The Taiwanese just can't seem to get enough of Steve Jobs, either in person or his doppelgangers. Readers will remember TechEye's story earlier this year about a TV ad campaign in Taiwan that used an American expat named Brook Hall to play Jobs in a very convincing ''press conference'' at a Hsinchu Science Park setting.
Now, some disreputable punters in Taipei have gone even further by publishing a bestseller in Chinese Mandarin - and purported to be a ''translation'' of an Amazon besteller from the USA - titled, get this, "Steve Paul Jobs's Eleven Pieces of Advice for Young People Today."
The alleged author is a chap named "John Cage", who of course does not exist, and the publishers are keeping mum about who the actual "ghostwriter" is and even who the real publisher is.
It's Ghost Month in Taiwan now, a month-long religious ritiual in which the ghosts of all ancestors come back to Earth to haunt the island nation and play havoc with the normal rules of daily life, so it's fitting the fake Jobs book has surfaced now.
It's reached Number 5 on the financial books bestseller lists here, and has reportedly taken in huge amounts of naive readers' cash over the past few months. John Cage, as readers familiar with modern music will know, was the name of a very eccentric and creative New York composer, and he certainly never wrote the book on Jobs.
About the only thing the fake book got right was that Jobs' middle name is Paul.
The book was purportedly e-translated into Chinese from its original English version, although no one can trace the original source of the book or find its U.S. counterpart on Amazon. Do you see a ghost here? It's definitely a ghost-written piece of deceit written on a ghostly dare.
The police are now investigating the case, and if the publisher is found guilty of deceiving the public, he could be in for some ghostly jail time. Stay tuned. This story has legs, as all "fake Steve Jobs" things seem to have.
The alleged author of the book, "John Cage", is said by the publishers to be "a graduate from Stanford University and who previously served as editor in chief at mass-circulation economic and financial magazines."
In addition, nowhere in the entire book does it say when and where Jobs offered his sharp-witted ''advice'' for young people, as no dates or sources are cited.
Enter Taiwan's version of Sherlock Holmes.
An enterprising reporter in Taipei was able to trace the street address of the publisher of the book, and when he went there he found - guess what? - a computer store.
The store's owner said the book was legit and all copyright protections were in order and that the truth of the entire matter will be revealed next month, when Ghost Month is over.
Meanwhile, over 10,000 copies fo the book have been sold and a whole legion of young Jobs fans have read a book that he never wrote. Ghostly.
This reporter recently purchased a copy of the book in Complex Chinese characters in a bookstore in Taipei and discovered via the ”publication notes page” that the counterfeit book — which was never written by Steven Paul Jobs or John Cage and merely took past speeches by Jobs and turned the excerpts into eleven lessons for teenagers in China — that the book was originally published in Communist China last year first in Simplified Chinese characters used in Maoland. The book was such a hit as a fake in China that a publisher-wannabe in free and democratic Taiwan got itchy fingers and agreed to license the fake China book for his easy to fool and very gullible Taiwanese readers. Done deal. Some money exchanged hands, the original book was re-translated into the kind of Chinese characters that Taiwanese people can read — since the Simplified characters used in Maoland are simply beneath the dignity of real Chinese script — and the Taiwan version of the fake Chinese book was published in April. It has already gone through 10 printings and more are on the way, given the worldwide publicity on this deceitful yet perfect story fakery.
How did this reporter find out that the book was published originally in “copyright means the right to copy” China? Simple, and not complex at all. On the publication notes page is the email address of the publisher in Beijing, and feel free to write to him if you wish: ydmp@yahoo.cn
The ”cn” gives it away.
A bloke named David Wu is also in on this fakery, and his email is also listed as david.wu@ecorebooks.com (and he appears to be the Taiwanese contact).
The alleged author, a chap named “John Cage“, who of course is dead, did not respond to this reporter’s emails. Not yet. Maybe there’s email in Heaven?
As previously reportedm the Taipei police is now investigating the case, and if the ”publisher” is found guilty of deceiving the public, he could be in for some jail time. Or a big fat fine.
The publisher in Taipei still maintains that his book was legit and that all copyright protections were in order.
John Brownlee at the cultofmac website got it right with a cute headline that read: “Steve Job Releases Taiwanese Self-Help Book For Teenagers Translated By Dead Avant Garde Composer.”
Brownlee added: “[The] entire book was translated by the famous avant garde composer John Cage, who is apparently alive and well in Taipei! Whats a wonderful choice for a man to translate Jobs! After all, they’re both Buddhists!”