I pulled all my e-books off Kindle yesterday because of this. It effectively ends my writing career because, despite everyone complaining that Amazon is evil... nobody buys books from the many other stores my books are available on.
I am sad. I am angry. I am *exhausted*.
I am ONE indie author. I am nobody. My protest is utterly meaningless in the face of this ever-expanding AI takeover. Unless all indies do this, and all tradpub authors pressure their publishers to fight Amazon, my pulling my books is not going to do a damned thing to make Amazon stop doing this. All it will do is end whatever tiny little chance I might still have had at having a real writing career.
But I am so sick of AI being shoved into every aspect of my life and not even having the right to opt out of it. This is the ONLY protest I CAN make. So that's what I'm doing. And at least I know they won't be able to use my books this way.
#books #bookstodon #reading #readingCommunity #AmReading #amazon
writerbeware.blog/2025/12/12/k…
Kindle's New Gen AI-Powered "Ask This Book" Feature Raises Rights Concerns - Writer Beware
In a recent press release, Amazon noted that some new features were coming to Kindle. We’re adding new AI-powered reading features that preserve the magic of reading on Kindle.Victoria Strauss (Writer Beware)
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N.P. Thompson
in reply to N.P. Thompson • • •Authors are not okay, folks. Between AI destroying the industry and wrecking people's careers, and the big spike in piracy since people decided the solution to boycotting Amazon is *stealing* from people who are literally making *pennies* (21 cents per day... that's what I made in book sales in 2025. I calculated it yesterday), we are not okay.
Please, please, please support authors. If you can buy books in places other than Amazon, please do so. If you can't buy books, please borrow them from your library. Request that your library pick up titles from your favourite authors (most libraries have form you can fill out to do that). Leave reviews everywhere you can. Sign up for author newsletters, and follow authors on social media. Repost social media content. Talk about your favourite books - help other people discover that they exist! All of these things *matter*, and you really have NO idea how much they mean to most authors.
#reading #books #bookstodon #Author
David W. Jones
in reply to N.P. Thompson • • •Aggie Thaumas
in reply to David W. Jones • • •David W. Jones
in reply to Aggie Thaumas • • •@aggiethaumas Weightless Books is a good site and does no DRM. Period.
I don't know how much they share with authors, but Weightless Books isn't a big corporate entity. I think it's mostly one person.
It's also one of the few sites for SF/fantasy magazine subscriptions after Amazon dumped subscriptions. And each magazine issue is available as a downloadable, DRM-free file.
I buy the EBOOK, I own it!
-rb
in reply to David W. Jones • • •@dancingtreefrog @aggiethaumas
@pluralistic Mr. Doctorow, have you had any experience with Weightless Books? (See thread)
Apologize if you’ve previously written about them.
Cory Doctorow
in reply to -rb • • •