There has been quite some consternation among Indie authors over past months in various ways that dishonourable people have found to scam the system and get quite rich selling books that are not what they should be, particularly on Amazon, or who steal others’ books and make them available on pirate websites, or plagiarise and “rebrand” them as their own work..
Understandably, those who put a lot of effort into writing and publishing excellent books find such situations discouraging. It’s hard to be upbeat about what we do when others seem to “win” with shortcuts that are plain wrong.
As I commented in yesterday’s post on integrity and ethics, it seems as though the floodgates have opened to allow all sorts of deceitful behaviour.
It’s hard to know how to respond.
What honest writers must not do, however, is quit.
It’s up to us to keep on creating fantastic stories and poetry for the readers out there who crave excellent books.
It’s up to us to hold our heads high, proclaim “I write every word of my books!” and then show the world what we’ve got.
In short, it’s up to us to show the cheaters and scammers how it should be done.
Nobody but honest and hard-working authors can restore the faith of readers in Indoe and self publishing. The only way to do that is to maintain a premium of quality in the books on the shelves in stores, libraries and homes all over the world.
We may have to work harder, smarter and cleaner than ever before. Still, we’ve had to do that in order to give traditional publishing a good shake, and we’ve certainly achieved that.
We Indies have so much to offer. We have each other for support and an entire future that is yet to be shaped ahead of each of us.
I refuse to quit. I refuse to let the scammers win. Who’s with me?
WordyNerdBird 
You’re right. The one thing we as indies are missing, however, is proper representation. And I mean that toward the big retail platform, but also toward the black sheep that are ruining our business with their scams.
That’s a very good point!
Yes, the scammers and thieves are everywhere, and not just when it comes to books. It’s sort of stunning how corrupt people can be. I hope they’re enjoying a bit of karma.
I think authors need to write to their legislators and get them to realize there is a problem and enact legislation with fines and jail time for folks caught stealing others works. There is no difference of stealing our work then there is in stealing in our diamond jewelry. If we all got paid a salary to write our book, we would have enough to buy at least a two carat diamond ring and that is prison time any way you want to look at it.