Vagabond Shop Has Closed

I'm sad to report I've had to close Vagabond Shop. I operated the online shop through the print on demand company, CafePress. However, I've recently learned that Cafepress has now become what we call in the publishing industry, a vanity press. I've removed all links and associations with the company who attempted to convince me to fill out tax forms for the IRS in order to justify stealing 30% of royalties. I refuse to comply, and with a little help from friends, I was able to determine the truth behind CafePress' so-called new tax withholding rules. It's a scam, simple as that. As a freelance artist and Canadian citizen, under no cicumstances would I ever need to file with the IRS.

Please be aware, if any online print on demand or self-publishing company attempts to convince you to fork over a percentage of your royalties for American tax reasons if you are not an American citizen, it's a scam. I hope everyone will spread the word and help keep our fellow independent artists informed.

I will be adding some designs I had in my shop to the Art Gallery page and providing means to place an individual order using PayPal. I'm not sure exactly when I'll have this set up or if I could provide more products besides T-shirts only, but I'll work as fast as I can and keep everyone posted.

For the meantime, everything on my website is still intact. Please enjoy all writings and artwork available for your browsing pleasure.

Why I Don't Support Amazon

I will often talk shit about Amazon, but then, these days, who doesn't? However, I felt the need to explain in an article my reasons for not supporting Amazon.

I remember way back when Amazon was a joke. For those who were internet savvy back in the dark ages, Amazon was the last place you ever considered buying from online. Why? Amazon is not a retailer. It's a online warehouse shipping company. They sell whatever they have in their warehouse. Of course, with the introduction of ebooks, the line is severely blurred. It's digital material, it can't be stored in any kind of warehouse, so how can a warehouse shipping company sell digital material?

In my honest opinion, if Amazon hadn't invented Kindle, they probably would have gone out of business by now. The people behind Amazon are smart, I'll give them that much. They damn well know what they're doing. By inventing the Kindle they've bridged that gap between physical material and digital material. Good for them. And there's the problems.

First and foremost, Amazon does not care how they make money or why. Keep that in mind. Second, Amazon does not screen reviews. While it's not instant, it is automated. Even if fake reviewing accounts are flagged, it's not removed. If someone posts a rant that's completely unrelated to the product and flagged, it's not removed. If someone bashes an author of a book directly in a review, making it obvious bullying, it's not removed. If a rival posts lies as a review, it's not removed. The review policy states that a person doesn't have to experience a product in order to post a review. All anyone needs to do to leave a review is to buy one product. It could be earrings or a box of diapers, it doesn't make a difference. While many reviews are legit, this policy makes all reviews that doesn't say “verified purchase” fake by default.

There's been a lot talk about bullying on Amazon lately, though for any active internet user who's been around for a while, we know this has been going on since day one and removing anonymity won't make any difference. Amazon sees the hate. Amazon sees the sale number skyrocket. Amazon does not care, never has, and I doubt they ever will. It's making money from hate, and that's what their “no-censorship” policy is really about. It always comes down to money.

Last but not least, there are so many scams online it's hard to keep track. In online publishing, there's vanity presses. Upload your work, kiss your copyright goodbye, you'll never see a cent of royalty. At the same time, despite the fact these vanity presses are scams and blatantly selling copyrighted material without the copyright owner's permission, they're also connected with Amazon. It's called the “out of print” scam. Ebooks or books published with a self-publisher that's a vanity press in disguise, when an author realizes it's a scam and attempts to cancel, the book is then marked as “out of print” and sold on Amazon for however much money they want. Go to Amazon. Dig around. Find books that were published with an internet company. If it's a paperback that has a price of more that 20$ (American), I guarantee that book was stolen and Amazon is selling illegal copyrighted material. I have personally seen books published with American Star Books formerly Publishers America, a well-known vanity press (the name change doesn't matter, everyone still knows it's a scam), with a price on Amazon for up to 999$. In other words, selling illegal copyrighted material for almost a thousand dollars.

This makes Amazon the worse pirating website on the entire internet.

See my article about Internet Piracy for more information.

Therefore, I don't support Amazon. Thanks for reading.