Author Milly Johnson finds six books with her name on them for sale on Amazon... but she didn't write them

Real thing: Milly Johnson's real books are bestsellers on the site
Amazon
Fiona Simpson20 September 2017

A romance author discovered six books penned under her name on Amazon - but says they had nothing to do with her.

Milly Johnson, whose bestsellers include Afternoon Tea at the Sunflower Café and The Teashop on the Corner, found ebooks bearing her name being sold on the site for £3.08.

The tales, written as young adult short stories, also feature characters from her own work.

The 53-year-old writer was checking the rankings of her genuine work when she came across the books by accident.

One of the books called Resisting Him contained writing branded "dire, unedited, ungrammatical tripe,” by Ms Johnson, whose work is published by Simon & Schuster.

She told The Bookseller: "I found six ebook titles on Amazon three of which looked stupidly similar to mine. I was so shocked. Judging from the rankings, it was quite obvious they were selling."

Other unauthorised titles included Opposite Ends of the Spectrum, Sleeping Around on Sam, Not Quite Off the Hook and A Trip on the Lips.

Amazon removed the titles from its website several days after the author complained, but she was forced provide a glut of information proving they were fake.

Ms Johnson said: “They are taking money out of the hands of authors. It can be hard enough to make a living as it is.”

Amazon said in a statement to The Times: "Nothing is more important to us than the trust of our authors and readers, and there is no place for plagiarised titles on our website. We employ methods to ensure that customers are only presented with authentic titles and on the rare occasion when we are alerted to a title that isn't genuine, we will remove that book and take appropriate action against the author or publisher."

Unauthorised titles bearing the names of authors such as Sophie Kinsella have also been removed from the site, the newspaper reported.

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