Amazon restricts authors from self-publishing more than three books a day after AI concerns

[highplainsdem]

Source: Guardian

Amazon has created a new rule limiting the number of books that authors can self-publish on its site to three a day, after an influx of suspected AI-generated material was listed for sale in recent months.

The company announced the new limitations in a post on its Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) forum on Monday. “While we have not seen a spike in our publishing numbers, in order to help protect against abuse, we are lowering the volume limits we have in place on new title creations,” read the statement. KDP allows authors to self-publish their books and list them for sale on Amazon’s site.

Amazon told the Guardian that the limit is set at three titles, though this number may be adjusted “if needed”. The company confirmed that there was previously no limit to the number of books authors could list a day.

-snip-

The rule change will “probably not” be a “gamechanger for managing the influx of AI-written content on Amazon’s platform,” said Dr Miriam Johnson, senior lecturer in publishing at Oxford Brookes University. “It will dent the numbers a bit, but for those who are making money by flooding the market with AI-generated books and publishing more than three a day, they will find a work-around.”

-snip-

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/sep/20/amazon-restricts-authors-from-self-publishing-more-than-three-books-a-day-after-ai-concerns

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If you found that headline shocking - if you didn't know how much generative AI is being used to vomit out fake creative work, flooding markets and platforms and making it harder for humans working in these fields to survive - you will, I hope, pay closer attention.

There are a number of DUers who are self-published authors, and this flood of AI dreck is what they're now up against.

No talent for writing required, to use AI this way. No real interest in writing required. Just have a mindless chatbot following algorithms, and trained on work stolen from real writers without compensation, churn something out for you, and instead of spending months or even years writing a book, you can AI-spew multiple books a day and be an amazingly prolific fake author.

Some earlier threads on problems AI-written books are creating on Amazon:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100218056878

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100218176099

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100218195878

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100218231039

[ret5hd]

1. Only three books a day???

How is an honest writer supposed to support himself on only 3 books a day?

Sarcasm aside, wouldn’t 3 books a year be more realistic?

[jimfields33]

4. Yes. No author can write 3 books a day. That's the tragedy in all this.

How about one every six months?

[tinrobot]

13. Maybe a little more than that.

I used to write computer books. My turnaround on those was about chapter per week with 10-12 chapters in a book. If I was disciplined (I wasn't), I could probably have done a book per quarter.

Some books are also short - more like extended articles. So, overall, I could see one per month being fair.

But three per day? No way.

[jimfields33]

14. Good points. I think if they can come up with a fair compromise it would

Benefit all involved.

[GreenWave]

2. I'm working on 3 books and it's two years and still going.

3 a day eh?

Perhaps kids books.

[LiberalFighter]

3. Should be not more than 3 a year.

[Old Crank]

9. Daniel Steele

Is averaging 7 per year. Like her genre or not. Not self published but one of the few money makers.

[bucolic_frolic]

5. Publishing is saturated

There are still major authors that make a lot of money, but in 1990 there were maybe 40,000 books a year published. Publishers had skin in the game for anything they put their imprimatur on. Now, with computers, potential authors obtaining 125,000 advanced degrees a year, there are maybe 300,000 books a year. Less than 10% of them make any money. Self-publishing is cruising for a shakeout.

[Martin68]

6. How about one book every three months?

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

7. I have gotten really cautious about reading new books, unless they are by

authors I already am familiar with.

It started a decade or so ago when people started self-publishing, and had no clue about all of the different types of editing that went into real books.

I'm a writer and editor myself. I'm currently editing a science fiction short story collection. Because this is very small press, and the contributors will not make much, if any money from this, I'm pretty sure none of the submissions were AI produced.

I will say this: It's astonishing how many writers don't actually read the submission guidelines. This anthology has a very specific theme, and I got a large number of stories not even remotely related.

[Crowman2009]

8. The only new book I'm interested in buying this year is the murder-mystery written by Rupert Holmes.

[mysteryowl]

10. Ohhhhh man, what a mess AI is going to be!

AI is writing books and bumping out real authors.
I don't like this at all!!

Our dysfunctional congress needs to get down to some serious work regulating AI and fast!

[FakeNoose]

11. How is Amazon OK with this? They're enabling the AI cheaters and shutting down the humans who put them in business

I don't think I'll ever buy another book from Amazon again. They must establish some sensible standards here. If an author submits more than 3 or 4 "books" per year, that author is using AI to gain unfair advantage over others. That author needs to be banned from selling books on Amazon.

[elias7]

12. Money

[coffeenap]

15. There's an Amazon alternative we might want to use:

Have you heard of Bookshop.org? It's a great online site that allows you to choose an independent bookseller to receive the profit from your order. My understanding is they pool resources so they can compete with Amazon.

https://bookshop.org/

[FakeNoose]

16. Didn't know about this! Thanks for the tip

[milestogo]

17. Is the "work stolen from real writers"?

Aren't there copyright laws?

[Wonder Why]

18. if one could read three books a day, they are probably not worth reading.