Support for Indie Authors discussion

Searching my book title on Google I came across a site called socialsbooks.com. Seems they have my book for free download from their site, and if their records are correct they've been doing it for a while. This is my first pirating and I'm fully in uncharted waters here on what to do other than contact them and tell them to pull it down. Will that work? What if they don't pull it down?

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11...

Check and see if your book is a "Public domain" work? The above article speaks to it.

Good luck!

First thing to do when something like this happens is do a search here on SIA to see if the topic has been covered. You'll get your answers and advice a lot faster.

One of our wonderful mods started a thread for just this kind of thing and it's chock full of good information.

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I'm sorry I missed an s in the web address, it's socialsbooks.com

It is definitely not a public domain book. Thank you for the article none the less!

I'll head off now and read through that thread, thank you!

What a nightmare... I'll look up that site and brainstorm a bit more. We've got to stick together.

Happy 4th

B

They have both of my novels there, but indicate that the publisher is Createspace. No digital copies are there, so I doubt if my books could be downloaded unless someone spent a lot of time transcribing them.

I've found a few of mine on there. What I find interesting is that they all have thousands of downloads, even stuff I put out very recently. Yeah. I'm that popular. *rolls eyes*

This is a scam to get you to click, and an easy one to spot. :)

All of the links to 'read' and 'download' go to the same place, if you hover over it you will see the link address.

All of my books are there, but as Dwayne said - I have so many likes there than it would have been impossible by now to not have had a random person reach out to either him or me by now and mention something about discovering our work on there.

Since this labels them as free and not a pirate service, a fan wouldn't have thought twice about saying something if the books were there.

I am confident they do not have my book. They don't have your book. :) They have no books there at all, except maybe a few token public domain works to convince people it isn't a fishing scam.

Sleep well at night again!

Thank you very much, you've all helped me feel better!

I went through the other thread linked, the whole thing haha, and afterwards spent the morning giving my computer a much-needed cleaning just to be safe.

Sorry to the folks running the SIAFBB event today, this took me out of the media fest. =/
I should be back up and running after lunch!

Thanks again everyone!

C.B. wrote: "This is a scam to get you to click, and an easy one to spot. :)

All of the links to 'read' and 'download' go to the same place, if you hover over it you will see the link address.

All of my books..."
I hope you're right. They claim to have mine, too. I just don't see what they get out of it, out of us clicking there...

Magnus wrote: "I just don't see what they get out of it, out of us clicking there... "

Viruses, trojans, targeted ads, all sorts of stuff on your computer you don't want. So that they can steal your online banking info / email contacts / identity / recipe for your famous cornbread.

Anything they can!

C.B. wrote: "Magnus wrote: "I just don't see what they get out of it, out of us clicking there... "

Viruses, trojans, targeted ads, all sorts of stuff on your computer you don't want. So that they can steal yo..."
Okay then...urgghghgh. Does that mean just clicking on above link gave them access to my computer or does that only apply if I click on one of the 'download' links? Thanks for your help, btw...

I have no idea! Sorry. It depends on the site.
Your anti-virus program it probably would have popped up if something happened, but best to run a scan to be sure, maybe with a few things!

A lot of the time, when you go to sites like that, it has a "number of times downloaded" and/or a "size in bytes" stat for the book. If you hit F5 a couple of times, the number(s) keep changing, and not sequentially. That's how you can tell who's a fishing scam and/or is offering a virus to suckers.

C.B. wrote: "I have no idea! Sorry. It depends on the site.
Your anti-virus program it probably would have popped up if something happened, but best to run a scan to be sure, maybe with a few things!"

thanks again - will do :)

Joe wrote: "A lot of the time, when you go to sites like that, it has a "number of times downloaded" and/or a "size in bytes" stat for the book. If you hit F5 a couple of times, the number(s) keep changing, an..."

I did try that too and concluded likewise :)

To get around the possibility of Internet viruses and trojans I use an app named Sandboxie. It isolates the Internet from your hard drive. I've had websites take over my browser a number of times, usually giving me a phone number I can call to get rid of the problem (probably at an exhorbitant cost). All I have to do is click on the Sandboxie icon on the bottom right of my screen, empty the "sandbox," and it all goes away. The only thing is, if you download something outside of the "sandbox," you'll also download any infections it might have. It may not be for everybody, and it takes some getting used to, but I use it all the time with never a problem.

I've just discovered my book on that website as well. I actually pressed the 'download' button, to see what happened and it asked me to sign in. Have just run a virus check, on my computer, just in case.

Forget about lawyers. Hire hackers to DESTROY THEM!

A.F.B. wrote: "I've just discovered my book on that website as well. I actually pressed the 'download' button, to see what happened and it asked me to sign in. Have just run a virus check, on my computer, just in..."

presumably (and hopefully) that means that they only get the info they're after if and when you actually register with them, right? Fingers crossed. I take it your virus check didn't find anything?