r/weaving • u/weaverlorelei • 1h ago
Discussion Amazon Books heads up
In the last couple of weeks there has been some discussion about odd and strange "new" books on weaving appearing on Amazon. It was pointed out that the curious books tend to have an author's name always in the same style- first name, middle initial, last name, but all authors were unknown to seasoned weavers. This got me curious, so in my copious spare time, I started digging thru ISBN numbers and discovered that there were NO recorded numbers on the official registries. Odd, to say the least. So, maybe in my haste, I reported the books as phony to Amazon. (I have actually seen and held one of these phantom books that a fellow guild member purchased, and to say they are AI slop would be an understatement) So, today I noticed that Amazon is heavily pushing a couple of the books I previously reported. Being the curious sort that I am, I went and re-did the ISBN search, and, low and behold, there is now a listing and a direct link to purchase said book on Amazon. (the website that pops up first for an ISBN search is ISBNsearch (dot) org) As I am a believer in the evils of sites such as Amazon, I went to another ISBN search site farther down the list and entered the same number that was listed and discovered- "no listing found" I don't know if a bot is working its magic or Amazon acquired a registry or not all registries are complete, but something stinks. Caveat emptor!