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posted by cmn32480 on Tuesday June 12 2018, @06:41AM   Printer-friendly
from the scamming-the-big-guys dept.

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow8317

A few levels past the bestsellers and sci-fi/romance/adventure titles on Kindle Unlimited, in the darkest corners of the Kindle Direct Publishing market, there are books that are made entirely out of garbage designed to make scammers hundreds of dollars a day. One user, who called his or herself Chance Carter, was one of the biggest abusers of the KDP system and, more important, made over $15 per book they uploaded to the system, over and over, for books that contained no real content.

Carter, according to the Digital Reader, would create large novels out of other books. The books, which were simple hack jobs written by Fiverr writers, were hundreds of pages long and, on the first page, featured a recommendation to flip to the last page to get a free giveaway. KDP pays authors for both paid downloads as well as for pages read and it doesn't sense reading speed, just the highest number of pages reached. Therefore Chance's "readers" were instantly sending him or her about twenty dollars a read.

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/11/notorious-kindle-unlimited-abuser-has-been-booted-from-the-bookstore/


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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 12 2018, @08:06AM (7 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday June 12 2018, @08:06AM (#691823) Journal
    Sounds like Amazon got burned badly. It's too bad that this sort of thing rarely ever gets fully exposed. It'd be interesting to see who was involved and a timeline of the mess and how it developed (for example, how long the thing stayed as a single person scam).
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 12 2018, @01:58PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 12 2018, @01:58PM (#691892)

    I was going to ask whether amazon ever made money, but I guess they recently did, because their P/E is positive. But it's 275, fools are valuing their stock that highly.

    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday June 12 2018, @02:36PM (4 children)

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday June 12 2018, @02:36PM (#691914) Journal

      They are probably betting that same-day delivery and fresh grocery delivery will pay off:

      Amazon’s Whole Foods deal makes online grocery ‘prime’ for acceleration [marketwatch.com]

      Data from Slice Intelligence shows that online grocery grew 44.6% in 2016 versus 2015. However, Moody’s said in a March note that online food sales account for less than 1% of the $1 trillion U.S. grocery market.

      Amazon currently has 18% of the online grocery market share, according to Slice.

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 12 2018, @03:46PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 12 2018, @03:46PM (#691961)

        I just can't see grocery delivery getting big. Dry goods, sure. Meat, veggies, and fruit though? I want to see that shit, and feel it, check for ripeness, disease, etc. And I don't want it delivered by some asshole who throws everything at the front porch and runs away while I'm opening the door.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 12 2018, @07:16PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 12 2018, @07:16PM (#692061)

        They are probably betting that same-day delivery and fresh grocery delivery will pay off:

        I'm sure they are betting a lot. But why are the investors betting along with them? Retail has traditionally been plagued by low margins, and though Amazon may have the "one click patent", there's a lot of competition that can get goods to the consumer. Unless they feel that the thin margins aren't worth getting into business for. :)

        Yesterday German TV reported that Amazon has just been returned items to the crusher, including major appliances like refrigerators and washing machines: https://www.zdf.de/politik/frontal-21/amazon-vernichtet-tonnenweise-ware-100.html [www.zdf.de]

        What a strange MBA world we live in...

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 13 2018, @09:11PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 13 2018, @09:11PM (#692533)

          Yeah, a lot of online vendors seem to have check-out via PayPal now, where addresses and payment are handed automatically by someone whom you might trust a bit. Amazon used to have a big convenience advantage, but that's no longer true.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 12 2018, @03:59PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 12 2018, @03:59PM (#691968)

    Sounds like Amazon got burned badly.

    Well, what did they expect when they allow people to Kindle [dictionary.com] Unlimited? ;-)