What every author needs to know about content theft, identity theft, and the legal tools that keep your writing safe
You spent months — maybe years — writing your book. You poured your expertise, your stories, and your credibility into every page. The last thing you expect is to discover that someone else is selling it without your permission, publishing under your name, or cashing in on your ideas with a cheap knock up.
That's exactly what happened to Renee Salt, a 95-year-old Holocaust survivor who finally published her memoir, A Mother's Promise — only to find AI-generated knockoffs appearing on Amazon within days of her launch. It's also what happened to Jane Friedman, one of the most respected voices in writing and publishing, who discovered that strangers were listing low-quality books under her name.
In this episode of Easy Peasy Books, Gillian Whitney breaks down the three main types of book theft affecting authors today, explains how copyright actually works (and what it doesn't protect), and shares practical strategies for safeguarding your work before something goes wrong.
The Three Types of Book Theft Authors Need to Know
1. Content Theft
Content theft is the most straightforward form: someone takes your book, your ideas, or your story and publishes something similar — or identical — under their own name.
The challenge is that copyright law draws a distinction between a similar work and an identical one. A word-for-word copy is clearly infringement. A loosely similar book covering the same territory is harder to fight. That grey area becomes even murkier with AI tools, which can generate a book that follows your structure and echoes your ideas without copying you verbatim.
Memoirs, however, sit in a different category. When someone takes your name, your specific experiences, and your personal story — even with some details changed — you have stronger grounds to fight back. That's precisely what made the Renee Salt case so egregious, and ultimately winnable.
2. Identity Theft
Identity theft in publishing is when someone publishes a low-quality book under your name — trading on your reputation without your knowledge or consent.
This is what happened to Jane Friedman. A contact reached out to let her know that several titles had appeared on Amazon attributed to her — books with clickbait-style titles that felt out of character for someone of her standing. When she investigated, she found multiple listings: books she had never written, never authorized, and never seen. When she approached Amazon to have them removed, the platform initially pushed back, asking whether she had trademarked her name.
She hadn't — and most authors don't. The argument that ultimately worked was straightforward: these listings would confuse readers. Combined with suspicious review patterns and the absence of any author page, Amazon eventually took the books down. Goodreads required a separate, slower process of convincing their community librarians that the titles didn't belong to her.
"It's bad enough when people pirate your book — but this was stealing her identity. It was stealing her brand."
3. Companion Pieces and Unauthorized Workbooks
The third type of book theft is more legally ambiguous: companion workbooks, study guides, and summary books published without the original author's knowledge or approval.
Search for Atomic Habits by James Clear on Amazon and you'll find dozens of companion guides and workbooks that he never wrote and never authorized. These exist in a legal grey zone called fair use. As long as they don't reproduce the original text word for word, they can sometimes survive. Amazon is working to crack down on these, but many are still live.
There's a practical lesson here for authors: if your book lends itself to a workbook or companion guide, consider creating one yourself. Owning your own companion content means no one else can fill that gap with something inferior — and it protects your brand.
Gillian's Framework: Five Steps to Protect Your Book
Protection isn't something you sort out after a problem emerges. These five steps give you the best foundation before anything goes wrong.
Step 1: Register Your Copyright Officially
In the United States, everything you write is automatically copyrighted — you don't need to register it, and it doesn't even need to be published. But automatic copyright and registered copyright are different things. Official registration, through copyright.gov (in the US), is what allows you to sue for damages and legal fees in a court of law. It costs $65, takes about 20 minutes online, and requires mailing a physical copy of your book to the Library of Congress. You don't need a lawyer. You don't need to do it before publishing — it can be done at any point, as long as it's before any lawsuit. The poor man's copyright (mailing a sealed envelope to yourself) does not hold up in court. If your book matters to your brand, register it properly.
Step 2: Publish Across Formats and Countries Simultaneously
One protection strategy is simply casting a wider net. Publishing your book in all formats — print, eBook, audiobook — and across multiple countries at the same time leaves less room for scammers to establish a foothold. The more comprehensively your book is present in the market from day one, the fewer opportunities there are for knockoffs to gain traction.
Step 3: Set Up Google Alerts for Your Title and Key Phrases
Go to your Google account and set up alerts for your book title, your name, and any phrases that are uniquely yours. Google will email you when those terms appear anywhere online. This is a free service, and it works both ways — you'll catch potential theft early, and you'll also learn when someone has featured or referenced your work without your knowledge.
Step 4: Use Copyscape to Scan for Plagiarism
Copyscape (copyscape.com) allows you to enter passages from your book and scan the internet for matches. It's a practical tool for finding out whether specific language from your work has been lifted and republished elsewhere. Use it periodically, especially in the months after your book launches.
Step 5: Secure Your Advanced Reader Copies
PDFs can be forwarded to anyone. When distributing advance copies before publication, add a watermark to every page and send only to trusted readers — not an open call to the internet. For a more secure approach, BookFunnel delivers advance copies directly to a reader's Kindle rather than as an open PDF, making distribution significantly harder to exploit.
Real Examples from the Episode
Renee Salt: When AI Stole a Holocaust Survivor's Memoir
At 95, Renee Salt finally published A Mother's Promise — her true story of surviving Auschwitz, co-written with journalist Kate Thompson after 18 months of research, including a return visit to the camp. Within days of publication, AI-generated knockoffs appeared on Amazon.
The fake books were published under names chosen to cause maximum offence: one used the author name 'Jude Williams' — Jude being the German word for Jew, historically forced onto yellow stars worn by Jewish people during the Holocaust. Another was titled From Darkness to Light, credited to 'Penny Pincher.'
The books were eventually taken down, thanks to Kate Thompson's public open letter to the thieves and pressure from The Sunday Times. Readers left negative reviews, demanded refunds, and rallied around the original author. Good won — but it required a community effort.
Jane Friedman: Published Under Her Name Without Her Knowledge
Jane Friedman — a widely respected author, publisher, and educator in the writing world — discovered that multiple titles had been listed on Amazon under her name. The books were poor quality, with titles that mimicked her field but none of her depth.
Amazon initially resisted removing them, asking whether she had trademarked her name (she hadn't). The argument that finally worked was reader confusion: the listings had no author page, suspicious review patterns, and descriptions that didn't match the content. Amazon acted. Goodreads required a separate, slower campaign through community librarians.
Gillian's Own Copyright Decision
Gillian has published five books, but chose to officially register only one for copyright: From Expert to Author, which she published in November and registered the following December. The process cost $65 and involved submitting an online form and mailing a physical copy to the Library of Congress.
Her reasoning was clear: not every book needs official registration, but the one most tied to your brand and your legacy is worth the protection. She's not planning to go to court — but she now has the option.
"$65 for the peace of mind of knowing that book is sitting in the Library of Congress — that just makes me feel a whole lot better."
What Copyright Does — and Doesn't — Protect
A few common misconceptions worth clearing up:
Book titles cannot be copyrighted. You cannot protect the title of your book, and neither can anyone else. Multiple books can share the same title, and there's nothing legally you can do about it — or that can be done to you. Where titles matter practically is with your ISBN: once an ISBN is assigned to a title, it cannot be changed.
Automatic copyright exists from the moment you write. You don't need to publish. You don't need to register. Your words are yours as soon as they exist. But if you ever need to prove it in court, official registration is what carries legal weight.
The 'poor man's copyright' doesn't hold up. Mailing a sealed manuscript to yourself is widely believed to establish legal proof of ownership. It does not. Don't rely on it.
AI-generated copies are a growing threat — especially for memoirs. For memoirs and personal-experience books, the use of your specific name and real-life experiences gives you stronger grounds to fight back than a general non-fiction book would. Know where you stand.
Red Flags to Watch for on Amazon
Not all book theft is immediately obvious. These are the warning signs worth checking, both for your own titles and when you're considering buying a book:
- No author page — click the author name on any Amazon listing and see if it links to a real author profile. If it goes nowhere, that's a significant red flag.
- A description that doesn't match the content — some fake books recycle descriptions from unrelated titles.
- Ratings without reviews — a pattern of star ratings with no written reviews can indicate a click farm operation.
- Suspiciously short page counts — a 20-page 'book' priced like a full publication is a common hallmark of AI-generated filler content.
- Author names that seem designed to mislead — in the Renee Salt case, the fake authors' names were chosen to echo the original author's identity.
If you see something: File a report at amazon.com/report/infringement. Have your documentation ready — screenshots of your original upload, publication date, any social media posts about your launch, and your copyright registration if you have one.
"I'll look out not only for myself, but I'm going to look out for other authors. If I see something, I'll tell them."
Listen to the Full Episode
Hear the full conversation, including Gillian's personal experience registering her copyright and her thoughts on when it's — and isn't — worth fighting back.
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About Gillian Whitney
Gillian Whitney is a business book coach and the host of Easy Peasy Books: From Author to Authority. She helps professionals write and publish books that build credibility, attract the right clients, and establish lasting expertise. Learn more at easypeasybooks.com