Print on Demand Publisher VDM infects Amazon

erich666 writes: In recent months a flood of so-called books have been appearing in Amazon's catalog. VDM Publishing's imprints Alphascript and Betascript Publishing have listed over a total of 57,000 titles, adding at least 10,000 in the previous month alone. These books are simply collections of linked Wikipedia articles put into paperbacks, at a cost of roughly 40 cents a page or more. These books seem to be computer-generated for the most part, which explains the peculiar titles noted such as "Vreni Schneider: Annemarie Moser-Pröll, FIS Alpine Ski World Cup, Winter Olympic Games, Slalom Skiing, Giant Slalom Skiing, Half Man Half Biscuit." Such titles do have the marketing effect of turning up in many different searches. There is debate on Wikipedia about whether their "VDM Publishing" page should contain the words "fraud" or "scam". VDM Publishing's practice of reselling Wikipedia articles appears to be legal, but ethically questionable.

Amazon customers have begun to post 1-star reviews and complain. Amazon's response to date has been, "As a retailer, our goal is to provide customers with the broadest selection possible so they can find, discover, and buy any item they might be seeking." The words "and pay us" were left out. Amazon carries, as a Googled guess, 2 million different book titles, so VDM Publishing is currently 1/35th of their catalog, and rapidly growing.