*PING*
any chance for context for those of us who don’t follow the politics of the publishing industry?
More info for the vast number of people who have no idea what you’re posting about:
You may have noticed that you can’t find any Castalia House ebooks on Amazon right now. That’s because Amazon shut down our KDP account on the basis of a wildly spurious claim of publishing material to which we do not have the necessary rights. We happen to have some VERY bad news for them on that subject….
The book in question? You guessed it. Corrosion: The Collapsing Empire again. This is the second attack on that book this month, as ten days ago, they pulled the book itself down for the sixth or seventh time due to claims that it was “misleading”.
From: Amazon.com [kdp-quality-assurance@amazon.com]
Sent: 21 January 2019 21:59
Subject: Notification from Amazon KDP
While reviewing the following books we found the title, cover image, descriptions and/or authors of the following book(s) are misleading to our customers:
Title: Corrosion (The Corroding Empire Book 1)
ASIN: B06XFQ24QC
As a result, the book(s) have been removed from sale from Amazon.
Not only have they shut down the account, but they sent us an email today declaring that they will not pay us any of the unpaid royalties, thereby screwing over each and every author we publish.
As last communicated in the message on January 21, 2019, we have identified the submission of content for which you did not have the necessary rights. Due to this and previous violations, we are terminating your account and your Agreement effective immediately.
As part of the termination process, we will close your KDP account and remove the books you have uploaded through our channels from sale on Amazon. Note that you are no longer eligible to receive unpaid royalties for sales that occurred prior to this termination.
Additionally, as per our Terms and Conditions, you are not permitted to open any new KDP accounts.
Of course, there were no previous violations that internal SJWs did not invent as we’ve been repeatedly cleared of the “misleading” charge for that book. Needless to say, we will not be taking this latest attack lying down. I won’t be surprised if the account is rapidly restored once we contact the manager who has been repeatedly dealing with this issue, especially since we were promised that it would never happen again after the last time.
Of course, this is precisely why we established the Arkhaven and Catalia Direct stores, because we knew better than to trust Amazon’s assurances that it would keep its SJWs under control. If you want to show support for Castalia and its authors, you can either write to Amazon and complain about this unwarranted action or pick up a print, ebook, or audiobook from one of our direct stores.
This is precisely why it is so important to a) build your own platforms and b) support the alternative platforms. This isn’t just about Castalia House because the same thing can be done overnight to any author or independent publisher who utilizes KDP. And if you’re a Castalia House author, please don’t panic, rest assured we are already in the process of taking care of things. But if you want to send an email to Amazon protesting their unwarranted removal of your books, please feel free to do so.
UPDATE: Amazon can’t even find the account information. It looks like whoever was responsible actually wiped all the data.
About Castalia House
http://www.castaliahouse.com/ch-page/
direct bookstore
https://www.aerbook.com/store/castalia/Castalia_Fiction/6072
Why did I publish through Castalia House?
Bayou Renaissance Man
Monday, May 23, 2016
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2016/05/why-did-i-publish-through-castalia-house.html
Now the biggest bookseller is deciding what we should read or not read. Along with the search engines and the social media, I can declare that freedom of thought is being eliminated and is almost gone.
Yup -
Tl;dr
Castalia is the publishing house of Vox Day who is reviled by the leftists and want to see him destroyed. He is partially behind the gamer gate movements and sad puppies activism (the latter exposing that the Hugo awards were given not on the merits of the work but on the political bonafides of the authors)
This was a parody work which was taken down almost immediately after originally being put up on Amazon then, after review by Amazon, was restored as a fair work. Parody works being legal in the US so long as there’s not an attempt to represent AS the work involved.
Now, almost 2 years after the incident, someone at Amazon not only reflagged the book again but wiped the entire publishers library from Amazon and will withhold all pending funds. Including many successful and highly ranked and reviewed books.
For a book that was already declared fair use and not infringing.
They didn’t like one book mocking Scalzi’s book. They were under pressure to remove Moira Greyland Peat’s “The Last Closet”. Using the first issue as an excuse, they did all of the above, removing ALL books by ALL authors of that publishing house.
To those who reflexively defend any corporation against the individual in the name of the mythical free market (which is actually a massively regulated market favorable to large corporations that can bribe legislators):
Vox Day has been among the most hated persons in the SJW milieu since GamerGate and Sad Puppies. The Amazon technical staff is full of activist, militant SJWs. Do the math.
Assuming for the sake of argument that Castalia House has in fact somehow violated terms of service, I will assert this:
SELECTIVE enforcement of laws, regulations, and policies are being used to destroy conservatives in the public arena.
If you have no problem with SELECTIVE enforcement, then you are not a conservative; when they come for you, I will have no sympathy.
Amazon has restored the account and apologized.
http://voxday.blogspot.com/2019/01/reinstated.html?m=1
But is The Empire collapsing or is it corroding?