Movers and Shakers taken over by Spammers?
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Cynical ... but spot on. Several high-performing Amazon imprint books got bumped off the "Movers and Shakers" list -- until the scam books were removed. Amazon was losing money.PhoenixS said:You know, there are 45 (!) books in today's KDD. The scam books were approaching the #100 ranks fast. The cynic in me could snarkily assume Amazon only cared when they needed to clear the way for their promoted books to rank properly.
Nah...right?
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I wonder if Amazon will conveniently count all those tens of millions of page reads generated by those books in the october KU fund (and lowering the $/page), and then refuse to pay the scammers, because, well, they're scammers.
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The top 100 is (seems to be) curated. You're not going to see these books break 100... although I'm watching "The Donkey In Meadow" gain rank as I poke around; it's at 147 now, just behind "The Boy and His Job" at 146.
Curious to be proven wrong on this.
Curious to be proven wrong on this.
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These guys aren't going to give up as this recent aggressive activity just showed us. Are they testing the system--- in an attempt to figure out how the new measures work? That's my guess. They are looking for a sweet spot - a way to make money without triggering Amazon's security measures.
The downside is the more that Amazon clamps down -- the harder it becomes for honest authors to make a buck. Sure some people aren't affected now -- but if Amazon decides to become more rigid, things could get very interesting.
The downside is the more that Amazon clamps down -- the harder it becomes for honest authors to make a buck. Sure some people aren't affected now -- but if Amazon decides to become more rigid, things could get very interesting.
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He's doing it because it's an easy way to scam money. A while back someone posted an article on how this is done. It's all automated. The guy runs a program and generates lots and lots of read. We humans cannot compete.Gentleman Zombie said:
I'm with Phoenix -- maybe Amazon will finally do something drastic when their own imprints are being bumped down.
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someone really likes donkeys...
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Well, I heard about these shows in Tijuana....AsianInspiration said:
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#128-138 now. One of the ones pulled made it to #127 early this morning (CT).
Another thought: They could be autoset for 1000 *sales/reads* each. That would keep them just outside the Top 100. And it may not have been Amazon that even pulled the earlier ones. As soon as all 1000 copies were *bought and read*, the scammer may have been the one to pull them. $14 X 1000 = $14,000 per book. The 10 books that are up right now = at least $140,000 in profit assuming the books are being bot read or click-farm read. That's a pretty good day's take. No need really to keep them up beyond that point.
Another thought: They could be autoset for 1000 *sales/reads* each. That would keep them just outside the Top 100. And it may not have been Amazon that even pulled the earlier ones. As soon as all 1000 copies were *bought and read*, the scammer may have been the one to pull them. $14 X 1000 = $14,000 per book. The 10 books that are up right now = at least $140,000 in profit assuming the books are being bot read or click-farm read. That's a pretty good day's take. No need really to keep them up beyond that point.
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You know, I thought *my* speculations were bad. Phoenix, you just took it to a whole new level. This is just insane, and the worst part is that I didn't have so much as a second's hesitation in believing that you called it.
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But Amazon can't *possibly* do that, because it's what Apple does.JRTomlin said:
/snerk
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OMG you're right... it might not be Amazon pulling the books. It might be the scammers. Why risk hitting the top 100 which might bring notice. Pull the books one the target is reached and put up new versions. Rinse, repeat. Brilliant. Evil but brilliant.PhoenixS said:
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I don't know, if they really didn't want to be discovered, I'm sure they had much better ways of doing this, like doubling the number of books and halving the number of reads per book so that none of them get attention like this...
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