The book thief II

I'm sure you all remember my post on The Book Thief from February. In it, I  told you all of the saga of my dear friend, mass communication colleague and author, Jemma Grey, and her recent unsavoury experience with a brazen-faced plagiarist. I have two updates arising out of that incident.

Spotlight's on you, Vishal Mondkar!

Firstly, Jemma did get some relief from Amazon (the avenue through which the pilfering plagiarist peddled her works as his own). Amazon's fairly prompt response was as follows:

Thank you for your e-mail.  The ability to purchase the Kindle title you reference below has already been disabled.  The detail page may still exist for a period of time, but the title is no longer searchable on our site.  We trust this will bring this matter to a close.

What are you really telling me, Amazon?

If you're like Jemma and I, I think Amazon's response begs more questions than it answers. The title being unavailable for purchase is but one aspect of the problem that is within Amazon's remit to resolve. 

• Did Amazon instruct the thief take it down in response to the complaint or did they do so themselves?

  

  Caught out but what was done?

• Or did the thief remove it after several of Jemma's friends (including yours truly) confronted him directly?
• Was this response solely to appease Jemma's complaint or was it also in response to the other plagiarism claims against the thief?
• What of the sales that the thief had already conducted? Were those customers reimbursed for their purchases?
• Should Jemma be entitled to some financial relief from Amazon, even if it is limited to the monies paid by the unwitting customers?
• What sanction(s) did the thief himself receive?

  

  You'd hate to think that he just skulked away unscathed ...

• Did he, in the face of evidence presented, admit his plagiarism to Amazon?
• And, perhaps most importantly, what is Amazon doing or going to do to ensure that situations like this don't happen again with other literary works in the future?

We may never know the answers to those questions (even though she did ask them), as the tone from Amazon indicates that they consider this matter closed and their actions in it as decisive. But I hope that Jemma's experience puts you on your guard concerning your published works and the possibility of copyright violations of your intellectual property.

Always proceed with a pinch of caution.

Secondly, I'm pleased to state that every cloud does have a silver lining. In this case, the book thief episode had an unanticipated benefit for Jemma. Based on the demand she saw for the unpolished copies of her book from the thief's sales, that has encouraged her to actually go through the publishing process and bring her works to ink-and-paper reality. She is now in the process of getting Pretend With Me (she has chosen to rename the novel) officially published. I will update you as to its local availability - print and electronic - and the prices. If you're a lover of vampire-themed stories, you'll surely want to pick up a copy.

Pretend With Me by Jemma Grey. Coming soon to bookstores! (Actual cover may vary but this is one Jemma likes.)

All in all, I want to continue to encourage Jemma and the other budding authors reading this to keep on writing and reaching for your literary dreams. Without you and your efforts, this world would indeed be a much more boring place.

Keep on writing, folks! We need to have our imaginations stimulated by your work!