I would not be surprised to learn that this has well funded conservative bad-think tanks, like the Heritage Foundation, creating or funding who creates these fake scholarly works. The reasoning being to destroy the reputation and power of academics that have the communication skills to explain why their policies are not only shortsighted, but amoral and evil. I sense this because if there is one glaring characteristic of the conservative mindset, it is shortsightedness.
I worked as a lobbyist briefly, and attending Heritage Foundation events. If you think this is "conspiracy theory territory" you're not awake, you're not following at all.
It's not always "market forces". Case in point: state sponsored hackers and trolls. What speaks against market forces here is that "the collapse of Near Eastern civilizations in 1177 BCE" is not really a profitable subject.
> Yet somehow, Amazon’s “careful monitoring” failed to detect an author with no bio or online presence who published more than a dozen books on a host of subjects within a week.