There's something about this that just makes me really sad. I guess being in my late 30's I hold on to the flawed notion that there is sanctity in something that is 'published'.
Does anyone here want to read a book that wasn't written by an expert on the topic? How upset or sad would you feel if you spend several hours reading a book only to discover it was produced by an opportunist who picked that keyword and asked someone in a developing nation with no expertise about the subject to grok some blogs (which might or might not be factually correct) and pad out to make it a 3hr audiobook read.
I'm sorry, I just think it's a shitty thing to be doing. I'm not against making money (I'm a VC!) but it just undermines the integrity of the medium of books because now you have to sort out 'real' knowledgeable authors from this carpet bagging.
On the one hand, I agree. On the other, Sturgeon's law. Surely you remember how terrible most of the books were in the tech section of B&N or Borders. Why should some publishing house that published a bunch of "X For Dummies" books be the only ones in on the game?
Agreed. Not that Amazon is where I normally buy books anyway, but it makes me think twice baout doing so. Feels like a bit of a dilution of an otherwise well-regarded art form when someone can just be producing arbitrary books. That said, I suppose this isn't new, and has been happening with textbooks forever.
Knowledge used to be reserved for the elite, locked behind closed doors that the majority never knew existed.
Then the printing press came along. Knowledge was commoditized, no longer reserved for those born into families of status. Society changed, and I’d like to think for the better. We began to see innovation like never before.
This evolution was not without burden. Knowledge can be irksome at times—after all, it requires a certain degree of mental exertion to process. Fortunately, the means to publish knowledge remained somewhat exclusive; one need not look further than a book store for an authority on any subject. If it’s in print, it’s trustworthy.
Then the internet came along and commoditized that, too. Now, we’re forced to analyze all information presented to us should we seek the truth. How do we tell what’s trustworthy? Why must we expend such effort to sort fact from fiction?
I see this as a natural progression, given our history as a society. We’ll adapt, and we’ll be better for it.
On the other hand, I’m some random person typing into the digital abyss while lying in bed. Am I a subject matter expert, or am I a 13-year-old who’s presently failing History? You’ll never know, and that’s the beauty of it: you’re stuck judging my statements without the context of authority or a librarian’s recommendation.
Nothing has changed here. You should always be questioning what you read. Open an encyclopedia from a few decades ago; you’re quite likely to find numerous mistakes on each page.
Ah, but you don’t want to waste time reading something that never even tried to be correct, right? Well, that’s a problem we haven’t solved yet: give everyone a voice, and all you hear is noise. Maybe some young, enterprising VC will sort that out for us, but exclusivity isn’t the solution.
because now you have to sort out 'real' knowledgeable authors from this carpet bagging
I don't believe that's difficult. You can almost always differentiate real books from the grift-type ebooks by looking at them by publisher. Big difference between serious non-fiction publishers and print on demand titles.
The problem is that if you're looking for information about a niche subject, there are sometimes independent researchers who study for their own fulfillment, and then self-publish or publish through small publishers or vanity publishers. If you happen to find a book like this it can be a treasure since it's literally several years labor of love on the topic you want to know about. That person is also happy to have reached someone interested in their topic, even if their financial reward is negligible, zero or negative.
Because of the 'business' described above, that book is now impossible to find. It's been swamped by hundreds of easily generated titles which are at best copy pasted from the wikipedia, at worst utter gibberish.
I'm not quite in my 30s yet but "published" in general vs "published by a specific publisher" (like O'rielly) seems really odd, especially after some of the absolute garbage we were forced to buy in college.
Who says the ghostwriter is not an expert on the topic? The above is quite similar to a startup incubator, there is a demand in the marketplace that's unmet, one hires people to meet that demand and develop a product after which customers buy it.
At 3 cents/word, not only is the ghostwriter not an expert, they probably aren't even a good writer. That's less than what a decent typist would charge for material that's already written (transcribing from audio or handwritten manuscript).
Maybe. Looks like the OP says his books are pretty good with high ratings and a high volume of ratings as well, so they must be enjoyable enough to the people who buy them.
I’m sure we can trust the self publisher of a ghostwritten unedited cost-first keyword-selected book to never employ fake reviews. He’s only here to provide what’s best for his customer.
Selection bias. People who see OP's books in the search results and conclude it's a shitty book/something is off/etc are not going to leave a review (on a book they didn't buy) to say so. People who spend $10 and 4hrs of their time are inclined to not want to feel like they just wasted that and so will positively review something to reinforce.
Since the person promoting the book has literally no interest in the content, it doesn't make sense that the writer would be an expert, nor that the book would be any good.
An expert ghostwriter would be undercut by a ghostwriter supplying copy-pasted material just good enough to get past the publisher. A publisher who actually cares about whether or not the book is worthless would outbid this publisher for the skills of the expert.
You hire ghostwriters through freelance sites so it’s possible but for sure not a given the ghostwriter will be an expert. It’s more likely the author would do a lot of web searches and cobble something together that’s most likely or some value but it’ll likely be a got-what-you paid for situation.
Does anyone here want to read a book that wasn't written by an expert on the topic? How upset or sad would you feel if you spend several hours reading a book only to discover it was produced by an opportunist who picked that keyword and asked someone in a developing nation with no expertise about the subject to grok some blogs (which might or might not be factually correct) and pad out to make it a 3hr audiobook read.
I'm sorry, I just think it's a shitty thing to be doing. I'm not against making money (I'm a VC!) but it just undermines the integrity of the medium of books because now you have to sort out 'real' knowledgeable authors from this carpet bagging.