Amazon Tries To Snuff Out a Bunch of Kindle Publishing Scams (cnet.com) 16
Amazon has been working for years to clean its sites of fake reviews and fake products. It's still got work to do. From a report: The online retailer on Wednesday filed five separate legal actions through the American Arbitration Association to cut down on a variety of alleged scams used to make money on Amazon's Kindle self-publishing service, according to documents obtained by CNET. "Today's news reflects yet another step in our ongoing efforts to protect readers and authors from individuals who violate our terms of service and manipulate programs readers and authors rely on," an Amazon spokesman said in a statement. He added that only a "small minority" of those using Kindle Direct Publishing engage in such scams. Amazon since 2015 has been using these kinds of legal actions to fight against scams and already sued over 1,000 entities involved in allegedly creating fake product reviews on its sites. The company last year also sued alleged counterfeiters. As part of Wednesday's filings, one alleged scammer used a novel approach to try making money through Amazon. The man named in the filing, Nilmer Rubio, of Olongapo City in the Philippines, allegedly reached out to authors who used the Kindle self-publishing platform and told them he could artificially inflate the number of pages customers read of their books in two Kindle programs. He apparently did this with the use of hundreds of Amazon accounts he created.
Re: (Score:2)
Read it as: Amazon To Snuff Out a Bunch of Kiddies (Score:2)
What's wrong with that? (Score:4, Funny)
Novels seem like a pretty standard and accepted approach to making money through a book publisher, it's either that or non-fiction. (I don't think short stories really get that much traction, but i could be mistaken.)
Re: (Score:2)
Heh. I've tried three times and haven't had success with novels. Now I'm trying humorous nonfiction handbooks. If that doesn't work, I might try selling my precious bodily fluids - likely more profitable, and less of a time commitment.
I suppose I ought to be a little put out other people are gaming the system and soaking up funds (some of the Kindle money is distributed in shares from a pool), and I suppose I am, but even without the cheaters I don't think it'd be making much of a difference.
Re: (Score:2)
I published my first novel almost a year ago and sales have been extremely low. Then again, when I should have been focusing on promoting the book, I was focused on writing the sequel. I can't help it, I love writing and hate trying to promote myself.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm with you there. The skills sets for sitting quietly, imagining things, and crafting slowly don't really line up well with pushy sales, witty public banter, or a lot of the other major marketing techniques. Some people can do both, but it's unnatural to me.
Re: (Score:2)
The reality is, it is more of an interactive world now and passive content, all though reading is less passive than most, as readers are creating those worlds in their on minds based upon the guidance of the writer, still, writer of books are competing with writers of games. There is a good reason why open world games are so popular, people basically writing their own story through the game add in playing with others online and they are doing it together. On top of that, you are competing with all the new w
Re: (Score:2)
All true.
I actually ran a web-based computer game for five years, and it was far more profitable than writing books has been. It was still probably only a minimum-wage hobby (if that - I overpaid for servers for too long and wasted a fair bit of income). I also liked that I was doing writing, programming, database, and art work, in addition to game design. Sometimes it was tough keeping tabs on all the components, but it almost always meant there was something I was in the mood to do. Problem was, it was pr
Re: (Score:2)
Put the first one on Kindle Unlimited? Then there's a very low barrier to entry so that people can try a new author without worrying about spending money on a book that sucks or only the first 10% has been edited with trying a sample.
Once you've established trust with the first book, the later books can be $3-5 depending on page count.
Find a few readers/reviewers of the genre and ask them to read and review. Usually just being asked personally will do the trick. Doesn't take much time and as soon as you
Re: (Score:2)
Honestly, I'm not looking to make a ton of money off my books. If I make back what I paid in the publishing process (around $300 - mostly for a bunch of copies to give away), then I'll consider the book successful. Anything more than that is just icing on the cake.