Reuters reported last week that Spam is Clogging Amazon’s Kindle Self-Publishing. The problem, it seems, is PLR or Private Label Rights. I don’t understand how PLR works, but I suspect it’s like the water the Morlocks drink in H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine – an underground toxic sludge. Content farms crank out articles in a kind of first world sweatshop situation that exploits the labours of the educated poor, then they bundle this gunk as monthly subscriptions which they sell to internet bottom-feeders who cobble together various combinations and permutations of this gunk to produce vaguely bookish products which they in turn sell to unsuspecting readers like you and me. It’s legal because the content is purchased according to valid licensing arrangements, but it’s not really legal in that it violates Amazon’s ToS.
Although Reuters only reported this problem last week, it isn’t a new problem. Smashwords has been battling this crud for more than a year now. I checked their site and immediately saw suspicious content:
• A user called Progressive Management cranks out important looking documents like a dam safety report from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The author charges $9.99 for a document which FEMA provides for free here.
• Or there’s HowExpert Press. Scroll down the publisher’s list and you’ll see what a lot of crap it cranks out. The curious thing about this publisher is that it doesn’t let you preview its books. Let’s say you want to read a sample of their latest book, How To Play Field Hockey. It says you can sample the first 10% of the book. The book is 37 pages long. 10% of the book doesn’t even exhaust the front material (cover, copyright notice, table of contents). It’s impossible to view the book’s content. Presumably the remaining 33 pages are chock full of field hockey wisdom. They had better be for $9.99.
• Check out the books of Li Xi [no longer on Smashwords] who, not surprisingly, just joined Smashwords today. Her books purport to feature photos of Japanese rope bondage. They are each 10 words long, with 2 to 3 pages, and previews are set to %1 so you can’t preview them.
• Or consider The Lost Book of Wisdom by Francisco Sanchez, also published today. Don’t you just love the cover? I used it to decorate this post. I bet a six-year-old made it with a paint applet.
The irony is that I learned about the Amazon PLR issue, not through Reuters, but through the LA Times, which had purchased that content from the Reuters journalism sweatshop. The difference, I suppose, is that the journalists working for Reuters are real people whereas the “authors” of these works probably do not exist.
Tips on Buying Self-Published Ebooks
To avoid the PLR gunk trap, here are a few tips:
1. Check out author and publisher profiles. An important part of the reading experience is the development of a relationship. Is the author likely to be a real person? Is the publisher likely to be a real organization? Can you establish relationships with these people? Do they have web sites? Are the web sites well-developed full-featured sites that look like they are managed by people who care about what they’re doing? Or do they look generic and slap-dash? If they keep blogs, how far back do the entries go? And how recent are the current posts?
2. Does the author or publisher link to a twitter account. If so, do a disproportionate number of tweets relate to selling stuff or being all you can be? Just what the world needs — another social media expert.
3. How many other titles has the author written? If the author has written 50 books in the past year, you may want to consider their quality. If the publisher has published a long string of generic-sounding titles that all sell for 99¢ and are 3500 words long, then proceed with caution.
4. What does the cover look like? I know you’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but make an exception here. These people are cranking out books by the dozens. It’s easy to fool people with cut and paste words. Not so easy with cut and paste images. If your bottom-feeders have been working in a hurry, it will show in their covers. Just look at the cover for The Lost Book of Wisdom. Yech!
5. Can you preview the book? If not, move on.
6. If you can preview the book, does it sound like it was written first in another language and then run through the Babelfish blender? If so, it probably was.
7. Dive into the middle of the catalog and swim your way out. Self-publishing requires manual monitoring. That means the most recent posts are the least likely to have been screened. Go to material posted a few months ago. You may still find gunk, but there will be less of it.
8. Is it free? If so, the author is probably a real person. Spammers work for money and there’s no money in free.
It’s important not to reward bad behaviour. We all help to improve the ebook experience when we look critically at potential purchases. Let’s work to ensure that our hard-earned book dollars go to those who create original and interesting writing.