Professor Jane Friedman [pictured] noticed that books that she didn't write were being attributed to her and contacted Amazon, who told her that it would not remove them. After all, that would require Amazon to check that the books were real before it sold them, and Jeff Bezos was too busy washing his hair.

Friedman who is a non-fiction writer, journalist, and educator  said Amazon had refused to remove the books even though they appeared to trade on her name and reputation as an author who has published how-to guides for other writers.

Friedman took her case to Twitter and Facebook, earning the backing of the Authors Guild and Amazon finally backed down.

The "garbage books," which Friedman says were probably churned out using generative AI, had the titles "Your Guide to Writing a Bestseller eBook on Amazon," "Publishing Power: Navigating Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing," and "Promote to Prosper: Strategies to Skyrocket Your eBook Sales on Amazon."

"We have clear content guidelines governing which books can be listed for sale and promptly investigate any book when a concern is raised," Amazon spokesperson Ashley Vanicek told Decrypt by email.

"We welcome author feedback and work directly with authors to address any issues they raise and where we have made an error, we correct it."

However, other authors responding to Friedman's tweet said the same thing had happened to them, and in some cases, the publisher of the fraudulent books did more than use their names.