Aaron Shepards Publishing Blog Amazon. Lightning Source, Create. Space, KindleSpam Authors, and How to Nail Them. Updates for Aaron Shepards books on POD and Kindle publishing. Deleting accounts youve created on the internet isnt always easy. Heres how to leave several bigname services, from Facebook and Google to Netflix and Hulu. Adobe Acrobat Pro License Deactivation Of Yahoo' title='Adobe Acrobat Pro License Deactivation Of Yahoo' />Nov. Since my first post about spam books on Amazon, there have been some excellent news articles on the subject. I was especially intrigued by Caitlin Deweys article in the Washington Post. She focused not only on how these books are produced and promoted but also on the fact that many of their authors do not exist. It turns out that its common practice among spam authors to create fake identities with fabricated credentials. This gives an appearance of authority and trustworthiness, or at least presents an attractive persona. Obviously, the real persona of a spam author would be less than attractive and trustworthy. At first glance, you may think this is nothing more than the old practice of using a pen name. And of course, theres nothing wrong with that practicein fact, I use one myself. But the difference is huge. For the bio of my pen name, I pick and choose facts from my background and career that relate to the books written under that name. The pen name represents only a part of me, but its still me, and everything I say about myself is true. Even a corporate name, such as used by book packagers for a childrens book series, is different. Yes, the named author may be a nonexistent personality credited with the work of multiple authors hired by the packager. But you wont be told that this author has an MBA from the University of Michigan plus twenty years running a health spa and lives with her husband and three special needs children in Savannah, Georgia. Spam authors, on the other hand, just make such things up. They present themselves as something theyre not, to get you to buy their books. This is called fraud, and its both unethical and illegal. These authors could, and perhaps should, go to jail. They certainly shouldnt be allowed to sell their books. Im finding it fairly easy now to spot spam nonfiction, given the slick covers with stock photos, the copycat, keyword heavy titling, the publishing frequency, the focus on stock subject areas, the lack of paperback editions, the flood of 5 star reviews just after publication. But how do you spot a fake authorYou might investigate the authors bio, as Dewey didbut thats pretty labor intensive. Dewey mentioned, though, that her main example had used a stock photo for his her author picthe portrait photo that appears on an Amazon Author Page, among other places. I wondered if using stock photos was common. I also figured that a faked photo of this kind was a dead giveaway that the entire identity was fake, so I really wouldnt need to look further. The Adobe Photoshop Cs Book For Digital Photographers Pdf Files here. So, I set out to investigate the author pics associated with a number of books that looked to me like spam. The first thing I discovered was that many of these authors dont have author pics at all. Though that limited the usefulness of my approach, I also found that the spam authors most likely to have pics were those with the most books. In the end, I examined ten author pics for authenticity. How to do that is not widely known, but its really not hard. Its done with whats called a reverse image search. That means you upload the picture to an online search service and within seconds get matches to pictures found around the Web. I used two such services Google Images and Tin. Eye. com. I found I needed both, because each gave different results, and sometimes only one search was helpful. Heres what I found Of the ten author pics, three came out clean, with no suspicious matches at either search service. Three pics were stock photos, available for purchase from numerous online agencies. Another pic had been lifted, directly or indirectly, from a portrait photographers Web site in Hong Kong. The remaining three were the real surprise. They were cases of outright identity theft. The publishers had stolen photos of real people. And not just anyone, but people of some prominence, including one TV personality and one author of real books sold on Amazon. In other words, these publishers were not just deceptive, and not just dishonest, but also downright stupid With the discovery of seven faked pics out of ten, the question now was, what would Amazon do with this kind of information First Ill tell you what they should do, as I recommended to Amazon. Any author who has submitted a faked author pic should have his or her KDP publisher account terminated immediatelybecause a faked pic is a sure sign that the rest of the authors identity, and the books themselves, are fraudulent. Whats more, I believe Amazon staff should themselves run reverse image searches on every author pic submitted, using the two services Ive mentioned. Unfortunately, what I found was that Amazon itself does not yet know how it wants to deal with fake authors. It has become a vigilant crusader against phony reviews, but the issue of phony authors is new to it and confusing. In fact, Amazon has not yet even sorted out the difference between a pen name and a fraudulent identity. I found, though, that some people at Amazon are listening and considering. What they need now is to to hear more about the prevalence of the problem and our concern over it. So, I invite you to join me in this campaign. If you spot an author identity thats likely to be fake, run the reverse image searches. And if you find that the pic is a stock photo or a stolen identity, report it to Amazon KDP. In my own report, I included the author name, the Author Page URL, the search service that provided the best results, and my conclusions from these results. For the identity thefts, I also included an email address for each victim, for Amazons verification. I had already searched these out and notified the victims myself. I figured, if Amazon didnt want to listen to me, it would certainly have to listen to them If your first response from KDP is inadequate, bounce it back so your issue will be sent to the next level. Also, youre welcome to refer to this blog post for explanation, if you need to. There are many factors currently causing the world of Kindle publishing to self destruct. But this might be one we can do something about. JPEG XR on Kindle. Sept. 2. 8, 2. 01. Updated Dec. 1. 9, 2. In my last post, I wrote about the new Kindle Format X, which Amazon has developed to go along with its new layout engine. One of the features of this new Kindle format turns out to be the conversion of all pictures to a new graphics format JPEG XR. Originally developed by Microsoft, it gives higher image quality at smaller file sizes. Using JPEG XR makes perfect sense, now that Amazon has drastically raised its file size limit for submitted graphics. It also makes sense that Amazon prepares grayscale JPEG XRs of most pictures for delivery to monochrome Kindles. What makes less sense is something Ive seen through my testing Its not only JPEGs that get converted to the new format, but also GIFs. That means that, for Kindle Format X, you can no longer use a GIF to get the cleanest possible lines and text in a picture. You cant use GIFs for transparency, either. On conversion to JPEG XR, transparent portions of GIFs are flattened to whitewhich looks fine on a white background but dumb on sepia or black. Though JPEG XR does support transparency, Amazon ignores that capability. Whether thats from a decision to keep file sizes smaller or is just a remarkable oversight, I cant tell. Is there another way to get what you could with a GIF You could instead produce your image in SVG, a format thats related to PDF and thats displayed by all but the oldest Kindles. But then youd need to compose your book directly in HTML or in an app that imports and exports SVG. Microsoft Word certainly isnt one of those. You may wonder if the adoption of JPEG XR changes my recommendations for size and format given in my book Pictures on Kindle. First let me clarify that theres currently no way to submit pictures in JPEG XR to Amazon KDP.