It's a big problem now for many small publishers trying to publish books by different authors, as one publisher J. Michael Publishing found. As described in a Medium article, Amazon is rightly cracking down on fraudsters claiming well-known authors wrote AI-generated books, Amazon's crackdown has ensnared some publishers trying to publish a book by a real author. But the books have been wrongly blocked, even if the publisher has previously published books by that author.  That's because Amazon's Content Review Team may wrongly block the book and require all kinds of documentation to show that the author has given permission to publish their book.

            Unfortuantely, it can take weeks for the publisher to resolve the problem by proving they have the right to publish the book. And they can encounter all kinds of hurdles in trying to provide this proof. One problem is the publisher can only communicate with Amazon Content Review team members by email, and  they may get a different team member each time they exchange emails. Meanwhile, their books are blocked from publication.

            That's what happened when publisher John Pluff of J. Michael Publishing struggled to published Ask the AI Wizard by multi-published internationally known author Gini Graham Scott.  In the book, she asked ChatGPT4 for advice about problems from real people, mostly about relationships, and found AI gave good advice, and several real counselors and life coaches agreed. Plus she turned the problems and AI's responses into a party game in which people take turns giving their advice to the problem, vote on who gave the best advice and see what AI had to say.  The result was a series of books: a combination Ask the AI Wizard book, and separate books featuring only the book or the game.  But they all ended up being blocked.

            Ironically, John Pluff previously published two of her books without any problem. One was Once Upon a Time in Ukraine, featuring 200 photos she took on a citizen diplomacy tripm there in 1989 during the Glasnost years. The other was The Ethics of AI, featuring responses by AI to questions about its code of ethics. But for the past three months, Pluff has been writing back and forth with Amazon, including sending a publishing contract with Scott and a letter by her affirming that she has given him the rights to publish her book. But the book, and a previous version under another title, have remained blocked.  Fortunately, Gini Graham Scott was able to publish Ask the AI Wizard through her own company, but J.Michael Publishing is still struggling to publish it on its own site.

            The Medium article describes in more detail what happened as Pluff, with Scott's help, tried to persuade Amazon, he had the right to publish her book. Previously, he was able to publish two of her books within a few hours or a couple of days.  But suddenly everything changed due to Amazon's crackdown on fraudsters who published AI books falsely attributed to popular authors, leaving Pluff to wonder:  "Why can't they see that I already published three books by Gini Graham Scott…"Why do I have to prove I have to prove I have the right to publish these books again and again?"

            Pluff's saga illustrates how legitimate independent publishers can find themselves stuck in limbo while they try to figure out what to send Amazon to prove that they really have the rights to publish the book from an author.  The Medium article concludes with some advice from Scott about how to resolve the problem. "If the author is claiming the publisher has the right to publish the work and is not asking Amazon to remove it, that should be enough to show the publisher can publish the book… There should be a balance between cracking down on AI-generated or other books falsely attributed to real authors and not extending this crackdown to publishers trying to publish the work of real authors."

            For more details on what happened, you can read the full article on Medium "Publisher of Book by Real Author Blocked from Publishing It Due to Amazon's Crackdown on Scam Publishers Claiming Well-Known Authors Wrote an AI-Generated Book" at  https://tinyurl.com/2s3wkxe5 or  (https://ginigrahamscott.medium.com/publisher-of-book-by-real-author-blocked-from-publishing-it-due-to-amazons-crackdown-on-scam-8226c86c318e)

Karen Andrews

Executive Assistant

Changemakers Publishing

San Ramon, CA 94583

(925) 804-6333

Changemakerspub@att.net

www.changemakerspublishingandwriting.com