I was horrified to read on Publishing Perspectives that thanks to a video course called Autopilot Kindle Cash (details here), spammers are uploading bogus e-books onto the Amazon Kindle bookstore. One tactic is to copy an ebook that’s doing well, give it a new title and cover and launch it at a slightly different market. This sort of pirating should be relatively easy to pick up. However, other so-called authors are using content that can be brought very cheaply online, repackaging it and selling it as a book, often for 99 cents. Reading the comments on Warrior Forum where, Autopilot Kindle Cash is advertised and discussed, goes to show that none of the people who think it’s “wow” have given a thought as to where the content is actually coming from.
The claim is also made about AKC that “It is TRULY a hands free, increasing, monthly income”. The “hands-free” part of that is intriguing. If you read the product description, you find this: “With this brand new … course, YOU just hand the video course to your spouse, your assistant, your brother… heck – even hand it to your 10 year old kid! They’ll be posting 10 or even 20 new Kindle books to your account EVERY DAY!” One of the commenters on the forum talks about paying his “office girl” to do the work for him. So somebody somewhere is doing something with their hands to churn out these “books” – just not necessarily the person who buys the package. And they’re certainly not being creative in the way real authors are.
So do beware when you’re buying stuff on Kindle bookstore. Always download a sample first. I do, and I’ve weeded out what I now realise were probably examples of this sort of cobbled-together publication. Sadly there’s the very real danger that the material worth reading may start to disappear under the piles of substandard junk produced by these sorts of means.