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.
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.
Amazon has turned to absolute shit. Fake books and cheap Chinese crap. Why even bother with them anymore?
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.
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.
