Amazon limits authors to 3 books a day to combat AI-generated material(themessenger.com)
themessenger.com
Amazon limits authors to 3 books a day to combat AI-generated material
https://themessenger.com/news/amazon-limits-authors-to-self-publish-3-books-a-day-to-combat-ai-generated-material
54 comments
This seems to be biased against writers who write books really fast. I feel authors using cloud scale resources can easily write 10 books a day.
The 10x Author is a myth
Walter B. Gibson would disagree.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_B._Gibson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_B._Gibson
[deleted]
Isaac Asimov was quite real.
This was probably not meant to be a humourous comment but it made me laugh.
Something tells me these "authors" will not be winning the Nobel Prize for Literature, inclusion in the Book of the Month club, or any literary honours for that matter.
Something tells me these "authors" will not be winning the Nobel Prize for Literature, inclusion in the Book of the Month club, or any literary honours for that matter.
Brandon Sanderson must be fuming.
3 books a DAY? How about 3 books a month? Or 3 books a year? Only the most prolific authors have managed 3 books a month.
I could see that for a few reasons. Someone new to Amazon adding their entire library at once, an updated edition of a long running series, different language versions of the same book, etc. Probably not many (any?) legitimate authors writing 3 books a day, but there are lots of instances where an author might be trying to add several at once.
Something like 60/month seems like it'd be a little more reasonable to allow these legitimate upload waves though.
Something like 60/month seems like it'd be a little more reasonable to allow these legitimate upload waves though.
> Something like 60/month seems like it'd be a little more reasonable
That would cause scammers to create new accounts, upload 60 books, hope to sell a few on the first few days until they get caught, then rinse and repeat.
Amazon will probably also monitor accounts who upload 3 books a day using some heuristic so that they can stop it before it becomes an issue.
That would cause scammers to create new accounts, upload 60 books, hope to sell a few on the first few days until they get caught, then rinse and repeat.
Amazon will probably also monitor accounts who upload 3 books a day using some heuristic so that they can stop it before it becomes an issue.
Amazon holds onto funds for at least 30 days. You can't bait and switch that fast.
Fair point. It still pollutes the marketplace, though.
No one would pollute the marketplace unless expecting profit
The notion of "book" is way fuzzier that it was in the olden days. There's nothing stopping an author from releasing one or two thousand words every as a single book, inside a larger story (basically having a book for what could have been single chapters ?)
Same way illustrators could publish their roughs and croquis as books, etc.
As those can be set with a 0$ price, and virtually no inventory issue, it feels like a practice that doesn't penalize either amazon, nor the author, nor the readers.
Same way illustrators could publish their roughs and croquis as books, etc.
As those can be set with a 0$ price, and virtually no inventory issue, it feels like a practice that doesn't penalize either amazon, nor the author, nor the readers.
> There’s nothing stopping an author from releasing one or two thousand words every as a single book, inside a larger story (basically having a book for what could have been single chapters ?)
Amazon has a separate service within KDP for exactly that kind of serialization, [0] so while its true that KDP handles a wider range of books than just the novel-size works people seem to be thinking about, that particular example is probably an explicitly not-prioritized use case for regular “book” publishing on KDP.
[0] Kindle Vella: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/GR2L4AHPMQ44HNQ7
Amazon has a separate service within KDP for exactly that kind of serialization, [0] so while its true that KDP handles a wider range of books than just the novel-size works people seem to be thinking about, that particular example is probably an explicitly not-prioritized use case for regular “book” publishing on KDP.
[0] Kindle Vella: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/GR2L4AHPMQ44HNQ7
That would impede their money laundering and stolen credit card revenue…
Money laundering might be a thing, but I can't see how they could benefit from stolen credit cards. They have to refund when the card owner contacts their bank, don't they?
That assumes the cardholder actually realizes their card has been stolen. Many people may not notice an extra $50/month being siphoned from them, especially if they already use Amazon.
Why didn't I realize this before? I'm laughing at myself this makes so much sense now.
Well. A lot of things suddenly make a lot more sense now.
because Amazon allows anything and no quality control. someone can just re-publish Wikipedia articles as books, which a lot of people do.
What would "quality control" look like for self-published books?
A 15 minute human review process that checks if it:
- is copy pasted from another source or the internet
- respects copyright
- is written in the language it says it is
In graduate school nobody can understand each other's papers, so the colleges set up a massive list of formatting guidelines. The idea being the focus on formatting means you at least had to spend a minimum amount of effort.
- is copy pasted from another source or the internet
- respects copyright
- is written in the language it says it is
In graduate school nobody can understand each other's papers, so the colleges set up a massive list of formatting guidelines. The idea being the focus on formatting means you at least had to spend a minimum amount of effort.
A 15-minute human review is not going to be able to check all three of those things, or really do much of a job on even either of the first two in isolation.
Automation + human judgement. It works for iOS.
Pay a few bucks for someone to skim through it?
Lionel Fanthorpe legendarily wrote a book every weekend, but he is also legendarily one of the worst writers of all time.
My friend wrote a children’s book using AI. Even without AI, it may be possible to make a few children’s books with the same characters in a single day. I’m curious though, who are the authors who have published 3 long form books per month?
https://shatterzone.substack.com/p/ai-is-coming-for-your-chi...
Your friend might be part of the problem.
Your friend might be part of the problem.
Depends on your definition of what a book is. If you step outside of novels you have books that are mainly tables of facts, or get updated monthly, etc.
> Only the most prolific authors have managed 3 books a month.
KDP “books” include “low-content books” (prompt journals, etc.), not just novels.
KDP “books” include “low-content books” (prompt journals, etc.), not just novels.
That's...what's a apropos word...comical?
Dam, I need to make a second Amazon seller account now. My average is 5 books a day.
Over 1000 books a year is considered reasonable by Amazon?
if you're making a commission on every shovel... I guess so?
Oof Brandon Sanderson is gonna have to slow down or make several pseudonyms.
[dupe]
More discussion over here yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37561668
Theres lots of fake 'work books' being uploaded to come up first in search results.
Amazon has some major issues with AI books flooding the initial results.
Isaac Asimov averaged an original book about every 6 weeks over the time between his first book was published and his death. He also averaged editing a new anthology or collection of prior work (his or others) every 15 weeks. He also averaged a non-book story every 6 week. And an essay every 9 days on average. Oh and also an average of about 6 letters or postcards per day(!).
For his books (authored + edited) that comes to an average rate about two orders of magnitude under Amazon's limit. Even if Asimov had stopped writing non-book stories, essays, letters, and postcards to devote more time to books, he probably would still be an order of magnitude away from hitting Amazon's limit.
I assume Amazon wanted to set their limit high enough that no legitimate human authors would hit it, but they were way more conservative than they needed to be.
For his books (authored + edited) that comes to an average rate about two orders of magnitude under Amazon's limit. Even if Asimov had stopped writing non-book stories, essays, letters, and postcards to devote more time to books, he probably would still be an order of magnitude away from hitting Amazon's limit.
I assume Amazon wanted to set their limit high enough that no legitimate human authors would hit it, but they were way more conservative than they needed to be.
I can see where some people are acting as publishers for other authors or are commissioning others to create books for publishing so they can upload multiple books at a time. I'd be interested in knowing who can hit the limit and why.
Quality is another thing. A while back my library was purchasing tech related kindle books just because of the title. I know this since I borrowed one and it was just garbage. It was a combination of Wikipedia articles plus stuff that was gathered from the web with no editing.
But yes, I see your point.
Quality is another thing. A while back my library was purchasing tech related kindle books just because of the title. I know this since I borrowed one and it was just garbage. It was a combination of Wikipedia articles plus stuff that was gathered from the web with no editing.
But yes, I see your point.
Agatha Christie took 3-4 months for each book...
https://www.agathachristie.com/news/2021/a-life-in-numbers-1....
https://www.agathachristie.com/news/2021/a-life-in-numbers-1....
Folding Ideas on youtube has an excellent explanation of the business model behind the rise of EBook Spam.
The Mikkelson Twins are running a massive MLM scheme but instead of steak knives or scented candles, it's "training and support for creating your own EBook Passive Income Stream" which leads to what we see on Amazon ebook listings.
The video also goes into the darker side of the incentives that lead people to commission ghostwriters, AI editors and the crushing labour demands of the people employed to write these books:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biYciU1uiUw
The Mikkelson Twins are running a massive MLM scheme but instead of steak knives or scented candles, it's "training and support for creating your own EBook Passive Income Stream" which leads to what we see on Amazon ebook listings.
The video also goes into the darker side of the incentives that lead people to commission ghostwriters, AI editors and the crushing labour demands of the people employed to write these books:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biYciU1uiUw
Why not just charge 20c every time the book is opened on Kindle?