Donald Coxe was skeptical of Internet stocks in the late 1990s and has reason to be skeptical still.
The Barnes & Noble website properly lists his book, "The New Reality of Wall Street," as being available this month. But the site also lists Mr. Coxe as the co-author of two other books, "Stocks for the Long Run" and "The Four Pillars of Investing."
Mr. Coxe, chairman and chief strategist at Harris Investment Management Inc., Chicago, points out that he had nothing to do with the two other books, written by Jeremy J. Siegel and William Bernstein, respectively.
"Barnes & Noble shows me as an extremely prolific writer," said Mr. Coxe. "Much as I'd like to have people drawn to me in a Google search, if somebody calls me up to rage about these mistakes, I can say I'm innocent."
Mr. Coxe had no idea why he would be listed as co-author of the other two books. As soon as he noticed the Internet faux pas, he said he contacted his publisher, McGraw-Hill Cos., which contacted Barnes & Noble.
As of mid-May, the listing for Mr. Siegel's book was corrected. Mr. Siegel is the Russell E. Palmer Professor of Finance at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Mr. Coxe still was listed as co-author of Mr. Bernstein's book as of June 6; Mr. Bernstein is a partner in Efficient Frontier Advisors LLC, Eastford, Conn., and manages $61 million.
"I just put it down to the general incompetency found in online commerce," Mr. Bernstein remarked in an e-mail. "My momma told me not to sweat the small stuff, and this definitely qualifies."
Both the Siegel and Bernstein books are also published by McGraw-Hill.
The proliferation of Mr. Coxe's authorship also appeared on Amazon.com, but he said the error was corrected a day after his publisher notified the website.
"As somebody who has been a noted skeptic of the Internet," Mr. Coxe said, "this problem confirms my view."
