AI-Generated Books Impersonate Real Authors on Amazon
According to The Atlantic, Amazon's author pages are overwhelmed with AI-created books that are wrongly credited to actual authors. This summer, Tamra Westberry, who writes under the name Tara West, discovered a book called Project Erebus on her profile that she did not pen. It featured names from her works and had a similar cover design. Although Amazon removed the books within a week after she reached out, they had already garnered reviews from fans. Vanessa O'Loughlin found a trilogy attributed to her, while Noelle W. Ihli's thriller was replicated by an AI version. Authors suggest that implementing authorship verification during uploads could address the issue, which also impacts musicians with AI-generated songs on their profiles.
Key facts
- Tamra Westberry, writing as Tara West, found Project Erebus on her Amazon profile in summer 2025; she never wrote it.
- The fake book used her character names and a similar cover, with translations in German, French, Italian, and Spanish.
- Amazon delinked the books within a week, but fans had already purchased and reviewed them.
- Vanessa O'Loughlin (Sam Blake) discovered a 'dark romantasy' trilogy on her profile featuring character Elara Vance.
- Noelle W. Ihli's The Last to Drown was duplicated by an AI edition selling for $5 more; it was removed after she filed an IP claim.
- Amazon limits self-publishing to 10 books per week per format and sometimes requests identity verification.
- Orna Ross of the Alliance of Independent Authors says verifying authorship at upload would end most of the problem.
- AI-generated songs have also appeared on real artists' profiles on Spotify and Amazon Music.
Entities
Artists
- Tamra Westberry
- Tara West
- Stephen King
- Stephen R. King
- Vanessa O'Loughlin
- Sam Blake
- Noelle W. Ihli
- Olivia Sinclair
- Anna Blakely
- Ben H. Winters
- Orna Ross
- Julie Trelstad
Institutions
- Amazon
- Goodreads
- OpenAI
- Meta
- Anthropic
- Alliance of Independent Authors
- Authors Guild
- Spotify
- Amazon Music
- 404 Media
- The Atlantic
- Pangram
Locations
- Texas
- United States
- Germany
- France
- Italy
- Spain
- Ireland