Amazon's self-publishing system is so easy to use that any old annoying spammer could figure out how to stick crappy books into the Kindle store. And they have.
That's the message from a timely and smart investigation by Reuters into the lame world of private label rights content, "information that can be bought very cheaply online then reformatted into a digital book."
Basically, spammers can come up with titles for books that they think people might want based on the kinds of information that drive Demand Media -- and then put a book in the Kindle store about it, without respect for quality. The books are usually priced at 99 cents and force consumers to wade through eHow-like content about a topic.
Take home improvement. If you search for titles released in the last 30 days, a "book" by Lisa Kuo comes up for $0.99, the cheapest item on the list. It's called, Home Repair~PLUS 21 you-can-do-it-now home repair tips!~A+, if that gives you any indication of how bad it is.
After you pay the buck and download it, this is what it looks like when you open it up. Going to the URLs referenced herein -- nichebooklets.com or NicheContentKit.com -- drives you into a linky, spammy trap.
The book itself is an ad for more ads.