不久前如果在亚马逊网站的搜索框里输入“斯蒂夫•乔布斯、艾萨克”，第一个跳出来的结果可能就不是沃尔特•艾萨克森那本畅销书，搜索结果排名第一的应该是《乔布斯传》，连作者的名字也很像——艾萨克•沃辛顿（Isaac Worthington）。这本书似乎也有人买，尽管有读者只给了一星差评，而且称其为“粗制滥造的小册子”。沃辛顿的这本书没准是对杰夫•斯托布斯（Jeve Stobs，与Steve Jobs拼写相似，系作者为讽刺而生造的人名——译注）独家专访的作品。
亚马逊上有不少与畅销书书名很像的山寨作品。在全球引起轰动的《苍白50色》（Fifty Shades of Grey）是一部口味怪异的爱情小说，也是亚马逊的头号畅销书。而亚马逊上还有一本书叫《苍白35色》（Thirty-Five Shades of Grey），这两本书的作者名都以缩写字母开头——E. L. 詹姆斯和J. D.利特，而它们又都是三部曲的第一部，讲的都是一位少女是如何与一个成功老男人陷入专制性爱的故事。《苍白50色》的出版商称这本书是“一本深深吸引你、永远与你相伴的故事”。而四月初面世的《苍白35色》的作者和出版商显然觉得这句话和他们的书同样也是绝配，于是干脆一字不差地照搬到自己的书上。亚马逊上类似的山寨书不在少数：比如《我是龙纹身女孩》（I am the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo）（仿冒《龙纹身女孩》）和《暮光之城》（Twilight New Moon）（仿冒《暮光之城：新月》）。它们其实都不是你真正想找的书。
而如果想在亚马逊上购买畅销书《思考，或快或慢》（Thinking, Fast and Slow），点击时可要当心了。该书作者是诺贝尔奖获得者、经济学家丹尼尔•卡尼曼（Daniel Kahneman）。很多想买它的读者找到的却是卡尔•丹尼尔斯的《或快或慢的思考》（Fast and Slow Thinking），这本书不久前还在亚马逊上有售。卡尼曼对自己的李鬼兄弟的评价是：“根本就没这么个专家，这纯粹是在剽窃。人们给它的评论也令人忍俊不禁，然而让人震惊的是，亚马逊竟会允许这种事情发生在自己的网站上。”
可能更令人震惊的是，亚马逊不仅出售山寨书，居然还亲自帮这些作者攒这种书。亚马逊上所有这些仿冒痕迹明显的作品都是“创作空间”（CreateSpace）一手炮制的，这是亚马逊的一个部门。作者们可以运用“创作空间”的系统设计并自助出版书籍。这些书随后就可在亚马逊网站和其他网站上出售，所得收益由亚马逊和作者分享。这种关系与大多数出版商与作者的关系不同，但读者却完全不知情。 “创作空间”在亚马逊网站和其他网站上都被列为这些书的出版商之一。
曾任西蒙与舒斯特出版公司（Simon & Schuster）律师的埃里克•雷曼称：“这种书就相当于垃圾邮件，亚马逊应该制止这种事。无论是对读者还是对出版业来说，这种做法都贻害无穷。”
上周，《财富》杂志就这种明显的作假行为联系了亚马逊公司，随后亚马逊删除了沃辛顿和丹尼尔的相关页面。一位女发言人称，亚马逊不会继续销售这些书籍了。但是，这两本书仍然在以“创作空间”的名义在其他网站上销售。亚马逊的发言人称，公司有一套专门的流程，专门检查并删除那些不能“改善用户体验”的图书。他还表示，亚马逊已拒绝或删除了“上千本”书籍。他说：“我们希望不断改进方法。”而《斯蒂夫•乔布斯传》（Steve Jobs）的出版商，即西蒙与舒斯特出版公司的发言人拒绝就此发表评论。
《我是龙纹身女孩》的作者凯伦•皮布尔斯称，她已通过“创作空间”自助出版了约一万本书，但不是所有书都署她的本名。她说：“我是单身母亲，孩子在家上学。”她还表示，每个月她能卖掉“成千上万本书”。“自助出版对我来说是很不错的收入来源。每个月我都有理想的版税进账。”
皮布尔斯称，“创作空间”有自己的行为准则，但这套准则非常笼统。实际上，不仅亚马逊从未拒绝过皮布尔斯的作品，其他网络零售商也从未向她提出任何质疑，甚至有一次，她提交了一本书，标题几乎与已故瑞典惊悚小说家斯蒂格•拉赫松的国际畅销作品完全雷同，也照样蒙混过关。按照她的说法，她这本书在拉赫松的作品出版前就已经卖出了“上百本，甚至上千本”。但这并不是事实。拉赫松的书是2004年出版的，2008年才在美国发行。而她的书虽是2008年获得版权，但直到2010年年中才在亚马逊上推出。而拉赫松的书在这之前早就已在美国大卖了。一位网友给她的作品打了一星差评，同时留言说：“也许我会喜欢这个作者的下一本书——《我是玩火的女孩》（模仿拉赫松的另一部作品，《玩火女孩》，已在讽刺仿冒者——译注）。”
与《财富》杂志查看过的许多山寨之作一样，沃辛顿的《斯蒂夫•乔布斯传》排版拙劣。亚马逊网站上可供预览的前几页文字硕大无朋，与维基百科上介绍斯蒂夫•乔布斯的有关文字十分相似，封底文字也基本相同。亚马逊网站上并无其他艾萨克•沃辛顿所著大作，而网站和书上也没有这个作者的任何介绍。卡尔•丹尼尔斯看来也是个离群索居、一书成名的神奇作者。这两位的书版权都属于SWI Books公司。亚马逊拒绝向《财富》杂志透露有关SWI的任何信息，也不肯表明自己是否还在销售这家公司的其他作品。
上周，美国司法部（the Department of Justice）起诉了苹果公司（Apple）和五家出版商。据称，苹果和出版商合谋推高了电子书书价。此举据说抢夺了亚马逊的市场份额。
无论对消费者还是对图书出版业来说，山寨图书都是一个日益严峻的问题。自助出版物销售公司Smashwords的创始人马克•柯克表示，他经常收到完全仿冒的书，或是用网上内容东拼西凑的书。他的公司拒绝发行这类书籍。他说，这类书格式古怪，很容易看出是从别处剽窃的。不过，他常能在亚马逊和其他网站上看到Smashwords拒绝销售的山寨书。他说：“我很惊讶，亚马逊怎么会让这种书大行其道。炮制这些书的人明显是想糊弄读者。”
Until recently, if you had typed "Steve Jobs Isaac" into the online retailer's search box, the first choice that popped up wasn't the best selling book by Walter Isaacson, but instead one with the same name and a similarly sounding author, Isaac Worthington. The book appears to be selling, even though Amazon's one reviewer gives the book a single star and calls it a "poorly produced pamphlet." Presumably, Worthington's book is based on exclusive interviews with Jeve Stobs.
There are a number of books on Amazon with similar titles to much more popular ones. Fifty Shades of Grey, the steamy romance novel that has created buzz around the world, is the No. 1 selling book on Amazon. Also available on Amazon: Thirty-Five Shades of Grey. Both books are written by authors with two first initials – E. L. James and J. D. Lyte – and both are the first in a trilogy about a young girl who falls for an older, successful man with a taste for domineering sex. The publisher of the bestseller Fifty says the book is "a tale that will obsess you, possess you, and stay with you forever." The author and publisher of Thirty-Five, which came out in early April, apparently believe that description fits their book as well, word-for-word. Also selling on Amazon is I am the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Twilight New Moon. Neither is the book you are likely looking for.
And if you want to buy bestseller Thinking, Fast and Slow on Amazon, be careful where you click. A number of Amazon shoppers looking for the book by Nobel Prize-winning economist Daniel Kahneman ended up with Fast and Slow Thinking by Karl Daniels, which until recently was also on Amazon. Says Kahneman of his doppelganger, "There is no such expert, it's a rip-off. The comments on it are quite amusing – rather shocking that Amazon allows this sort of thing."
It's perhaps more shocking that Amazon (AMZN) not only sells the books, it's also helping their authors create them. All of the apparent copycat books on Amazon were made through CreateSpace, which is a division of Amazon. Authors can use CreateSpace's system to design and self-publish their own books. The books then go on sale on Amazon and other sites. Amazon splits the proceeds with authors. It's a different relationship than most publishers have with their authors, but there is no way for consumers to know that. On Amazon and other sites, CreateSpace is listed as the publisher of the books.
"It's the book equivalent of spam," says lawyer Eric Rayman, a former attorney for Simon & Schuster. "Amazon should be taking steps to stop this. It's bad for consumers and it's bad for the book business."
After Fortune contacted Amazon late last week about the apparent fakes, the company removed the pages for the Worthington and Daniels books from its site. A spokeswoman says Amazon is no longer selling the books. Both books, though, are still for sale on other sites with Amazon's CreateSpace listed as the publisher. An Amazon spokeswoman says the firm has a process in place to detect and remove books that don't "improve the customer experience." The spokeswoman said Amazon has rejected or removed "thousands" of books. "We expect to keep improving our approach," says the spokeswoman. A spokesperson for Simon & Schuster, the publisher of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, declined to comment.
Karen Peebles, who is the author of I am the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, says she has self-published around 10,000 books though CreateSpace, not all of which are in her own name. "I am a single mother who home schools her children," says Peebles, who says she sells "thousands and thousands" of books a month.
"Self-publishing is a great way for me to make income. I receive a pretty nice royalty every month."
Peebles says CreateSpace has guidelines, but they are minimal. Not only has Amazon never rejected one of her books, Peebles says she's never even been questioned by the online retailer, not even about the one with a nearly identical title to the international bestseller by the late Swedish author Stieg Larsson. Peebles says her book, which she has sold "hundreds, maybe thousands" came out before Larsson's. It didn't. Larsson's book was first published in 2004, and released in the U.S. in 2008. Peebles' book has a 2008 copyright, but it wasn't released by Amazon until mid-2010, well after the Larsson book had
become popular in the U.S. Says a reviewer who gives Peebles' book one star on Amazon, "Perhaps I will enjoy the author's next book, 'I am the Girl who Played with Fire.'"
Worthington's Steve Jobs book, like many of the other apparent copycats that Fortune looked at, is oddly formatted. The text on the first few pages of the book, which is all that was available for preview on Amazon, is huge and is similar to the language on the Wikipedia page about Steve Jobs. The back cover of the book has the exact same text. There is no other book by Isaac Worthington for sale on Amazon, and neither the site nor the book has any information about the author. Karl Daniels also appears to be a reclusive one-book wonder. Both the Daniels book and the Worthington book are copyrighted SWI Books. Amazon declined to give Fortune any information about SWI or say whether Amazon sells any other books from the company on its site.
Last week, the Department of Justice sued Apple (AAPL) and five book publishers. According to the suit, Apple and the book publishers conspired to push up the price of e-books. The moves were reportedly made to take market share away from Amazon.
Spam books are a growing problem for consumers and the book industry. Mark Coker, who is the founder of a Smashwords, a distributor of self-published books, says he regularly receives books that are exact copies of other books, or a compilation of stuff that is readily available on the Internet. He says his company refuses to distribute these books. Coker says odd formatting is an easy tip-off that a book is copied from elsewhere. Nonetheless, he says he often sees books that his company has rejected show up on Amazon and elsewhere. "I'm surprised Amazon lets books like these go through," says Coker. "Whoever created these books are obviously trying to confuse consumers."
