Catfishing: the murky world of fake e-book sellers on Amazon
As self-publishing becomes ever easier, Amazon has been flooded by the poor-quality work of 'expert authors' for which glowing reviews have been bought. Caitlin Dewey sets out to catch a catfish.
Dagny Taggart spends her time travelling the globe, meeting new people and learning new things. She speaks more than 15 languages, including Latin, Russian and Chinese. In the past year, she has written a new book at the rate of about one every five days: 84 books in total. All of them have received glowing reviews from her hordes of Amazon groupies, who leave five-star reviews on everything she does.
There's only one problem with Dagny Taggart - she doesn't exist. Evidence collected and examined by The Washington Post suggests that Taggart (who is named after a character in Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged) is a made-up identity used by an Argentine man. Alexis Pablo Marrocco - like other self-described "Kindle entrepreneurs" - is part of a growing industry of "Amazon catfish".
The catfishing process varies according to the entrepreneur using it, but it typically follows the same general steps: after hiring a remote worker to write an e-book for the Kindle marketplace, Amazon's e-book store, publishers put it up for sale under the name and bio of a fictional expert. Frequently, Kindle entrepreneurs will then buy or trade for good book reviews.
Crackdown: Amazon sues 1000 people to stop phony product reviews that are written for $5 a pop
At the end of this process, they hope to have a Kindle store bestseller: something with a catchy title about a hot topic, such as gambling addiction or weight loss.
"Kindle is by far the easiest and fastest way to start making money on the internet today," enthuses one video that promises to guide viewers to riches. "You don't even need to write the books yourself!"