The past few days I've been getting free kindle books in a genre I had not seen before.
Example:
Title: Watch Venom 2018 Movie HD #14 [Print Replica] Kindle Edition
Author: Qowakos Susohiv
Publication Date: January 7, 2019
(no publisher listed)
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com ... 4apBWL.jpg
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MC5Q5NK/
It was free when I bought it the other day, but it is now $0.99.
At first I didn't pay much attention, but after getting literally dozens of these things this past week for different movies, curiosity got the best of me and I decided to take a look inside to see what they are about.
Movie reviews, maybe? Some kind of commentary?
Nope.
There is no publisher listed, and the author is different for each kindle book. The author names look suspiciously like random computer generated pseudonyms, first and last names exactly 7 letters each, and the same format of four consonants separated by three vowels.
The book above is exactly one page long and I quote it in full here
(under fair use so I can comment about it):
That's it. Nothing more. One fucking page with a link to a Canadian(?) website. :shock:[image]
[image]
Venom
“Click here to play Venom movie online”
Investigative journalist Eddie Brock attempts a comeback following a scandal, but
accidentally becomes the host of Venom, a violent, super powerful alien symbiote.
Soon, he must rely on his newfound powers to protect the world from a shadowy
organization looking for a symbiote of their own.
Release
2018-10-03
Date
Runtime
112 minutes
Genre
Science Fiction
Production Columbia Pictures, Marvel Entertainment, Sony Pictures, Avi Arad Productions
Casts
I hesitate to post the actual link for legal reasons. There are still several of these available for free (as I write this) if you want to see the link yourself. To find these books, do an advanced kindle search with "watch movie" in the title, sorted by price low to high.
It seems obvious to me these are all published by the same entity, but I have not yet figured out how to track them to see when the price changes or new ones are published. (Perhaps there is a list at that Canadian website, but I have not yet had the guts to go there.) The best I know at the moment is to use the above amazon kindle search, but that gets more results than I want and I know for a fact it does not show all of them, since some of them don't have either of those two words in the title. But they all seem to have a "play" button on the cover image.
Sidebar: This is a common amateur marketing error for many amazon kindle authors or publishers, they do not make it easy to find all the books in their catalog in case you like what you see and want more of the same.
I have not seen any reviews yet for any of these, but I suspect amazon will be getting complaints. Who wants to pay 99 cents for a free link? If this is a scam, then I suspect amazon will be pulling them from the catalog real soon now, so get 'em while you can.
If it's not a scam, then I'm still scratching me head, wtf? :dunno:
But wait there's more . . .
I also have:
Title: Watch Venom 2018 Movie HD #20 [Print Replica] Kindle Edition
Author: Qitagoj Heyehis
Publication Date: January 7, 2019
(no publisher listed)
Different cover image, but exactly the same content and same exact link as #14.
I don't have any of the other #1-13, or #15-19. I don't even know how many there are, but I assume they are all the same thing.
You can see 16 (of 20) variations here, same movie, but different cover images:
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss ... 8+Movie+HD
Based on the two I already have, I assume they all have exactly the same content.
I don't know what happened to the other 4.
So is this a scam, or what? Who wants to pay 99 cents for another copy of a book you already own? Why would I prefer to buy #20 instead of say #12 if they both have the exact same content? It seems they are conspicuously silent on that point.
Since I'm getting email invoices for each and every one I buy (for free), I am tempted to count them towards my goal of collecting a million free kindle books, but somehow this feels like cheating. This isn't a real book by any definition I'm familiar with. It's just a link to a free movie streaming site, which may or not be legitimate. I suppose I should put a footnote to my collection explaining this.
See, this is what hobbies are good for. Wasting your time on meaningless shit, all the while pretending it has some intrinsic conversational value. Maybe I should start a blog or something. :mrgreen: