Dusseldorf Mike Crownwood* is an avid writer. The financial expert published almost a dozen books from the beginning of 2019 to the end of 2020. His guide to stocks ranked among the best sellers in the “Economics” section of Amazon’s Kindle store. The title was recently translated into French, among other languages. His CV is just as impressive as Crownwood’s speed of writing: he studied economics at a renowned US university, his father was an entrepreneur, his mother ran a successful law firm. His wife Veronica* is also big in the advice business.
The problem: The Crownwoods shouldn’t exist like this. Your author pictures come from photo databases. They have even been replaced recently.
Anyone looking for advice on topics such as finance, careers, real estate, nutrition or psychology on Amazon is increasingly encountering such supposed experts. Her printed and electronic booklets are notable for their capitalized covers and superficial content. And: through a considerable number of five-star ratings.
“Most of it is fake,” says Jan Höpker, blogger from near Stuttgart and observer of the fake advice scene. He estimates the number of dodgy titles on Amazon to be at least 3,000. It’s difficult to say how many authors with fake biographies there are, he says, “because new profiles keep popping up, being changed or disappearing altogether.”
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There is a business behind the guides with fake reviews. If a user borrows one of the quick guides and reads 100 pages, the author earns around 30 cents. With printed books, depending on the costs, there is a profit of around five to six euros. Purchased Kindle books bring the authors – whether real names or ghostwriters – a margin of a good 60 percent. Depending on the ranking of the titles, the people behind the fake guides receive thousands of euros every month.
A book for 400 euros: This is how a fake guide is created
The questionable trend from America spilled over. There, the Washington Post already reported in 2015 about so-called “Kindle Entrepreneurs” who want to build up a passive income with the quickly typed books. The US newspaper, which belongs to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, described a half-silver business of ghostwriters, purchased reviews and fee dumping, which then and now causes problems for the world’s largest book marketplace.
Here’s how it works: First, Kindle entrepreneurs search for topics with high search volumes using analysis tools such as the paid program “Publisher Rocket” or Google’s free trends search in order to find their niche for a book topic.
27
cent
is what Kindle authors earn for every 100 pages read. Source: selfpublisherbibel.de
Then the entrepreneurs hire freelance ghostwriters via sites like Fiverr, Upwork and Freelancer.de. In a video, the Berlin online lecturer Leon Chaudhari shows the procedure – and names prices: 80 dollars for 5000 words are “relatively cheap”, 15,000 words for 185 dollars are considered a “pretty good deal”. For classification: A guide can be filled with 30,000 to 40,000 words. That’s almost 400 euros for a book – without having written a single word of it yourself.
In order for the book to be found on Amazon, positive reviews are essential. Fraudulent Kindle publishers employ so-called virtual assistants for this purpose. These are Internet entrepreneurs who are often based in the Far East and place products on Amazon for a few euros in such a way that they can also be found. Some of the assistants write pleasing reviews or get them through special Facebook groups or on the dark web. Another way to get positive reviews is through other Kindle entrepreneurs who offer five-star reviews in exchange.
“The scene is changing,” says journalist Irene Gronegger, who has been researching the fake guides for some time and has published several texts on them. In the past, the quality was often sub-par, and many actors learned something new, says Gronegger: “They noticed that you wouldn’t get very far with total rubbish.” Now, “at least the spelling is correct”. Otherwise, the thin guides could be qualitatively sorted somewhere between “Google research” and “seminar work”. Some books have recently been written better, but still come from unknown sources and from anonymous text suppliers.
The fact is: there are a number of honest authors who write their own books and want to earn a few euros. Also, there is nothing reprehensible about having your book written by a ghostwriter or using pseudonyms. And even banal tips may be annoying, they are not forbidden.
One of the largest Kindle entrepreneurs in Germany is called Grigori Kalinski. The businessman from the Stuttgart area offers coaching for self-publishers who produce books in quick succession via Amazon’s Kindle platform. He has accompanied 700 of them in recent years. He calls them “my students”.
Kalinski’s multi-part self-study video course costs around 3,000 euros. His protégés can contact him and his team if they have any questions – “around the clock, 24/7,” he promises. During the pandemic, the Kindle business continued to grow, the entrepreneur explains to the Handelsblatt.
Real estate agents, teachers, housewives, industrial mechanics: Kalinski’s students come from a wide variety of backgrounds, he says. In videos that can still be found on the Internet, some of them tell how Kalinski helped them earn a high regular income.
There is a man named Markus who reports monthly income of 9500 euros in one of the videos. He found his ghostwriter on eBay classifieds. Another reports “really awesome” successes and 5000 euros extra income. He had started as an apprentice three years before the video.
Kalinski knows: “Every business attracts money-hungry people.” Even among his students there may be “one or the other who is after the quick euro”. He distances himself from consumer deception and review purchases. “That’s clearly forbidden and we say that as well.”
Kalinski has integrated an audit system into his coaching to ensure quality. Nevertheless, he cannot rule out the possibility that there are black sheep in his student body. “If I knew that, I would pull their ears out,” says Kalinski.
How Amazon is trying to take action against fake guides
Fake reviews are legally relevant. These violate competition law because: Thanks to the false positive ratings, the scrap guides displace other titles that have been honestly reviewed. “The submission of fake ratings, i.e. ratings by people who have never tested the product or service offered, is illegal,” says Karsten Gulden, a specialist lawyer for media and copyright law in Mainz.
The expert also considers the pretense of expertise in author biographies to be legally tricky. “Consumers tend to buy a guide from authors who have had relevant experience and can demonstrate personal expertise based on their experiences.” This is exactly what the fake guides played with. Because: “If the facts are wrong, the consumer will be misled inadmissibly.” Legally, an offence.
Amazon knows the problem and takes “the possibility of misuse of Amazon’s services very seriously,” as a spokeswoman explained on request. The e-commerce giant emphasizes that most fake reviews are recognized before they are published. However, a very small number of Kindle authors attempt to gain an unfair competitive advantage by creating false, misleading, and inaccurate customer reviews for their self-published books.
In such cases, users would be temporarily blocked, permanently excluded, or legal action would be taken. According to company information, Amazon has filed 30 court cases in Germany alone for fake ratings since 2018 and has obtained fines totaling more than 150,000 euros. Nevertheless, the online giant does not get the problem completely under control. Ultimately, Amazon is dependent on users reporting suspicious reviews and titles.
From May, business with fake guides could become much more difficult. Then a draft law is to come into force that expressly forbids buying reviews or using fake reviews. “Therefore, there is no doubt that fake reviews made to order are not acceptable,” says attorney Gulden.
* Names changed by editors.
More: Amazon is closing its own bookstores.