So I’m preparing for my trip to Denver Comic Con this weekend when this gem of an email arrives like pixie dust in my inbox:

Hello,

We are writing to you regarding the following book:

Absolute Truths & Outright Lies by De Marco, Guy Anthony (AUTHOR) (ID:1872583), The Ultimate Blonde Joke Book by De Marco, Guy Anthony (AUTHOR) (ID:3587802), Tales from the Fleet by De Marco, Guy Anthony (AUTHOR) (ID:3859839)

During a review of your KDP book, we found your content widely available on the web. To ensure that no copyright holder has their work claimed and sold by anyone else, we need you to confirm you have publishing rights to the book.

To confirm your publishing rights, please provide a contract from the author or publisher verifying you have retained publishing rights within 5 days.

Alternatively, you may provide the following information:

1. The URLs for all websites where this content is published
2. An e-mail from the above domains with a statement that you have retained publishing rights

If you publish books for which you do not hold the electronic publishing rights, your account may be terminated. If we terminate your account, we will remove all of the books previously uploaded through KDP from the Kindle store and you will not be permitted to open new KDP accounts.

Thank you,

Kindle Direct Publishing

http://kdp.amazon.com

Yes, that’s true, friends. Kindle Direct just sent an email to Guy Anthony De Marco asking if Guy Anthony De Marco has the rights to Guy Anthony De Marco’s work.

They also say I have to produce a contract between myself and — wait for it — myself, proving I have the rights to publish my own work as Kindle Direct ebooks.

It looks like I need to set things up to handle ebooks on my website, because Kindle Direct has absolutely no idea what people are doing in their name. Some of the stories in my books have appeared here on my website. (Hint to any possible KDP employees: yes, this is my author site. You can ask Guy Anthony De Marco if he is Guy Anthony De Marco if you need confirmation. I’m pretty sure he’ll give me a good recommendation.)

The funny thing is I make more money from print than with Kindle ebooks. The funnier thing is I purchased some Amazon gift cards and purchased one of my ebook titles over a three month period. Two out of nine showed up on my KDP report, and I’m not sure if the two sales that did show up were mine or someone else’s. A 77% missing royalties rate is not worth my time.