This is not a normal place for me to post I am about as far from being a writer as Bret Favre is for being a poster boy for proper conduct with members of the opposite sex but I just personally feel a pull to share a story that might be impacting others and a warning to those yet not impacted.
By profession I am a substance abuse counselor and in my spare time offer my services to many as a personal sponsor to those going thru the 12 steps and trying to maintain there sobriety recently at a 12 step meeting I encountered a individual which I had only talked to in passing but this night he seemed to need a ear to bend after the meeting so we agreed to meet for coffee after the meeting.
It seems this individual had painted himself into a corner with his wife and family his career and finances and facing a crisis with his 4 years of being clean and sober and his story goes as follows …
Due to his shaky work past and a degree in English gotten some time ago he turn to writing as a means to support his wife and family and having some success of selling a few articals here and there and short story once in a while he came across the ideal of self publishing on amazon for owners of e readers kindles I guess they are called as away for his many novels that had never seen the light of day. After visiting the websites and blogs of those who seem to be the leaders of encouraging writers to join the growing list over at amazon he posted his books and waited for the money to roll in but nothing seemed to happen at first and he began to doubt if this was going to work.
Until a exchange of emails of one of these leaders did he learn how to make it work and this is what the leader told him he needed to do and I hope I explain it clearly and you all more then likely understand it better then I.
He was told that it was less about talent and more about making money and using the system loopholes to work to his advantage he was told the best prices to put on his books was those that would get him a 70% return from amazon thus if a 1000 dollars was spent on his books he would get 700 dollars so if he brought 1000 dollars worth of his own books he would only be losing 300 dollars. But what he was doing or told to do would be able to make up that 300 dollar lose and them so he spent days setting up fake email accounts and fake amazon accounts to push his own books and review then always giving a 4 or 5 star reveiws sometimes a 3 star to make it look legit. He also felt that he needed to support the various pied pipers of this “scam” for the lack of a better word, for as he felt a need to be within the click and it worked. He saw his books get higher rankings then many of the well known authors and his books started to show up as amazon recomends and other people boght his titles on all his books.
But it has not been easy as now he spends his days marketing and buying his own titles to try to keep the profits rolling in but the profits are not as easy as they once was for now more and more people are doing the same thing and more and more books are being placed on amazon for downloading. He starting to notice he is not making the money he once was somedays if he does not buy he sees very few of his titles brought. he cannot spend the hours writing as he has in the past and his family thinks he has finally become a successful writer but in realty in has got caught up in a legal pyramid scam at least that’s how I see it.
Having had a long history with working with those in recovery and being in recovery my self I know to check the stories being shared with me for being truthful and so far the persons story checks out.
Here is a link to one such story that backs up his http://consumerist.com/2010/12/author-claims-to-manipulate-amazon-rankings-by-buying-own-book-every-day.html
Knowing that many creative types are prone to have substance abuse issues just felt to need to share this as a warning and be careful before you start down this dark trail.
By profession I am a substance abuse counselor and in my spare time offer my services to many as a personal sponsor to those going thru the 12 steps and trying to maintain there sobriety recently at a 12 step meeting I encountered a individual which I had only talked to in passing but this night he seemed to need a ear to bend after the meeting so we agreed to meet for coffee after the meeting.
It seems this individual had painted himself into a corner with his wife and family his career and finances and facing a crisis with his 4 years of being clean and sober and his story goes as follows …
Due to his shaky work past and a degree in English gotten some time ago he turn to writing as a means to support his wife and family and having some success of selling a few articals here and there and short story once in a while he came across the ideal of self publishing on amazon for owners of e readers kindles I guess they are called as away for his many novels that had never seen the light of day. After visiting the websites and blogs of those who seem to be the leaders of encouraging writers to join the growing list over at amazon he posted his books and waited for the money to roll in but nothing seemed to happen at first and he began to doubt if this was going to work.
Until a exchange of emails of one of these leaders did he learn how to make it work and this is what the leader told him he needed to do and I hope I explain it clearly and you all more then likely understand it better then I.
He was told that it was less about talent and more about making money and using the system loopholes to work to his advantage he was told the best prices to put on his books was those that would get him a 70% return from amazon thus if a 1000 dollars was spent on his books he would get 700 dollars so if he brought 1000 dollars worth of his own books he would only be losing 300 dollars. But what he was doing or told to do would be able to make up that 300 dollar lose and them so he spent days setting up fake email accounts and fake amazon accounts to push his own books and review then always giving a 4 or 5 star reveiws sometimes a 3 star to make it look legit. He also felt that he needed to support the various pied pipers of this “scam” for the lack of a better word, for as he felt a need to be within the click and it worked. He saw his books get higher rankings then many of the well known authors and his books started to show up as amazon recomends and other people boght his titles on all his books.
But it has not been easy as now he spends his days marketing and buying his own titles to try to keep the profits rolling in but the profits are not as easy as they once was for now more and more people are doing the same thing and more and more books are being placed on amazon for downloading. He starting to notice he is not making the money he once was somedays if he does not buy he sees very few of his titles brought. he cannot spend the hours writing as he has in the past and his family thinks he has finally become a successful writer but in realty in has got caught up in a legal pyramid scam at least that’s how I see it.
Having had a long history with working with those in recovery and being in recovery my self I know to check the stories being shared with me for being truthful and so far the persons story checks out.
Here is a link to one such story that backs up his http://consumerist.com/2010/12/author-claims-to-manipulate-amazon-rankings-by-buying-own-book-every-day.html
Knowing that many creative types are prone to have substance abuse issues just felt to need to share this as a warning and be careful before you start down this dark trail.
