Etsy sellers are turning free fanfiction into printed and bound physical books, and listing them for sale on online marketplaces for more than $100 per book. It’s a problem that’s rattling the authors of those fanfics, as well as their fans and readers.
Several sellers, easily found on Etsy and very popular, each with hundreds of five-star reviews, are selling copies of fanfiction taken from sites like Archive of Our Own (Ao3) and reselling them as bound books. The average price of these bound copies is around $149. Some sellers claim that they’re simply covering the cost of materials, while others just sell the books, usually with the fanfiction writers’ Ao3 username on the cover.
They must have put it back (under pressure!) then, because it wasn’t there last year. I actually went looking for it specifically after I read the WaPo article about Etsy scammers just to see if they’d put the option back.
Also, I just now looked, and you’re right: in the browser view, there’s now a tiny little “Report this item to Etsy” link at the very bottom of the product listing, to the lower right. It’s literally the last thing on the page.
Archive link to WaPo article: https://archive.ph/be2bk
How to report an item to Etsy: https://help.etsy.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000344568-How-to-Report-an-Item-or-Shop
EDITED TO ADD correction and links