Spam clogging Amazon's Kindle

Thousands of digital books, caLd ebooks, R bn published Thru Amazon's self-publishing SYS Ech mth. mNE R not RitN n d traditional senS.

Instead, dey R built UzN somTIN known az prv8 LBL Rights, o PLR content, whch iz info dat cn b bought v cheaply on9 thN reformatted in2 a digital buk.

dEz ebooks R listed 4 sale -- ofn @ 99 cents -- alongside mo traditional books on Amazon's website, forcing readers 2 plow Thru mNE mo titles 2 find wot dey wnt.

Aspiring spammers cn evN buy a DVD bawx set caLd Autopilot Kindle Cash dat claims 2 teach ppl how 2 publish 10 2 20 nu Kindle books a dA w/o writiN a wrd.

DIS nu phenomenon represents d drk side of an on9 revolution that's turniN d traditional publishing NdustrE on itz hed by givN authors nu ways 2 acces readers directly.

BY d NUMBERS

n 2010, almost 2.8 $MM nontraditional books, including ebooks, wer published n d United States, whIl jst mo thN 316,000 traditional books came out. dat compaRs w 1.33 $MM nontraditional books & 302,000 conventional books n 2009, accordN 2 Albert Greco, a publishing-industry Xpert @ Fordham University's Biz skul.

n 2002, fewer thN 33,000 nontraditional books wer published, whIl Ovr 215,000 traditional books came out n d United States, Greco noted.

"This iz a staggering incrEs. It's mind boggling," Greco sed. "On d +ve side, DIS iz helping an awful lot of ppl hu rOt books & c%d not git dem published n d traditional way Thru agents," Greco added.

bt Greco listed downsides. 1 prob iz dat authors must compete 4 readers w a lot mo books -- mNE of whch "probably nevr shud hav cn d lite of day," he sed.

som of dEz books apEr 2 b outright copies of othR wrk. Earlier DIS year, Shayne Parkinson, a nu Zealander hu writes historical novels, discovered her debut "Sentence of Marriage" wz on sale on Amazon undR NothA author's nAm.

d issU wz initially spotted & thN resolved by customers Thru Amazon's British on9 4m.

"How did I feel? :o & somwot incredulous, bt @ d sAm time, cuz of d way I found out, v grateful dat SOME1 had takN d trouble 2 lt me know," Parkinson sed.

4 Amazon, d wAv of ebook spam crashing Ovr d Kindle c%d undRmIn itz push in2 self-publishing & tarnish d brand of d best-selling Kindle eReader, whch iz set 2 acownt 4 som 10 % of d company's 2012 revenue, accordN 2 Barclays Capital estimates.

"It's getin 2 b a mo widespread problem," sed Susan Daffron, prez of Logical Expressions, a buk & software publishing co.. "Once a few spammers find a nu outlet lIk this, hoards of dem follow."

Amazon pays authors 70 % 2 35 % of revenue 4 ebooks, depeNdN on d P$. dat gives spammers a financial incentive 2 focus on DIS nu outlet.

"Amazon wiL definitely hav 2 do mo quality control, unLS dey wnt d integrity of thR products 2 drop," she added.

"Amazon wiL wrk hard 2 snuff DIS out az it undermines mNE of itz advantages n d space," sed James McQuivey, an eReader analyst @ Forrester rEsrch.

Amazon iz curating submissions 2 itz nu Kindle Singles business, whch offers sht stories, long-form journalism & opinion pieces, "after CN how quickly d self-published side degenerated," McQuivey noted.

"Undifferentiated o barely differentiated versions of d sAm buk don't improve d customer experience," Amazon spokeswoman Sarah Gelman rOt n a June 14 email 2 Reuters. "We hav processes 2 detect & remove undifferentiated versions of books w d goal of eliminating such content frm our store." She did not respond furthr.

DO-IT-YOURSELF SPAM

Kindle spam hz Bin growing fst n d lst 6 months cuz sevrl on9 courses and, ironically, ebooks hav Bin released dat teach ppl how 2 cr8 a Kindle buk per day, accordN 2 Paul Wolfe, an Internet marketing specialist.

1 tactic involves copying an ebook dat hz started selling weL & republishing it w nu titles & covers 2 appeal 2 a slightly dfrnt demographic, Wolfe explained.

Spam hz yt 2 flood d on9 bookstore of d Nook, a rival eReader sold by Barnes & Noble Inc.

d co. mA b managing ebook submissions mo aggressively thN Amazon, bt it mite jst b dat d Kindle's huge audience iz mo @ractiv 2 spammers, Forrester's McQuivey sed. Barnes & Noble did not respond 2 requests 4 a comment.

Smashwords, an ebook publisher & distributor, hz also struggled w spam, bt not 2 d sAm Dgre az Amazon's Kindle, accordN 2 fowndr Mark Coker.

Smashwords, whch competes w Amazon, manually checks d formatting & othR basic characteristics of d submissions it receives, b4 publishing. Obvious signs of spam NcluD poorly designed covers, d lack of an author's nAm on d cover & bad formatting, Coker explained.

Smashwords pays authors quarterly, whIl Amazon pays monthly, Coker added. d longer payment period mEnz Smashwords hz mo tym 2 track dwn spammers & clOs accounts b4 monE changes hands, he sed.

Amazon duz not offer mNE frE ebooks, whIl Smashwords duz. So ther iz mo of an incentive 2 publish lots of books via d Kindle, accordN 2 Coker.

Coker sed Hs co. hz found 5 o 6 instances wen frE ebooks published on Smashwords wer copied & republished on Amazon's Kindle store 4 @ lEst 99 cents Ech.

Forrester's McQuivey sed Amazon wiL hav 2 craft a social-network solutN 2 d prob. f d co. cn lt readers c buk recommendations frm ppl dey know, o ppl whuz reviews dey liked n d past, dat wud hlp dem track dwn d content dey wnt & avoid misleading recommendations, he explained.

Daffron of Logical Expressions sed Amazon shud chRj 4 uploads 2 d Kindle publishing SYS cuz dat wud remove a lot of d financial incentive 4 spammers.

"This iz Y email spam hz bcum such a prob -- it costs nothing," she sed. "If ppl cn put out 12 versions of a sngL buk undR dfrnt titles & authors, & @ dfrnt prices, evN f dey seL jst 1 o two books, dey cn mAk monE. dey win & d losa iz Amazon."