Amazon Reopens Castalia House’s KDP Account

Castalia House’s Amazon Kindle Digital Publishing account was restored yesterday within hours after Vox Day told readers it had been taken down (see “Amazon Terminates Vox Day’s Castalia House Account”.) The problems were caused by Castalia’s Collapsing Empire parody Corrosion by “Johan Kalsi” with the look-alike cover, which has brought Day’s business into conflict with Amazon’s rules many times since the book came out in 2017.

Collapsing Empire author John Scalzi seems to have had this news in mind when he tweeted on Thursday —

Although the Amazon account was reopened, Markku Koponen of Finland, where the Castalia House entity is based, told readers of Vox Day’s blog that the “Kalsi” book will no longer be sold on Amazon.

But the sales had dropped so low on it (because people seem to connect it only with the Scalzi events, which isn’t really fair. Again, it’s an actual, serious book) that removing that tool from them had more value than having the title there. And it’s still available on our own site, from which we keep 100% of the revenue instead of 70%.

And he said they have asked Audible to take down the audiobook.

Vox Day also contacted File 770 “to set the record straight,” saying —

  1. CORROSION by Johan Kalsi was cleared of being “misleading” no less than 7 times by the highest-level managers at KDP. The previous time it was depublished by the Quality Assurance employee, in September 2018, it was republished before we even received the email telling us it had been depublished.
  2. The reason we were given for our account was terminated was a claim of copyright infringement. This claim was incorrect and was subsequently acknowledged to have been incorrect when our account was restored.
  3. What Amazon did yesterday affected more than 60 authors, and any author who was feeling schadenfreude would do well to keep in mind that not every employee at Amazon with access to their account is fully in agreement with them either. We are very far from the first to have our account terminated, even if it was only for 20 hours in our case.
  4. We sold more copies of Corrosion via our direct store yesterday than we had sold in the previous three months on Amazon. We’ve sold even more copies of it today. That is why we decided not to republish it on KDP and why we will remove it from Audible as well. It’s simply not worth the potential conflict.

When one of his fans encouraged him to initiate legal action against Amazon. Vox Day replied —

No. We’re already in a significant legal battle with Indiegogo. We will not take on any additional conflict unless it is forced on us. Nor are we interested in going to war against our own distribution channel.

Day was referring IndieGoGo’s action last October, shutting down Arkhaven’s current fundraiser for Alt-Hero: Q, and refunding backers’ money (see “After Bleeding Cool Interviews Vox Day, IndieGoGo Axes Latest Alt-Hero Comic Campaign”.) Arkhaven is Castalia’s comics imprint.

15 thoughts on “Amazon Reopens Castalia House’s KDP Account

  1. It’s a serious book.

    Sure it is.

    That title, that cover, that fake “author,” why would anyone associate it with “Scalzi events”? Makes no sense, right?

  2. Sure, it’s a serious book. If by “serious” we really mean “fake”, “bad parody that failed”, or perhaps “serious attempt to cash in on someone else’s name”…

  3. Maybe VD would be more successful if he’d quit starting fights with everyone he doesn’t like.

  4. Or maybe people would just forget about him entirely — has he ever shown a scintilla of either authorial or editorial talent?

  5. people seem to connect it only with the Scalzi events, which isn’t really fair. Again, it’s an actual, serious book

    If it’s unfair to connect the lookalike book with the thing you tried to make it look like, that could easily be solved by changing the title and cover and author pseudonym.

    Oh, but then it wouldn’t sell at all?

    Yeah, it’s serious. You bet.

  6. Maybe VD would be more successful if he’d quit starting fights with everyone he doesn’t like.

    Oh, I think it seems unlikely.

  7. @Chip Hitchcock – none whatsoever.

    As the kidz say, whatevs. Presumably he’s failed to bother the comics community to the point where they pay attention so is trying to bother SF again.

    Grifters gotta grift.

  8. Late to the party, but I must point out the hilarity of this line from Beale:

    “CORROSION by Johan Kalsi was cleared of being “misleading” no less than 7 times by the highest-level managers at KDP.”

    ROFL. So . . . this kinda proves it’s misleading, no? If they have to keep checking it and going, “Oh, wait, nah that’s kinda okay I guess.” 😛

  9. Maybe VD would be more successful if he’d quit starting fights with everyone he doesn’t like.

    If he did that he’d have to succeed or fail on the merits of his work.

    Like Jon del Arroz, he acts as if that would be the death of his career.

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