I went through and removed series books from Kindle (to start–I will probably go back and do the others, but that was enough of a psychic hit for the night). (I discovered the series page on Amazon is broken when ebooks are unpublished so that’s great.)

This is not only due to the Recap system (I’m so not a “bestseller” that I’m not even at risk of that) but the fact that they STILL have not updated their Terms of Service to reflect how books are used with KDP’s generative AI. All I have is the word of one employee that they aren’t used for training data. And the more folks I talk to (both publicly and behind the scenes), the clearer it is that no one knows what is going on at KDP. The departments don’t talk to each other. No one knows how various areas work. Authors’ agents can’t even get answers from Amazon’s publishing imprints. Draft2Digital has no idea what’s happening.

It is unacceptable that there is no ToS update about their AI usage. It is unacceptable that apparently no one is manning this massive ship anymore.

—

Want to know what a ToS update should look like? Well gosh, let’s just check with Kobo.

That’s right, they’re doing the same thing and this blog post details some of the usage. I am deeply disappointed and concerned. I have submitted feedback and received a prompt response. At least they’re being transparent but they had the opportunity here to show they are better than the competition and come out against this bullshit. Instead they’re embracing it. I have been a Kobo advocate while repeating “corporations are not your friend” and have always said I will turn on a dime and call them out if they do something egregious.

Well, they are.

I’ll have another blog post about it in a week or so. Because they have a ToS update, I’ve left books there for now, but it’s abundantly clear it is not the viable Kindle alternative many of us believed it would be.

ETA June 3: last night the Kobo CEO wrote a long thread breaking down how this isn’t as bad as it sounded. I still have questions but I am okay chalking some of this up to a badly written blog post by marketing.

—

Yes, you’ll notice that is leaving no options left for selling, especially when you consider B&N still hasn’t paid me. (ETA June 2: There appears to be a payment I think is from them that just landed. It does not match any of the payment reports on my account. So I can say…they have possibly paid me something(?))

—

ETA June 3: this is 10x than it seemed, I’ll have more later.

Oh, but we’re not done here! Because in a complete what-the-ever-loving-fuck move, Everand/Scribd has laid off the entire team producing audiobooks with books still in production, not told anyone anything, and I’ve been waiting three weeks now for a response after contacting three people. No one will reply, not even the single remaining woman I’m told is supposed to be handling this. I have no idea if my books will be stuck at Everand for seven years or if they will actually distribute to third parties so I can make some money.

Yeah there’ll be a blog post coming about that, too, because I am tired of quietly waiting privately for two simple yes or no answers.

—

All of this happening like right now, at once. From everywhere.

I am so disheartened and sad. I don’t even have the energy to be angry right now. Just hit after hit and I feel like I’m gonna to need to make death saves soon because I gotta be near zero hit points–there’s been no rest, no breathing room. All I have left is to take the disengage action and dash the fuck out of here.

I want to stress at the moment I am okay, at least financially. I have good Patreon support. I have a few months of money coming from sales. Also, of course, I freelance. But May was the best month I’ve had at Kindle since the fifth Livi book (not even the sixth, that tanked)–a combination of the new Waverly book, two people recommending Waverly and Livi respectively to their audiences, and a whole lot of print sales.

I will probably be singing a different tune in the fall. And I literally have no idea what my career will look like in the spring.

—

The first Waverly book came out two years ago on Friday.

I still vividly remember what a panic I was in. I kept going back and looking at preorder numbers from years earlier to remind me that consistently with every series it simply takes a while. The majority of my series readers don’t go from series to series, my standalone readers typically don’t go to series (there are exceptions I know, I love you folks). Solomon’s Seal preorder in 2016 was for like ten (10) copies. Ten! The climb up is hard. So I kept going back and looking to remind myself that after a few books, usually a series finds its readership–that sort of kept me tethered to sanity with The Killing Beach.

Before TKB was even out, I had the first three up for preorder, and I was so excited for the dozen or so people who had preordered 2 and 3 before even reading the first one.

Then TKB came out, and several people cancelled their preorders for 2 and 3 lol.

I knew it was a difficult character and a hard sell. I knew people were used to me writing urban fantasy and weren’t into a mystery (even though I kept warning it wasn’t paranormal). I stressed, and worried, and friends kept trying to keep me sane by reminding me Waverly would find her audience.

Before A Wild Kind of Darkness released, the total preorders were three less than The Killing Beach had. By the time Alone at Night came out, it was even with The Killing Beach.

But this year, miracle of miracles, Silent All These Years had sixty percent more preorders over TKB and AaN. Waverly developed rabid fans who are filling their books with highlights and sticky notes, writing down clues in their murder journals, and just living and breathing this character with me. It’s not Livi numbers, it’s not standalone horror numbers, but it was a steady enough increase that I felt like it might be okay.

Folks, I am devastated to be doing this.

That is not hyperbole. I am devastated. This is the character of my heart, it’s the series of my heart–I’m writing a complex sprawling twelve-book mystery that demands patience and an attention span at a time when audiences supposedly don’t have either. Every word in every book, everything written and everything that’s coming, is exactly what I’d want to read. I want so badly for her to have just a small steady readership.

And I feel like I’ve just cut it off at the knees. Like I’ve made a choice that will eventually kill it. I’ve done this to her, and it’s for nothing.

Because this choice doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t fix anything.

Only a mass rejection of genAI and the companies trying to integrate it will shift this–only massive bestselling accounts with massive readerships getting loud about it can do that. Only the Big Five coming together and taking these companies to task might get policies changed. But none of them will, and everyone is going to just endure this because everyone’s income is tied up in it. People are not going to destroy their entire livelihoods, which is why Amazon (and every other company) continues to get away with these things and always will. In five years’ time, Kobo and Scribd will probably file for bankruptcy after wasting all this money integrating useless genAI, Amazon will be advertising “readers: create your own genAI book!”, and none of us will even see this dystopia because we’ll be dead from poisoned air and droughts caused by this tech.

(The only remaining company will somehow be B&N because they just don’t bother paying anyone so can keep limping along.)

This choice of mine doesn’t matter and the only person who will suffer here is me. I know that.

—

Except…

Except…

As I’m writing this blog post, teary and nihilistic at 4am, what I hear is Waverly because she’s ever present for me, and she says: fuck kindle.

She doesn’t care. She’s prefers to be alone and she is used to no one liking her and she’s feral and she’s mine whether there’s a readership to sustain it or I’m telling stories to myself homeless under the bridge.

What Would Waverly Do? She’d walk away. Her morals are wonky but if this was her line in the sand, she would not cross it. She would torch her career rather than give up control of her soul. And as I keep apologizing to her, she reminds me to stop having feelings because I’m making it weird.

There’s a lot I will do to survive but I’m hitting my limit of what I will bend over and take from soulless corporations. And this entire fucking industry is on the verge of collapsing. It’s going to destroy me either way, so I might as well go out on my terms.

I will not be trapped in this particular darkness for so long that it starts to look like light.

So I’m going to bed sad. I will grieve the readership I was building that won’t follow to direct sales, the readership that has yet to discover the books and now won’t without them on Kindle. I will grieve the loss of excitement I had over the audiobooks. I will grieve the choices Kobo is making that will eventually doom it.

I will grieve that we have to waste time with this utter bullshit, time that should be spent on creative endeavours and instead is wasted sending “feedback” begging our sales channel partners to stop fucking us over, begging others to reach out and complain as well on behalf of everyone.

I will grieve and I will move on, because wishing things were different won’t fix it. Creating more stories is the only chance at survival and I will give no more of my energy (outside the upcoming aforementioned blog posts) to these companies who will steamroll over all of our rights in a heartbeat.

So this post was meant just for my readers and for me to link to, but it was viewed a lot.

Including for hours on Monday by at least one person at one of Amazon’s offices.

👀

In case they come back *waves* I just want to say, you are simply doing your job and not making a lot of these decisions, so I hope I’m sufficiently polite with you. If you enjoyed browsing my site, please consider buying my books!

Now, genuinely I am not somehow who enjoys stirring up distrust and while I have had plenty of criticisms of boneheaded choices being made by folks at Amazon, the truth is that I don’t want to have to leave another distribution partner in terms of eBooks. I also prefer the quality of KDP’s paperback and hardcovers (even if their warehouse workers are incapable of packaging them properly so I need to get replacements or refunds with almost every order) and I’m grateful for that option for selling books, or else the Waverly hardcovers wouldn’t exist.

So credit where credit is due: I did receive a response today about my last email.

Most of it is rewording information I already know or ignoring some questions entirely, but we’ll get to that. Here is the important thing:

I made that a screenshot direct from my email, but it says: “First, I want to clarify that creating a Recap does not result in any generative AI training with the book’s content.”

That statement is per Erick Heizer, Executive Customer Relations, Kindle Direct Publishing

If that’s what you’ve been wondering for over a month now, you have an answer!

…Recaps were launched early April, I’ve been asking since April 23rd when some other folks had been talking about it for a few days, and it’s taken this long to get this simple statement. I admit I am not exactly filled with confidence however! I appreciate this gentlemen’s definitive statement.

Another question I had was about side-loaded books bought elsewhere and whether they would eventually be scanned and summarized. To that question: “I don’t have information about future plans.”

That is fair! It’s likely only the higher-ups making decisions know.

So first I should show the email I actually sent on Friday when another Executive Customer Relations rep contacted me.

Here are my main questions no one has been able to answer:

• Are scanned Kindle books “forgotten” after being scanned by the generative AI program recapping them or are they made part of the system? As just about everyone with a book on Kindle has already had their work stolen by Meta, OpenAI, DeepSeek, etc without permission or compensation, understandably this is a major concern for most authors. 
• Why was there no Terms of Service update made at KDP clarifying how authors’ works are used? Is scanning their books with generative AI considered part of usage for marketing?
• Will the “Recaps” feature ever apply to books bought elsewhere but side-loaded to Kindle devices by users? (Meaning will side-loaded books be scanned and summarized as well?)
• What is the environmental impact of this usage of generative AI to create Recaps?

Additional questions:

• What is being done to prevent readers from returning ebooks if they read the Recap after purchase and decide they don’t want to read the book based on it? Readers buying series books and immediately returning them after reading only to buy, read, and return the next is already an issue for many authors; the Recaps system seems ripe for abuse.
• Will Recaps share a system with the customer-facing AI chatbot Rufus, e.g. could a reader ask Rufus about a book’s ending and have it spoiled before purchase? At this point Rufus seems to be focused on summarizing customer questions and book information, but if there’s no ToS update for KDP authors about how their books are used and in what context, it seems like something well within the realm of possibility.
• On Amazon’s “Help” pages, it’s admitted there could be errors generated in Recaps–has there been any consideration as to how this will affect series sales for authors? Given we’re not offered the opportunity to review and correct recaps, we’re reliant entirely on this generative AI’s capabilities and for readers to notify us of any errors that might have impacted their reading experience. 

I admit I’m surprised that this program was announced six weeks ago but no one had any answers prepared for writers using KDP. Even those using distributors like Draft2Digital to sell on Amazon found D2D hadn’t been given any clarification either. D2D, in fact, recommended to inquiring authors that they pull their books from Kindle distribution entirely given there was so much confusion over rights issues and what KDP was doing with the books in question, which is not a good look for such an important and valued distribution partner like Amazon.

Given that this program is presently limited to US audiences, English-language books, and only bestsellers (although I’m unclear what qualifies something as a “bestseller”), it seems like an excellent opportunity for Amazon to get ahead of more problems and issue clear usage terms for those using KDP.

✔️ So first one: check! Answered!

❌ Second one, why there was no ToS update–not answered. (I am assuming he doesn’t know, which is fair–I’ll allow it.)

✔️ Third–answered! (Not right now and he doesn’t know the future plan.)

❌ Fourth–not answered. Again, fair, that’s a different department, but I still want to know.

Hitting my next batch:

✔️ Fifth–they monitor for abuse of returns and take action. I mean…do they, though? Plenty of authors would argue about that, but okay.

❌ Sixth with that chatbot–not answered. He probably doesn’t know because it isn’t currently a feature. Personally, I expect it to be eventually, much like scanning side-loaded books.

…Seven, and I’m going to quote the answer here: “I also wanted to address your concern that authors wouldn’t be able to review and correct recaps. We are using Amazon moderators in addition to technology to ensure the accuracy of Recaps; however, any author who notices an error in a Recap for one of their books can notify customer support and we will quickly review that Recap.”

This stuff I knew, the info is out there–I’ve been looking.

Except it doesn’t really answer my question, does it?

Without a way to view Recaps from our KDP dashboard, this means we’re reliant to either a) wait for a reader to notify us about errors or b) buy our own books on Kindle (if in the US) and review them that way.

So to, uh, “recap” here: KDP admits Recaps could be inaccurate, authors have no way to review them unless they’re American and they *buy their own books* and view them in the Kindle app.

I truly don’t find this nefarious! But I do find it sloppy.

Recaps are for readers, I get that. This is why we can’t opt out–it’s to provide a consistent experience for Kindle users.

But you don’t have books to sell without authors and publishers. And poisoning an already rocky relationship with your Kindle partners by completely disregarding their consent and not having basic consideration for what they might ask is a very bad look.

I have asked the following regarding Recaps, errors, and moderators:

This information was found previously in the research I’ve done, yes, but the problem remains that authors will have to rely on readers to tell them if there’s an error or buy their own books on Kindle to check the recaps. Requiring authors to buy their own books to merely review recaps for errors is a deeply questionable business practice, but if there is no place within our existing dashboards to review them, they are forced to do so or potentially suffer consequences that can impact their sales. 

As well, who are these moderators? Are moderators reading entire books to double check summaries are accurate or are they merely scanning for typos? What assurances are there that the moderators will know if a story error has been generated in a recap?

I have also repeated, again, the environmental impact of Recaps should be made known and whether or not this will be incorporated with the Rufus chatbot, allowing readers to ask for a book’s summary and ending before making a purchase.

I acknowledge this fellow likely doesn’t have answers to a lot of this.

I’m asking stuff that multiple departments are involved in. Stuff that decisions haven’t been made about yet.

But this is why I said the rollout is sloppy: before launching a major new feature like this, someone should have been asking these questions and prepared to address them.

No one did. So, alas, I must continue to be annoying.

I hope KDP Customer Service Reps are well-compensated for having to deal with me–someone ought to be.

ETA: This was the final update that came later that day from KDP regarding my questions above.

So this is as far as it goes.

This is confirmation this entire system was poorly thought-out and rolled out without any consideration for authors and publishers. Again: it took an entire month for someone to tell me books would not be made apart of any AI training data. They didn’t have that answer ready!

This is a mess. I strongly recommend readers consider the ways they can get out of the Kindle ecosystem, and writers as well.

If you enjoy me wasting my actual work hours doing this as end-of-the-month expenses barrel down on me, please consider buying me a ko-fi and/or buy my books!