who are simply publishing their own books. It makes it exceedingly frustrating for the authors who are legitimately doing the right thing.
UPDATE:
Draft2Digital responded to my message and reported that, yes, they had found my low carb content on my BellaOnline Low Carb website, where it was properly credited with me as the author and me as owning the copyright to it. They therefore would allow the book to pass through. I have 13 books in this low carb series and I have a feeling I’m going to have to go through this same process for every single book as I update them.
There needs to be a better way to handle issues where an author is a known writer of content on the web and is leveraging that content in their book sales.