Okay it’s 2:45am and I can’t sleep, but I was thinking about people who game the Kindle Direct numbers to make fat stacks of cash so here’s a short thread

Something that I have considered is this: Amazon rewards quantity/frequency over quality. Therefore the winners of Kindle Direct are those who can produce content by the fastest and cheapest means

So: manuscript recycling. Buying old manuscripts from authors who are getting out of the ol’ self-publishing game. Paying for ghostwritten stuff.

That all involves paying other humans for stuff that they make. You know what’s cheaper? Paying for an automated system ONCE.

Now to be clear: this ain’t trivial and I’m not sure if anyone’s done it yet.

But I know of at least two different ways I would build an automated system that would take existing novels as an input, and output entirely new novels.

I considered building something a while back “just to see if I could”. A multi-million dollar idea.

I decided against it because it’d be unethical and I’m still only one person. Knowing how a thing could be built isn’t the same as having the resources and bandwidth to build it.

Anyhoo - this is just to say that I am one very smart person and there are many smart people in the world. So I think this novel-generating system likely exists already.

I’m not talking about the ML-generated stuff that’s clearly nonsense, as well. I mean: novels that look like they were written by solid indie mid-listers. Competent, they’re no Nora Roberts or N.K. Jemisin, but readable.

Don’t want this to turn into another “abandon hope all ye who enter here” thread when it comes to KDP, but at this point, I wouldn’t be an author without MANY non-KDP income streams.

KDP has been absolutely corrupted, is what I’m saying.

And tbh I don’t even know if other ebook retailers are immune. Just that KDP being the biggest means it’s got the most immoral asshats targeting it.

Bet your buns that if another one gets big, they’ll be targeted too.

If I can make any prediction, it’s this: we will see a lot more... synthetic celebrities among the most popular writers. Pen names taken to the extreme and logical conclusion. Big author names will be effectively fabricated personalities.

A facade for these novels generated by algorithms.

I would really like to be wrong about this one but I suspect I’ll be proven right, and that’s kinda depressing.

There are not enough ethical developers in the world. Like Ian Malcolm said, you were so concerned with whether you could do something that you never thought about whether you should do it.

Fucking Silicon techbro attitude has this thing that if you don’t jump on the amazing innovative idea and build it RIGHT NOW, then someone else will think of it and get it to market before you do

Like the most toxic version of FOMO (fear of missing out) you can imagine, coupled with the absolute worst auteur horseshit granted the backing of angel investors with ingrained bias so far up their own arse they couldn’t find a decent concept with both hands

Same attitude gave us shit like Juicero and I will NEVER not be entirely pissed off that THAT pile of hipster fuckery got millions of investment dollars.

Anyway KDP and the ebook market

Kind of a long-winded way of saying it but KDP is entirely fucked and we definitely do need a new system at this point, but the technical challenges involved in allowing actual authors writing their own stories to succeed while restricting scammer bullshit are astronomical.

Like... there are so many intersecting concerns here that no one should be surprised that Kindle Direct is the monster that it is and no one has built something better yet.

User privacy vs data analysis to restrict bad behaviour.

Distribution and ease of access vs copyright law.

Fair/competitive compensation structure for authors vs the cost of keeping such a gargantuan system running at all, never mind turning a profit.

And honestly Amazon at least has the R&D chops to solve these issues but it’s got no incentive to do so. It already owns most of the ebook market because Kindle is its loss leader for Amazon Prime. It gives zero fucks.

So that’s what we’re up against and this has run on a bit, but in fairness it’s now 3:25am and I haven’t had enough sleep or coffee to make me entirely coherent.

Yay it’s November, let’s all eat leftover candy and lose our minds to #nanowrimo2020 WOOP WOOP