So this year is starting off great. (Yes, that's sarcasm.) My first novel, The Element of Fire was published in 1993 by Tor Books, long before ebooks. When it went out of print I finally was able to self-publish an ebook edition in 2006, when I really needed the income. 1/?

Since then I've had to deal with lots of pirated editions on Amazon Kindle, Nook, Kobo etc. On 9/22/20 I reported 2 more pirated copies on Kindle, and they gave me a report claim number ( @AmazonHelp) and then ignored me, as they still make money off pirates. 2/?

Then yesterday I got a "quality issues" complaint on it and had to drop everything to deal with that (the reader reported archaic words as typos along with a few OCR errors). I got it fixed and now Amazon is saying they have an infringement claim filed against ME on the book. 3/?

The 2 pirated copies are STILL AVAILABLE but they're going to take my ebook down. I don't know if that also applies to the audiobook edition, which is by Tantor Audiobooks. (And you can find the pirated copies easily since they helpfully list them on my Amazon author page.) 4/?

This is very common on Amazon. I don't know how self-published authors cope with all the theft and harassment, frankly. The theft and harassment aimed at traditionally published authors is bad enough with a publisher supporting you. 5/?

I've self-pubbed 4 of my out-of-print books from the 90s and early 2000s plus a story collection, when I needed the money, and there were years when they allowed me to keep paying my share of the household bills and not be a total dead weight. 6/?

Anyway, I doubt I can get anything done about it especially on a holiday. I've never Amazon actually respond to me on any pirated book reports, despite jumping through all their hoops and getting claim numbers. ( @AmazonHelp) 7/end

Oh, FYI, This is the legitimate edition https://www.amazon.com/The-Element-of-Fire/dp/B002DPUJB0 It has my name as the publisher, the date of 2006 for the revised edition, and the same cover as the Tantor Audiobook, and is linked directly from my web site. B002DPUJB0