It seems we have a real problem online with questionable trinket sellers peddling goods online, making wild promises and not backing them up. Worse, some of the websites make such outlandish claims that it is turning off the online consumer, thus hurting everyone. Sometimes the less-than-ethical website entrepreneurs will copy someone else's product pretending to be of the same quality or sell something unethical online, and if they are successful or appear to be successful other newbies will come along and mimic their marketing strategies figuring that it must be working.
One thing I've noticed in the realm of ebooks is that there are folks who are selling bootlegged copyrighted work, or taking content online that they assume is not copyrighted and making that content into ebooks. Not long ago, I was contacted by an online eBook website seller and told that the ebooks I produced looked to be content that I did not have exclusive rights to, why? Because, they used their computer system to find ebooks that had content in them which could also be found somewhere else online. You know, like the software that teachers use to prevent plagiarism.
Unbeknown to the company, I have produced my own content from scratch, but my shear volume, made it appear that I was one of the culprits lifting content online. That's pretty unfortunate, and it is too bad that I got caught in the dragnet like a dolphin. Nevertheless, because there are so many unscrupulous Internet entrepreneurs just trying to make a buck, and too lazy to create their own content, they have essentially ruined it for all of us prolific writers who are trying to put content out to the world. Worse, they are making everyone else look bad who write ebooks, and they are catching the attention of the media.
The online e-book seller obviously had to do something about that to maintain their reputation for all their eReader customers. Still, you can see how these scam artists trying to make money without working, or do anything online to make money, regardless of ethics are turning off the online consumer, and in the process hurting the writers who work so hard to develop all of this content and produce these ebooks in the first place.
It seems rather scary that someone would steal someone else's work, put it into an e-book, and then have the balls to go sell it on one of those major websites. Nevertheless, that's what's happening, and unfortunately when these companies take enforcement action they are sweeping up all the good writers along with the fake ones. Please consider all this and think on it.
Lance Winslow has launched a new provocative series of eBooks on Internet Issues. Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank; http://www.worldthinktank.net/
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