this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2023
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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.

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[–] [email protected] 113 points 1 year ago (9 children)

No author publishing even 1 book a week is legit. 3 books a day? Yea, that's still AI.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I suppose the idea is that it’s possible that someone has written several books in the past, and wants to sell them on Amazon now.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 year ago

Imagine if it took an entire week to list your life's work on Amazon.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Plus multiple editions, languages, etc.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

They even admit this rule is trash.

The rule change will “probably not” be a “gamechanger for managing the influx of AI-written content on Amazon’s platform,”

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

A book in one language yes, but don't forget translations. Books of famous writers are sometimes released in multiple languages on the same day.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Do famous writers self publish?

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They could have written them and are just getting around to publishing them on Amazon if it is a one time thing.

Do they short stories as titles? Stephen King could have cranked out that many if he didn't care about quality control back in his cocaine days.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

3 books a day? Yea, that's still AI.

It seems plausible that an author might have a catalogue of more than 3 books and might choose to publish them on Amazon all at the same time. Still, that could probably be alleviated by having the throttling kick in after some initial threshold is reached, say 12 total.

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[–] [email protected] 74 points 1 year ago (11 children)

It's crazy that this is even necessary. I can't imagine the sheer amount of crap people upload every day, completely ruining it for us serious Indie writers in the process.

Now people will avoid self published books even more than before.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I give up there sooo much garbage on there I have no way to get people to find my novel and word of mouth isn't enough. I am currently looking for an agent for my next book.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Was thinking about that and decided to just shelve my books for now and decide later. Not in a hurry to publish.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Now people will rely on social cred. Indie authors would have to rely on social media and blogging to come accross as attractive enough for their written works to be interesting. Same with any other indie-related fields, really.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

That’ll only last for a few seconds.

But this time next year, the number of Astro turfed fake online personas that are AI generated is going to be insane.

Unless someone finds a way to fight it (which I’m not counting on)

The ai authors will have real conversations with other ai profiles, making it look like a real person with real family and real friends.

We are entering the post-truth era.

May your deity of choice have mercy on our souls.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not if they are regulated to put an "In Full or in Part AI Generated" label on it.

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[–] [email protected] 52 points 1 year ago (5 children)

If you're gone go that way, then limit it to one book per MONTH, anything faster than that would be suspect

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't see a problem with someone publishing a backlog of multiple books at once. 3 per day seems pretty reasonable. Maybe even something like 3 per day and at most 10 per month might work.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

On the other hand though, say you've been writing a web novel that could be sliced up into 3 separate books or you just have 3 books that's only now getting released. You could release them over time or you could choose to have all 3 go up at once. Not to mention as a first act of defense, it's a reasonable action to make and is easily adjustable later on.

There's probably other reasons why someone would release more than one book at once that's completely understandable, especially when considering what technically counts as a "book" such as translations or a company publishing titles of multiple authors under one name,

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Chuck Tingle was pumping out multiple a month before language models were a thing.

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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

Amazon enables AI books to continue self-publishing
FTFY

If they actually wanted to stop them they could, easily, but why would they, they clearly make them easy money..

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

What's this easy fix then? Just a lower number? That will just mean more publishers.

AI detection tools don't work, and humans aren't much better, unless they're subject experts. How do we stop AI books?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

I 110% guarantee that this issue was brought to the attention of several people with the ability to rapidly implement a fix, but the subject was dropped when cost to develop was mentioned. Amazon is the glass and steel incarnation of human malice.

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago

Thanks for messing it up for those of us who can pump out a 10 book series in just under 16 hours. Thanks a lot.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oh no, now the AI will have to think up new author names as well!

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Not defending Amazon, but... despite allowing unlimited pen names, they all have to be under the same account. Multiple publishing accounts can get you banned, and good luck explaining why multiple accounts have the same financial information when you go to withdraw your $5.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago (4 children)

What kind of an author is publishing more than 3 books a day??? Who is mad about this?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Chuck Tingle may have to slow down a bit but that’s ok, he deserves evenings off

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Dr. Chuck Tingle is the only buckaroo I could think of who might hit this volume. Don't forget to SHOW LOVE!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Pounded in the Butt by Amazon's Less Than 3 Self-Published Books a Day Restriction

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Brandon Sanderson comes to mind.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Considering he's already sworn off Amazon, I dont think that's an issue.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I was going to say this is a devastating blow to James Patterson's team of ghostwriters

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Chuck tingle, stephen king, good thing Asimov died or we'd have chaos on our hands

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Just a reminder that if you're using ai to write your book, your book has less worth than your last dump.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I'm not a writer, but ai is a fantastic tool to brainstorm ideas. Just never ever trust it.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago

As an author, this doesn’t hurt me at all. I write fast, but not that fast.

Sad they have to do this, but I can’t see what actual person this hurts. If you’ve somehow hoarded a backlog of dozens of titles, it might take several days to publish them. That’s advantageous if you’re legit, anyhow.

What worries me is this won’t hinder AI at all.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago

That isn't a limit even Stephen King probably would struggle to release one book a month, let alone three books a day.

I want to meet an author who is genuinely inconvenienced by this.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

3 per Day, really? Lol

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

We need some real, serious limits on AI use and development. This is only going to get worse from here. Anyone got ideas on how we can limit AI effectively?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

Anyone got ideas on how we can limit AI effectively?

Teach your children to value artists and content creators

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

This is not a solution.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Three books a day is completely plausible, but four? Nobody can type that fast. /s

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

George R. R. Martin: ok.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Wow! Only three bookks a day? Publish or parish thing has gotten out of control.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Disgusting. How do you write a book using AI?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago
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