For the second time in just four months, Amazon has caused a complete stranger’s book containing stepdaughter-with-stepfather sex smut to be shown on my Lisa Shea Amazon Author Central Page. This stranger decided to write their erotica under the pen name of “Lisa Shea”. Both times, completely without my permission, Amazon connected this smut book with my teen-friendly 500-plus-books account on Amazon.
The last time this happened, in March 2022, Amazon even sent a DIRECT EMAIL to all of my followers telling them I had just written a BDSM sex book. When I asked Amazon to send a retraction, Amazon refused.
I then wrote a book entitled: AMAZON MADE A MISTAKE – I DID NOT WRITE A PORN EROTIC BOOK!
Amazon did not promote my “Amazon made a mistake” book for me. So Amazon was fine promoting a sex book I **didn’t even write** to my fans, but they would not promote a book which clarified the situation to my fans.
Amazon swore this situation would never happen again.
Well, here we are, July 18 2022, and it has happed again. The fake author used nearly the exact same name for their new sex smut book about a teen stepdaughter lusting after her stepfather while her mother goes out drinking all night. And this book says it is SUITABLE FOR SIXTH GRADERS. What?? How did this smut even get through the normal Amazon KDP quality checks with this age range listed, never mind get loaded live with my name on it?
I of course immediately contacted Amazon to lodge a complaint about this situation.
At this point Amazon has removed the photo of my face from the book and the link to my Author Central page. But the book is still live and looks, to all my readers, as if “Lisa Shea” has written it. And it still says it is good for 6th graders. An erotic book about stepfather-stepdaughter sex!!
It is stunning to me that this happened once, but for it to happen twice in four months is just beyond belief. Something is viscerally wrong with the Amazon Author Central system and it needs to be fixed. Only books I personally approve should ever be appearing on my Author Central page and mailed out to my fan base.
Some people have said I should contact a lawyer, but you can probably imagine that Amazon is ENORMOUS and has an entire team of lawyers on call. The chance of any smaller author like me, even with my 500+ books, making any headway against Amazon is slim to none.