Amazon Printing Press and Pricing Scam

[APP]

https://kindlepreneur.com/amazon-printing-scams/

I found this article interesting. However, it doesn't impact me personally as I (at this moment in time) don't create print books--just e-books. I know many of you do create print books to go along with your e-books, though, so you may find it of interest.

[Bill Hiatt]

I'm not sure the problem would be as hard to fix as the author of the article suggests, at least as far as paperback books are concerned.

There are only a certain number of POD services out there. The only way this scam makes a profit is if someone goes with a cheap printing operation rather than one of the well-known PODs, all of which are going to have similar printing costs. It ought to be possible to design an algorithm that identifies books from an unknown POD and flags them. (Amazon knows where the new paperbacks it lists come from.) Another algorithm could check the flagged books for any similar author name/title combinations. In that way, a relatively small number of possible scams could be identified for investigation by a live person.

One thing Amazon has been relatively good about in the past is responding to DMCA takedown notices. So if anyone does spot a counterfeit book being marketed on Amazon, that's definitely something to report and get fixed. Probably, the hassle will be minimal. 

[TimothyEllis]

One thing Amazon has been relatively good about in the past is responding to DMCA takedown notices. So if anyone does spot a counterfeit book being marketed on Amazon, that's definitely something to report and get fixed. Probably, the hassle will be minimal.

Not so much.

I had both eBook and paperback copies of one of my books up earlier this year.

Took 6 weeks to get them taken down.

[Bill Hiatt]

That's unfortunate. They were better about it in the past I think. They probably don't have enough people (or bots) on it.

[TimothyEllis]

That's unfortunate. They were better about it in the past I think. They probably don't have enough people (or bots) on it.

I'm wondering if this is a side effect of the low content book explosion.

Their resources are so over stretched dealing with 1000's of low content books a week which all largely look the same and use the same set of Canva images, that the bots are too distracted with them to detect actual fraud.