““Lower Days Ahead,” a novel by Patrick Reames, won’t be winning any literary awards or landing on a bestseller list, but it surely ranks high in terms of profitability per page. The 60 page book of gibberish created through Amazon.com’s Createspace self-publishing platform retailed for $555. Unlike traditionally-published books, Mr. Reames would have received as royalties most of that book’s surprisingly good sales, if only he had written it. The book and many others like it appear to be part of a sophisticated scam says technology writer Brian Krebs on his KrebsonSecurity blog. Using stolen social security numbers and credit cards, or perhaps gift cards purchased for cash, the high-royalty sales offer a way to get cash immediately into a bank account via Amazon. The apparent theft or money-laundering is a headache for the unwitting authors. It is pure profit for Amazon, though, which was initially unhelpful to Mr. Reames.”
