8/6/26 – The indie writer community is awesome… inclusive and so supportive!

Hey there happy reader!

I am so lucky to have one of the writers who I met on my trip to Guatemala stopping in New York to visit with me on her way to Kenya…

We’re spending some time catching up on each other’s lives and I’m helping her learn how to upload a manuscript to Amazon. 

I spent ten years as an indie writer, so I’m well versed in this process. While it seems daunting at first – choosing royalty rates and securing foreign rights – it’s really straight forward.

But what’s changed since I began my publishing journey is that today, Amazon asks this all-important question: “Was AI used in the creation of this manuscript?”

If the answer is yes, you need to check a box. 

If you check that box, Amazon will put a disclaimer on your copyright page disclosing this information. And don’t try to get around it because Amazon’s AI bots read every upload and spit out work that they think is questionable. Big brother is definitely watching…

Currently, an “author” is allowed to publish up to ten AI generated manuscripts PER DAY! 

And I’m not referring to writers that use ChatGPT or Claude to do research. I’m talking about having the computer WRITE THE DAMN BOOK!!! Ugh.

These AI generated books are crowding the marketplace. 

And they’re making it impossible for new authors to get a literary agent or have their work read by a traditional publisher.

I can promise you that I will never allow AI to tell my stories. I would rather stumble over every word before I enter a tag line and have my computer write the book for me. What fun is that, anyway??

I’ll get off my soapbox now… but thanks for letting me rant for a bit. 

I think I’ll head into my office and get back to my work-in-progress, “The 48 Hour Rule.” At least within those pages I can control most of what happens next…