Sue is Writing Solarpunk 🌞🌱1d ago

SELF-PUBLISHED AUTHOR FRIENDS
This *INSANE* email from Barnes & Noble WTF
—no more than 100 books and they start deleting??
—removing titles that don't meet minimum sales?

What the hell? I've been publishing since 2011... I have 145 titles.

AI deluge screwing us but still...it's war on indies.

Show threadSue is Writing Solarpunk 🌞🌱1d ago

the injury of indie authors being shoved off platforms because AI is sucking up all the storage space after the insult of those very works being stolen by AI corps to feed their slop machine

(D2D and B&N both)

Show threadSue is Writing Solarpunk 🌞🌱8h ago

ME TO B&N:
I've been publishing on Nook since 2011... I have 145 titles, a combination of novels, short stories, etc. So I'm pretty alarmed that you're suddenly limiting books to 100 titles. This is across two pennames. I am a prolific author. Is this new rule intended to drive prolific authors off your platform? I'm wondering if I should be publishing with B&N if you're going to start removing titles arbitrarily.

Please let me know how you will resolve this situation.
1/3

Show threadSue is Writing Solarpunk 🌞🌱

B&N REPLIES:
Hi Susan,
Wanted to reach out personally to assure you that this policy is not meant to drive authors like yourself–with career catalogs and pen names–from the site. We are really going after larger publishers and aggregators who bulk upload.

We intend to have exemptions and I have whitelisted your account so you can continue to publish uninterrupted.

I apologize for any confusion or worry.

Julie Braunschweiger
eCommerce Sr. Manager, B&N Press
2/3

6:29pmWeb
Show threadSue is Writing Solarpunk 🌞🌱8h ago
I encourage everyone to email B&N and D2D right now... the more they sense the absolute panic this is causing in the indie world, the more likely they are to back off from draconian idiotic policies.
3/3
#writing #selfpublishing
Show threadChantaru8h ago
@susankayequinn seems like the solution is that they should limit how many new titles they allow every year. People can be prolific, but they can't write 5 novels a year and maintain quality. They should have a derogation process for authors that are uploading to BN a large number of books that were published elsewhere.
Show threadSue is Writing Solarpunk 🌞🌱8h ago

@chantaryu2 I've written 5 novels in a year and they were high quality, thank you very much. Also it's "titles" so short stories, box sets, collections... I'm literally going to upload a 6-volume series of collected short stories that I've written over my entire career (plus new ones!) in the next few months.

Artificial limits like this just inhibit indie publishing creativity. And imagination.

AI slop uploading 200 titles on a single day is characteristically different.

Show threadSiobhan Muir7h ago
@susankayequinn I emailed D2D and pointed out all the ways it hurts real authors and actually helps the genAI slop keep going (the fee itself punishes real authors who can't get seen through the slop while doesn't affect the sloppers who are already making money). It's ludicrous
Show threadSue is Writing Solarpunk 🌞🌱7h ago
@SiobhanMuir excellent!
Show threadAstrid8h ago

@susankayequinn This almost makes sense... but it should be a "per period of time" measurement, and it should be manually reviewed instead of blanket banned.

Even a default approach of flagging unusually high volumes with an opportunity to explain/appeal/whatever is worlds better than a blanket ban. Make the outliers attest that they aren't using machine generation and blacklist them if they are shown to be lying 🙃

Show threadSue is Writing Solarpunk 🌞🌱8h ago
@luxliquida that would make too much sense!