????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."
