How to Identify Counterfeit Books and What to Do if You Find One

Have you ever looked at your books and thought that one of them just doesn’t quite look right? Well, before you start thinking that you are going mad, there could be a reason for this. There is a chance that you could have just found a counterfeit book in your collection. Nowadays it’s getting harder and harder to tell the difference between the real books and the fakes thanks to the illegal practice of pirating getting more sophisticated. That’s why we have put together a quick guide to help you make sure that you are only buying (or selling) the real deal and avoiding counterfeit books.

So, let’s take a look at some tips and techniques to help you identify fake books.

What to Look For to Find Counterfeit Books

Measure the Size of the Book

The first and possibly the easiest way to start your inspection process is to measure the books, grab a tape measure, and check the width, height, and depth of the book. You are looking for two things here, firstly you want to make sure the dimensions are even, wonky books are a bit of a red flag. And secondly, you can cross-reference your measurements with the dimensions provided by either the Amazon or book publisher, if you don’t get a match, well, you are likely looking at a counterfeit book.

Weigh Your Books

Making a judgement based on the weight of your book may be a little harder, but it’s something to consider. A good indicator of a book's illegitimacy is if the book is unusually light or heavy for its size. Take textbooks as an example, textbooks usually carry a bit of weight being a little larger than normal books, but counterfeit textbooks can often appear lighter than their counterparts because of the cheaper materials used to make them.

Check the Quality of the Materials

Next, you should take a closer look at the materials used to make the book. Simply by having a quick flick through you can get a good idea of the quality of the materials used to make the book. To check for cheap materials, look out for the following:

• Rough pages
• Loose pages
• Discoloured paper
• Smudged ink
• Frayed or damaged edges
• Especially thin paper
• Lack of varnish or colour where it should be present

Check Grammar and Spelling

Before a book is published it will go through a rigorous screening process to weed out any errors. It's not impossible for some mistakes to slip through the net, but it’s very rare for a professionally published book to have more than one or two errors. So, if the book question is missing pieces of grammar and misspelling words regularly, there is a chance that it has been copied or counterfeited.

Inspect the Images

Judge the book by its cover. The quality of any images or writing on the front cover of a book can tell you a lot about the production quality of the book, and as we have learned, poor production quality can be a sign of counterfeiting. If the images or graphics on the front or back cover of a book are blurred, pixelated, or don't quite look right, the book could be a counterfeit.

Check for Bad Smells

Everyone loves that new book smell, but if you find yourself with a book that doesn’t quite smell right, maybe it has a lingering chemical smell or the unmistakable smell of dampness, it could be the result of cheap or poorly kept materials because of the cost-cutting common in counterfeiting.

Check Page Numbers and Layout

Putting a book together isn’t just about spelling all the words properly, it takes a fair amount of organisation to ensure it is readable and not just a mess of words. Unfortunately, counterfeiters might be unwilling to make the effort to arrange and format books properly leading to disorganised content and mismatched pages. So, if your book looks messy, with things like inconsistent page numbers, scattered text, and out-of-place images, it could be a counterfeit book.

Double Check Name of Publisher or Location of Printing

It’s always a good idea to keep an eye on the name of the publisher and where your books are printed. If something doesn’t look familiar to you or there is a clear spelling error, you can enter the name of the publisher or printer into Google to check their validity.

Inspect the Barcode

The barcode of a book is a good indicator of its print quality. Because barcodes need to be detailed, they can be easily blurred or altered if the printing quality of the book isn’t up to scratch, so if you have any queries about the general print quality of a book, have a look at the barcode and check for any smudges or blemishes.

Ensure Your Book Has a Flyleaf and a Copyright Page

The lack of either a flyleaf or a copyright page in a book is a good indicator of its legitimacy. A flyleaf is a blank page at the front and back of the book that separates the cover from the pages. A copyright page is usually found on the reverse of the title page and contains all of the legal information designed to protect the author's and the publisher's copyrights. The absence of either a flyleaf or a copyright page is a good indicator that this book may be a counterfeit.

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What Should You Do with Counterfeit Books?

So, you have been through all the steps to identify a counterfeit book and discovered that your new book is a counterfeit, the next question is what should you do with it? Follow the steps below and help publishers crack down on any future illegal copies and reduce the risk of it happening again.

Make a Record of the Seller and Shipping Details

The first thing you should do is collect as much information about your counterfeit books as possible, this can include:

• Name Seller
• Shipping Details
• Errors in the Book
• ISBN
• Publisher Name
• Location of Printing

Contact the Publisher of the Book

Once you have collected all the information you can it’s always a good idea to reach out to the original publisher explaining the situation and include all the details you collected on the book including some pictures of the counterfeit book. All you need to do then is wait for a response; the publisher might request that you send the counterfeit book to them for further investigation.

Report to Trading Standards

If you have confirmed that your books or the books you are looking to buy are counterfeit, then you can report it to Trading Standards who may choose to take legal action. Get a Refund

If you have already purchased a counterfeit book without knowing it was counterfeit, you may be entitled to a refund. In such a case you should contact the seller or the third-party platform that you bought the book from originally.

Unfortunately, the quality of counterfeit books is only getting better, making it likely that you will have, at some point, added a counterfeit book to your collection without even knowing it. So, it’s a good idea to look through all your books to root out any other potential counterfeits.

So, that brings our guide on how to identify counterfeit books to an end. We hope that you now have the tools to pick out any counterfeit books that may come your way in the future. Don’t forget to sort through all your old books to weed out any counterfeits and help reduce the risk of others buying counterfeit books in the future by reporting them to the relevant authorities.

Interested in discovering more ways of keeping on top of your book collection? Head over to our blog for loads for fresh content posted regularly.