What are these weird books at Kobo US?

[elaysee]

Considered putting this in the Kobo section, but it's more of a general bemusement about some content, and I thought others might also find it interesting.

There's a large block of odd titles one can find at Kobo US as "newly added," among other ways it pops up. Here's one typical example, and you'll see many similar titles are related to it. The titles often include a four-digit number, the prices are generally $9.99 or $19.99, the covers often have a picture of a person with no apparent relevance to anything, and the synopses read like bad machine translation:

Phong supervisor bathed, at that point poured two glasses of merlot. Checking out the clock, it was actually 10 o'clock in the evening, so I made a decision to talk and go along with my spouse, so I could rest properly. Of course, a little conversation on the event of sleeping together is actually much better! The cool boss won't acknowledge his ultimate objective, even if he really did not perform everything, it is actually great to hug his parents and also turn in, you men will not recognize!
That recognizes that when opening the door of the room, the mommy and kid are nowhere to be located.
Darn! Phong manager was actually therefore worried that he wouldn't have only been kissed as well as operated back to his mommy's house, must possess been eliminated by invaders? Phong supervisor set down the white wine glass, the whole person revealed extremely low IQ!

I can think of several possible explanations - a "publish in the English-language market" scam? Some type of laundering activity? Doing actual "AI" text-generation dumps for the odd bit of profit? - but I was wondering if anyone had seen this before and had concrete knowledge. These kind of look like really really bad light novel translations, but the one-book-per-author with surely-fake Western names doesn't fit with that.

If there's a prior discussion I missed, please link to it - I was at a loss what to search on beyond "Kobo" and "weird."

[PeterT]

They seem to be across all the various Kobo ebook stores; no publisher info; impossible to make sense of the content.

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[Karellen]

Not limited to Kobo...

https://www.booktopia.com.au/a-negat...005533657.html

https://www.gandhi.com.mx/a-negative-feeling-1892

https://www.fnac.com/livre-numerique...e-Feeling-1892

[PeterT]

Originally Posted by Karellen

Not limited to Kobo...



https://www.booktopia.com.au/a-negat...005533657.html



https://www.gandhi.com.mx/a-negative-feeling-1892



https://www.fnac.com/livre-numerique...e-Feeling-1892

All of those are Kobo affiliated sites

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[JSWolf]

It looks like self-published rubbish with an awful cover. No thanks.

[Calenorn]

"Phong supervisor set down the white wine glass, the whole person revealed extremely low IQ!"

No kidding.

[Dr. Drib]

"Chapter 4: Hm Running a Male God, I Was Virtually Scared To Pee Out"

Replace one word with a different gender-specific noun (or adjective) and this EXACTLY expresses the way I've felt on so many occasions! It's amazing how the author captured so beautifully what is happening in my various orifices!

Hm!

[Sirtel]

I've seen those kinds of books on Amazon as well. They're scam.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Calenorn

"Phong supervisor set down the white wine glass, the whole person revealed extremely low IQ!"

No kidding.

I wonder, can a partial person have low IQ? Like, one's right hand has high IQ, but the left hand has low?

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

I wonder, can a partial person have low IQ? Like, one's right hand has high IQ, but the left hand has low?

[DrRocco]

I posted about these last year when I started getting recommendations from Kobo :
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=342448

For some reason, sticking a random date at the end of the title seems really popular with the persons or AI that's generating them.

"One Brawl 1926", "Mother's Scratches 1970", "Respect Master 1922", "Sinking 1921", "Impermanence of Life 1873"

The bandage on his body system was actually discharged, as well as Ye Month instantly bumped into the kitchen area...Ye Mo, that was rapidly putting his palm into his pocket, was actually unexpectedly captured trough Tieu Tan Ngiehm, looking at Ye Mont's face with shock, Tie Tan Nghiem grinned also a lot more oddly, limited his eyes, as well as placed the Swiss machete inside.

[Dr. Drib]

I find these 'books' oddly compelling.

[DrRocco]

As an experiment, I tried putting a random date "1926" into Kobo's search field. Sure enough, half way down the results --
The Emperor's Auntie 1926
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the...-s-auntie-1926

This female guard was angry in her heart, attacking her teeth and scolding: “You are actually mean.”

[Daniel Jackson]

It's intelligence agencies sending encoded messages to their spies. Out in the public but still secret, it's pretty smart. Like those mysterious numbers radio stations. To us it seems like random nonsense but the spies know how to decode it.

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by DrRocco

As an experiment, I tried putting a random date "1926" into Kobo's search field. Sure enough, half way down the results --
The Emperor's Auntie 1926
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the...-s-auntie-1926

This female guard was angry in her heart, attacking her teeth and scolding: “You are actually mean.”

I'm beginning to think this person is a literary genius.