Serious Troubles Afoot

     Incredibly, Amazon is disputing my rights to one of my books. Here’s the email I received:

Hello,

     Thank you for publishing with Amazon. Copyright is important to us – we want to make sure that no author or other copyright holder has his or her books sold by anyone else. To publish your book, please respond with documentation confirming your publishing rights within four days:

     Love In The Time Of Cinema by Francis Porretto (AUTHOR) (ID: PRI-CXTSTTECFD9)
     Examples of documentation we cannot accept are:

     - A personal statement by you that you have the publishing rights
     - A copyright application for which registration has not been confirmed
     - Contracts that have not been signed by all parties

     Examples of acceptable documentation are:

     - If you are the author and you are republishing your book after your publication rights have been reverted to you, a signed reversion letter from your former publisher
     - A signed contract between you and the author granting you the rights to publish the book in the territories, languages and formats you have selected
     - An e-mail from the address listed on the author’s (or their agent’s) official website confirming that you have the rights to publish their book in the territories, languages and formats you have selected

     If you publish books for which you do not hold the publishing rights, your account may be terminated.

Best regards,

Amazon KDP

     I’m at a loss here. No one but Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) has ever issued Love in the Time of Cinema. To the best of my knowledge, no one else is claiming to be its author.

     Here’s my reply to the email above:

Dear Sirs and Madames at Amazon,

     I don’t understand the reason for this demand. I am both the author and the publisher of Love in the Time of Cinema. Why is there any question about that? Has someone else claimed that the book belongs to him?

     I operate several websites, all of them on Google’s Blogger system:
     http://bastionofliberty.blogspot.com – My general commentary website.
     http://fwporretto.blogspot.com – If I have an “author’s official website,” I suppose this would be it, even though it doesn’t amount to much.
     http://face-press.blogspot.com/ -- This one is just a “vanity press” I invented myself.

     But at no time has anyone other than myself published any of my books. Indeed, at this time, all of them are available strictly through Amazon!

     Is it possible that there’s some confusion because I don’t consistently use my middle initial? Some of my books appear under Francis Porretto, and some under Francis W. Porretto. But both of those are the same individual: me!

     Please let me know what other information you need to resolve this, as I am totally dependent on Amazon for the sale of my books, including Love in the Time of Cinema.

Sincerely,
Francis W. Porretto

     Can anyone offer any insight? Any remedy?