“What Happened to Amazon’s Bookstore?” - The New York Times 3Dec21
“A 2011 thriller was supposed to cost $15. One merchant listed it at $987, with a 17th-century publication date. That’s what happens in a marketplace where third-party sellers run wild."
In his suit against the Zon, John C. Boland, author of sci-fi thriller Hominid, “says Amazon let…other vendors on its platform run wild with [his] Perfect Crime titles, offering copies for ridiculous amounts. The sellers also bizarrely asserted that “Hominid” was published in 1602, a mere 409 years before it was actually issued….
“Extraordinary prices for ordinary books have been an Amazon mystery for years, but the backdating of titles to gain a commercial edge appears to be a new phenomenon. A listing with a fake date gets a different Amazon page from a listing with the correct date….”
“Mr. Boland takes the misuse of his name personally. ‘When a seller claims to have a 1602 edition that it’s charging nearly $1,000 for, it’s defaming me by implying that the book existed before I wrote it — i.e., that I’m a plagiarist,’ he said….”
