This article was ridiculously, preposterously, embarrassingly credulous. I cannot believe anyone could possibly be so naive but here we are.

That's what I figured. "One Snowy Knight" is available for $0.10 as a used paperback, $3.99 on Kindle, $4.15 for a new paperback.

I'm pretty sure this the answer, surprised NYT didn't even pick up on this.

Precisely my thinking. Get a bunch of smurfs to get as much Amazon cards for cash you can get and buy one of these wildly overpriced books to cleanse the source.