tl;dr Books, most likely generated by an LLM, were being sold on Amazon under Jane Friedman’s name. The same books were added to her Goodreads profile. Amazon initially refused to remove the books. If it’s happening to her, it’s definitely happening to other authors.
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This is crazy. It’s one thing for Amazon to be filled with AI nonsense books but it’s quite another for them to have a real author’s name attached to them without their knowledge.
I find it appalling that Amazon demanded evidence of a trademark registration for her name. I hope they get sued. Trademark or not, you can’t put an author’s name on something that they did not write. That’s called plagiarism, and it is not legal, especially if you try to make money off of it. I wonder how many authors they did this to? How clogged will the civil courts get from this? What a mess!
Wow, I had no idea this was a thing!
With the flood of AI content now published at Amazon, sometimes attributed to authors in a misleading or fraudulent manner, how can anyone reasonably expect working authors to spend every week for the rest of their lives policing this? And if authors don’t police it, they will certainly hear about it, from readers concerned about these garbage books, and from readers who credulously bought this crap and have complaints. Or authors might not hear any thing at all, and lose a potential reader forever.
I find this upsetting as a reader, I imagine these writers are absolutely horrified.
I follow Mercury Stardust (aka the Trans Handy Ma’am) on TikTok. She has a book coming out at the end of the month, but she had someone steal her name and the book title and start selling a book filled with utter nonsense. It apparently took forever for them to take the copycat down.
Serious question for the authors reading this - if there was a non-exclusive Fediverse e-commerce alternative to self-publishing on Amazon (including print on demand), would you use it?
Second question - what features would you like to see to make it fly? Dream big here - I’d love to hear all your ideas.
Third question - besides the topic of the article above, what does Amazon do wrong for authors? I’ve got a fair idea, but I really want to hear your thoughts and personal experiences.
Draft2Digital already exists as a way to publish everywhere except Amazon (and actually you can do Amazon through them too but then both take a cut). I’m not sure what the benefit would be for a publishing service to be connected to the fediverse.
There isn’t a need for that at the moment. There are PLENTY of small publishers you can send a manuscript to. Small publishers will, of course, sell authors’ books on Amazon, but it’s absolutely not the same thing as going it on your own as an author dealing directly with Amazon. First of all, if you submit to and are accepted by a small publisher, libraries can purchase your book and there are none of the exclusive rights crap Amazon imposes on the individual writer looking for a venue. Most writers seek out a small publishing house before resorting to the “go it alone” approach. There are many writers who also avoid the Amazon bullshit by setting up their own publishing company just to publish their own works, which is perfectly simple to do and doesn’t cost much at all, in comparison to all the costs associated with marketing, cover art, bla bla bla. Amazon is often a last resort or a result of “the final straw” of receiving rejections from publishers and when writers don’t know how to set up their own mini publisher to self-publish first. Anyway, you can by-pass a lot of the Amazon crap by setting yourself up as a publisher that dedicates itself to publishing your writing. You can even offer paperbacks and hardcovers, using a printing service to take care of that for you. Then, through your own publishing company you set up, you offer your work to Amazon. It’s a different set of conditions.
Their contract terms for new authors are set in stone, atrocious even for the publishing industry, and unavoidable for most because they have a stranglehold on the ebookmarket.
Honestly one could go on and on and on about the shit they’ve pulled/tried to pull at various times.
Anyway… Why would the hypothetical e-publisher need to be on the fediverse?
To be honest right now that just seems like a recipe for getting no publicity and no sales, which no author who wants to actually have an income would do just to promote fediverse. There’d have to be an advantage beyond already existing platforms.
Becoming?
This is a very troubling trend.
