# Why does this used paperback mystery novel cost $700? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 21, 2010, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-this-used-paperback-mystery-novel-cost-700/550956 "2010-08-21T06:03:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2018, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-this-used-paperback-mystery-novel-cost-700/550956/41 "2018-02-28T22:02:32Z")
Money laundering or other illegal schemes may account for some of these high prices, but faulty pricing algorithms are also sometimes to blame. Sometimes a seller will use some sort of automated system to price their product just slightly above others selling the same product, so that if everyone else lowers their price they’ll stay competitive. This leads to an obvious problem when seller A configures their pricing app to be 1 cent above everyone else’s and seller B does the same thing. Seller A’s app sees the price for seller B and raises their price to be 1 cent more. Then seller B’s app sees seller A’s price and sets theirs 1 cent more than that. The two apps go back and forth, each raising their price 1 cent over the other one over and over in an endless feedback loop. This only ends when one or the other hits some sort of artificial cap put into place on their algorithm. Once people started figuring out that this sort of thing was happening, most pricing algorithms were improved to be a bit smarter so that items didn’t end up getting priced up into the ridiculous range quite so often. It still probably happens on occasion though. ---
**Author:** ![jaycat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat/32/3015_2.png) [@jaycat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jaycat)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2018, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-this-used-paperback-mystery-novel-cost-700/550956/42 "2018-02-28T23:35:44Z")
For the same reason that Lady Gaga is worth $1 million dollars a show? ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2018, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-this-used-paperback-mystery-novel-cost-700/550956/43 "2018-02-28T23:52:56Z")
Hmm, so maybe I _was_ correct. (See post 18.) 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2018, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-this-used-paperback-mystery-novel-cost-700/550956/44 "2018-03-01T02:10:51Z")
> [@jaycat](#): > > For the same reason that Lady Gaga is worth $1 million dollars a show? That’s clearly not the case. Otherwise, it wouldn’t even be a question. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2018, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-this-used-paperback-mystery-novel-cost-700/550956/45 "2018-03-01T03:30:12Z")
> [@psychonaut](#): > > I thought I’d bump this thread to link to [“Money Laundering Via Author Impersonation on Amazon?”](https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/02/money-laundering-via-author-impersonation-on-amazon/), a new article by cybersecurity journalist [Brian Krebs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Krebs). It discusses the theory (raised upthread) that Amazon’s absurdly overpriced books are money-laundering schemes. The idea is that if you need to launder dirty money, you use a computer to generate a book full of gibberish text, self-publish it via Amazon’s own print-on-demand service, and then list it on the Amazon store with a cover price of several hundred dollars. You do all this under your legitimate identity. You then buy several copies of the book with a fake identity using your dirty money. Amazon keeps a 40% cut and pays your legitimate identity 60% in royalties. > > Apparently legitimate authors who happen to have the same names as the fictitious authors of these books are getting caught in the crossfire—Amazon is issuing them with 1099 forms for tens of thousands of dollars in royalties that they didn’t get for books they didn’t write. The problem with this theory is that while it might be true that real-life authors names get used, it’s extremely unlikely that both the name \*and \*title of legitimate books are being widely copied and have been for many years. None of the earlier examples in this thread were Create Space books either. Mocking up a phony book seems to be integral to the scheme. That wasn’t true in these dozens of other cases. I’m not buying it as an explanation for this thread. The algorithm goof-ups seem much more plausible. ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2018, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-this-used-paperback-mystery-novel-cost-700/550956/46 "2018-03-01T03:40:06Z")
There’s a good blog post about an example of that [here](http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=358), from 2011 (ie, slightly fresher than this zombie). Note that somewhere in the comments someone references a 21 billion dollar book. Which is still for sale at a stupid price, if you click the link, but not THAT stupid. ---
**Author:** ![Si\_Amigo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/si_amigo/32/2877_2.png) [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2018, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-this-used-paperback-mystery-novel-cost-700/550956/47 "2018-03-01T17:30:51Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > Just a WAG, but could it have anything to do with money laundering? Someone makes money selling drugs (or whatever), advertises a book for $700, and then “buys” the book from himself to make it look like legit income? Winner winner. Same thing is done on eBay, you have associates buy your overpriced item and pay a small percentage to them and Amazon and then you have clean cash. I see this on eBay as well but they charge more per transaction, but hey it cost less than toting bags of cash to an unscrupulous banker in the Caribbean and you get your money very quickly. Everything is tied together nicely for reporting to the IRS as you are a rare book or art dealer. For a small time dealer/criminal this is a pretty easy way to show legal income without gathering too much attention as long as you don’t exceed certain limits and draw flags. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2018, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-this-used-paperback-mystery-novel-cost-700/550956/48 "2018-03-01T18:34:02Z")
> [@psychonaut](#): > > I thought I’d bump this thread to link to [“Money Laundering Via Author Impersonation on Amazon?”](https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/02/money-laundering-via-author-impersonation-on-amazon/), a new article by cybersecurity journalist [Brian Krebs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Krebs). It discusses the theory (raised upthread) that Amazon’s absurdly overpriced books are money-laundering schemes. The idea is that if you need to launder dirty money, you use a computer to generate a book full of gibberish text, self-publish it via Amazon’s own print-on-demand service, and then list it on the Amazon store with a cover price of several hundred dollars. You do all this under your legitimate identity. You then buy several copies of the book with a fake identity using your dirty money. Amazon keeps a 40% cut and pays your legitimate identity 60% in royalties. > > Apparently legitimate authors who happen to have the same names as the fictitious authors of these books are getting caught in the crossfire—Amazon is issuing them with 1099 forms for tens of thousands of dollars in royalties that they didn’t get for books they didn’t write. 40% is 2-4 times the usual cost of laundering money. I cant get to your cite, but I see a article talking about Krebs idea. It states they use stolen credit cards to buy their own books. This could work, altho not so much as true Money Laundering, it’s just a way to use stolen credit cards. Of course if you buy gift cards with those CC, you can sell them for 90% or so, instead of losing 40%. However, this realy doesnt speak to the Op’s question- legit books at high prices. I found oout that in \*most cases \*this is caused by a algorithm where you set it to charge more than the next price. If two sellers use the same algorithm, then you get crazy high prices. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2018, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-this-used-paperback-mystery-novel-cost-700/550956/49 "2018-03-01T18:35:31Z")
> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#): > > Money laundering or other illegal schemes may account for some of these high prices, but faulty pricing algorithms are also sometimes to blame. Sometimes a seller will use some sort of automated system to price their product just slightly above others selling the same product, so that if everyone else lowers their price they’ll stay competitive. This leads to an obvious problem when seller A configures their pricing app to be 1 cent above everyone else’s and seller B does the same thing. Seller A’s app sees the price for seller B and raises their price to be 1 cent more. Then seller B’s app sees seller A’s price and sets theirs 1 cent more than that. The two apps go back and forth, each raising their price 1 cent over the other one over and over in an endless feedback loop. This only ends when one or the other hits some sort of artificial cap put into place on their algorithm. > > Once people started figuring out that this sort of thing was happening, most pricing algorithms were improved to be a bit smarter so that items didn’t end up getting priced up into the ridiculous range quite so often. It still probably happens on occasion though. Yep, this is the cuase for the crazy prices of rare-ish but legit books. The ones that Krebs talks about are not legit books at all. I supect that is rather rare. ---
**Author:** ![Dahu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dahu/32/3416_2.png) [@Dahu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dahu)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2018, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-this-used-paperback-mystery-novel-cost-700/550956/50 "2018-03-01T21:23:46Z")
> [@psychonaut](#): > > …Amazon keeps a 40% cut and pays your legitimate identity 60% in royalties. Amazon charges 40% commission? Don’t really know much about how Amazon works for sellers (plenty of experience as a buyer). If I want to sell a few old books is this the best way? At that rate the owner guy must be some sort of millionaire by now. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2018, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-this-used-paperback-mystery-novel-cost-700/550956/51 "2018-03-01T22:17:07Z")
> [@Dahu](#): > > Amazon charges 40% commission? Don’t really know much about how Amazon works for sellers (plenty of experience as a buyer). If I want to sell a few old books is this the best way? > > At that rate the owner guy must be some sort of millionaire by now. I am not sure what they charge on you selling other peoples books, I think what the 40% figure is for a book listed by the author directly and sold by Amazon. Perhaps printed by Amazon? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-this-used-paperback-mystery-novel-cost-700/550956.md?page=2)