Quote:
Originally Posted by tubemonkey
Explain that to the average reader and all you'll get is a puzzled look. They won't have a clue as to what you're talking about, nor would they care.
FTR, I have no idea what either of these phrases means nor would I know how to spot them.
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For the most part, there isn't really a "this is pirated" indicator with regards to backlist books. You see a range of things depending on who did the actual scan and how much effort was made to clean it up. I would have said, look at the copyright page, but I've seen a number of legit ebooks leave the original copyright page (including the original publisher rather than the ebook publisher) in place. I've seen most of the items listed in perfectly legit ebooks. Many badly scanned and edited legit ebooks have been the topic of threads here. Book covers tend to depend on which book covers the ebook publisher has negotiated the rights to.
My rule of thumb is the likely rule. In this case, it's perfectly likely that they are legit. The audiobooks are becoming available and Amazon is discounting the audiobook if you buy the ebook. That's not just an automatic thing and I find it very unlikely they would do that for a pirated book. In addition, the ebooks have been there for six months. Most pirated editions of well known books don't last a month before they are taken down, especially if you have a book that has a history of being pirated and the literary copyright holder is active. Add in that apparently other Mary Stewart books are starting to appear in (a google search for Mary Stewart showed a magazine book review in England) all add up to say that it's likely that the ebook is legit. I'm not saying that it is absolutely, positively legit, since no one posting on this thread is in a position to say for sure one way or the other. I simply don't see anything that makes me doubt it.
Of course, if it really, really bothers someone, they can always do as suggested in this thread. First, contact Amazon and if they don't get satisfaction that way, contact the likely copyright holder. A number of pirated versions have been successfully dealt with that way.