August 16, 2023: I’ve written a separate post for all authors: What Remedies Do Authors Have When Fraudulent Work Appears on Amazon?
Update (afternoon of Aug. 7): Hours after this post was published, my official Goodreads profile was cleaned of the offending titles. I did file a report with Amazon, complaining that these books were using my name and reputation without my consent. Amazon’s response: “Please provide us with any trademark registration numbers that relate to your claim.” When I replied that I did not have a trademark for my name, they closed the case and said the books would not be removed from sale.
Update (morning of Aug. 8): The fraudulent titles appear to be entirely removed from Amazon and Goodreads alike. I’m sure that’s in no small part due to my visibility and reputation in the writing and publishing community. What will authors with smaller profiles do when this happens to them? If you ever find yourself in a similar situation, I’d start by reaching out to an advocacy organization like The Authors Guild (I’m a member).
Update (evening of Aug. 8): Since these fake books have been removed, I’ve added titles and screenshots below, as well as an explanation of why I believe the books are AI generated.
Update (Aug. 17): The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which protects consumers from deceptive business practices in the US, recently published a post that touches on generative AI and book sales. They are closely watching the AI situation for writers/artists/creatives.
Update (Aug. 19): What about right of publicity, some have asked? In the US, laws vary by state. Check the laws in your state. There’s discussion by lawmakers to create a federal right to publicity due to concerns over AI.
There’s not much that makes me angry these days about writing and publishing. I’ve seen it all. I know what to expect from Amazon and Goodreads. Meaning: I don’t expect much, and I assume I will be continually disappointed. Nor do I have the power to change how they operate. My energy-saving strategy: move on and focus on what you can control.
That’s going to become much harder to do if Amazon and Goodreads don’t start defending against the absolute garbage now being spread across their sites.
I know my work gets pirated and frankly I don’t care. (I’m not saying other authors shouldn’t care, but that’s not a battle worth my time today.)
But here’s what does rankle me: garbage books getting uploaded to Amazon where my name is credited as the author, such as:
- A Step-by-Step Guide to Crafting Compelling eBooks, Building a Thriving Author Platform, and Maximizing Profitability
- How to Write and Publish an eBook Quickly and Make Money
- Promote to Prosper: Strategies to Skyrocket Your eBook Sales on Amazon
- Publishing Power: Navigating Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing
- Igniting Ideas: Your Guide to Writing a Bestseller eBook on Amazon
Whoever’s doing this is obviously preying on writers who trust my name and think I’ve actually written these books. I have not. Most likely they’ve been generated by AI. (Why do I think this? I’ve used these AI tools extensively to test how well they can reproduce my knowledge. I also do a lot of vanity prompting, like “What would Jane Friedman say about building author platform?” I’ve been blogging since 2009—there’s a lot of my content publicly available for training AI models. As soon as I read the first pages of these fake books, it was like reading ChatGPT responses I had generated myself.)
It might be possible to ignore this nonsense on some level since these books aren’t receiving customer reviews (so far), and mostly they sink to the bottom of search results (although not always). At the very least, if you look at my author profile on Amazon, these junk books don’t appear. A reader who applies some critical thinking might think twice before accepting these books as mine.
Still, it’s not great. And it falls on me, the author—the one with a reputation at stake—to get these misleading books removed from Amazon. I’m not even sure it’s possible. I don’t own the copyright to these junk books. I don’t exactly “own” my name either—lots of other people who are also legit authors share my name, after all. So on what grounds can I successfully demand this stop, at least in Amazon’s eyes? I’m not sure.
To add insult to injury, these sham books are getting added to my official Goodreads profile. A reasonable person might think I control what books are shown on my Goodreads profile, or that I approve them, or at the very least I could have them easily removed. Not so.
If you need to have your Goodreads profile corrected—as far as the books credited to you—you have to reach out to volunteer “librarians” on Goodreads, which requires joining a group, then posting in a comment thread that you want illegitimate books removed from your profile.
When I complained about this on Twitter/X, an author responded that she had to report 29 illegitimate books in just the last week alone. 29!
With the flood of AI content now published at Amazon, sometimes attributed to authors in a misleading or fraudulent manner, how can anyone reasonably expect working authors to spend every week for the rest of their lives policing this? And if authors don’t police it, they will certainly hear about it, from readers concerned about these garbage books, and from readers who credulously bought this crap and have complaints. Or authors might not hear any thing at all, and lose a potential reader forever.
We desperately need guardrails on this landslide of misattribution and misinformation. Amazon and Goodreads, I beg you to create a way to verify authorship, or for authors to easily block fraudulent books credited to them. Do it now, do it quickly.
Unfortunately, even if and when you get these insane books removed from your official profiles, they will still be floating around out there, with your name, on two major sites that gets millions of visitors, just waiting to be “discovered.” And there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it.
Jane Friedman has spent nearly 25 years working in the book publishing industry, with a focus on author education and trend reporting. She is the editor of The Hot Sheet, the essential publishing industry newsletter for authors, and was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World in 2023. Her latest book is The Business of Being a Writer (University of Chicago Press), which received a starred review from Library Journal. In addition to serving on grant panels for the National Endowment for the Arts and the Creative Work Fund, she works with organizations such as The Authors Guild to bring transparency to the business of publishing.
Geezus! I follow a lot of writer sites but somehow missed just how badly the AI scourge is affecting individual authors. I’m (as yet) unpublished but can’t even imagine how frustrating it must be to be someone like Jane Friedman and have that kind of a gnat gnawing at my ankles.
I’ll be following to read (hopefully helpful) input from others! Good luck on this Jane!
I, too, am yet unpublished and wonder what in the world am I getting into when the time comes.
It’s a very special kind of anxiety that is generated by this kind of techno-weirdness and particularly when you are so helpless to shut it down. I feel such sympathy for you Jane especially when you are a such a street-wise, sophisticated author and yet *still* have to deal with all this. Discouraging and distressing beyond words.
(Please keep us updated as well – surely Amazon will step up … )
Goodreads looks like it’s OK as of now. And that one ‘bad book’ wasn’t listed. Darn!
Ugh, I’m so sorry — this is incredibly frustrating. Is there a way to report products/ebooks on Amazon as fraudulent?
I’ve tried; we’ll see what happens.
Can you tell us precisely what you did so we’ll know to do it too?
Going through standard channels at Amazon did not help (e.g., using their infringement claim process). Making a big stink about the situation on my blog and social media might have helped, combined with being a member of the Authors Guild. The Authors Guild can communicate quickly and effectively with real human beings at Amazon and bypass the frustrating claims process where, because consideration is so narrow, you’re unlikely to make progress if you’re in my situation (ridiculous work being passed off as your own).
What a mess! One would think Amazon would provide at least a modicum of control. The dam of good business management has been breached, and it’s going to take a long time to clean up after the flood.
Good luck in getting rid of those garbage books.
This is horrible. And how frustrating that these mega-digital companies are so unresponsive.
My sympathies! Would there be any benefit to registering your name as a trademark? It won’t deter the fakers but it may be easier to remove their products under existing rules against “passing off”.
Also, I don’t know what writers’ organisations in the USA are doing, but in the UK I’m aware that the Society of Authors is developing policy and advice on AI, both for authors and to lobby government for more legislative protection.
The Authors Guild is doing the same, yes—they’re very active.
I know that it’s possible to trademark one’s name, although I don’t know if my name would qualify. It’s an interesting question and one I might need to consider.
If you don’t sell on Amazon would it be easier to verify that they aren’t yours? I have already had my rounds once with Goodreads and hope to never have to work them again, but Amazon is so big the thought of someone selling books under my name is a bit scary. I seldom buy from Amazon anymore because of their tendency to send you used books (one came with the sticker for a library in the UK) when you order new.
I’m traditionally published, so there’s no way I can tell readers not to shop on Amazon for my books (or use that as a verification method, at the very least).
If they are doing this to you how many others are there? Have you considered a class action suit against Amazon and Good Reads? Surly you have the right to your names.
P.S. Thank You for a great class. I have your class through “Great Courses” in addition to the knowledge gained the motivation was a true blessing.
Thanks, Stefanie.
I was in fact contacted by law firms that were interested in pursuing a class-action suit. That’s not really the way I want to spend my time.
This sounds so frustrating. I hope something can be done. This could be so damaging to an author. Especially one who is trying to become established through the more traditional publishing channels. If an agent searched a querying author and found a bunch of garbage that author did not write, how awful.
Oh my God. This really upsets me. Amazon shouldn’t be allowing this to happen. It’s up to them to police these books just like they police the reviews people leave for authors. They need to make sure these books are authentic. It’s on them.