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Good heavens above - the flood of rubbish little books about COVID-19

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lea_owens:
Someone mentioned something to me on FB about the number of books on Amazon about COVID-19 - a veritable flood of badly written, rubbish books promising knowledge, protection, and treatments. I just searched Kindle books for 'COVID-19' and there are 315 of them, mostly very short, pretty much cut-and-pastes of information readily available on websites and Google. For instance, a 22 page book on how to make medical masks was published a couple of days ago - it is $2.99 and is at #620 overall in store. There are 10 page 'books' for $2.99 and more and they are ranked under 20,000. Clearly, the world has gone mad as there is nothing I can see in any of them that you couldn't get for free with twenty seconds of Googling.

Am I a literary snob/dweeb/nerd for thinking that writing this stuff to cash in on people's worries is something Amazon should try to stop? Or should it just be open slather, and make money however you can with self-publishing. I find it distasteful. Or maybe it's just sour grapes that my 180,000 word book with 90% five-star reviews is being outsold by all these 20 page articles that are calling themselves books.  Some of the information I saw on the 'look inside' features was incorrect, and it is frightening to think people might believe the notion that a home-made gauze mask will give them protection from COVID-19.

Anarchist:
From ASIN B085QM6R49...

Chapter 1: What is a coronavirus?

Chapter 2: Why is it called like that?

As the kids say, bruh.

Post-Crisis D:

--- Quote from: lea_owens on March 14, 2020, 07:54:47 PM ---. . . there is nothing I can see in any of them that you couldn't get for free with twenty seconds of Googling.
--- End quote ---

The same is true for any number of topics.  The benefit of a book is that you have all the information in one handy place.

Of course, the rest of your point stands.  There is a plethora of garbage books for the coronavirus, likely put together by marketers looking for quick cash.  A number consist of content scraped from various websites.  I imagine there's probably a guide selling for $7, $17, $27 or even $37 on how to put together books on the coronavirus for fast money.

Jeff Tanyard:

--- Quote from: Post-Crisis D on March 15, 2020, 12:45:01 AM ---I imagine there's probably a guide selling for $7, $17, $27 or even $37 on how to put together books on the coronavirus for fast money.

--- End quote ---


Maybe I should publish a guide to the guides.   :icon_think:


via Imgflip Meme Generator

Vijaya:
Lol, Jeff.

But good grief! Why am I sewing a dress when I should be throwing out a little booklet on virology?

It's funny, I get so many ideas for what I call near sci-fi (imagining what's now only slightly into the future) but my heart's in family dramas. Perhaps one day, I'll develop some of those ideas. I tend to have long percolating periods. Or maybe I'm just lazy.

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