IngramSpark to Sell Book Content to AI Modelers: Link to Opt-Out Included.

Greetings,

This is for my author friends. IngramSpark, one of the major printers used to offer paperback and hardback edition of novels, has decided to start selling paper copies of books (and possibly digital!) to AI companies for model training. This is the form you should use to opt out of this “service.”

Ingram has not notified publishers and authors directly of their choice to sell AI, opt-in will be automatic if you do not choose to opt out, and I haven’t heard a peep of how much we’ll receive for allowing the companies they sell to to model off our books.

Let’s just say I’ve already submitted remove from distribution orders from IngramSpark.

I will finish fulfilling my kickstarter obligations through IngramSpark, but once that is done, I will be shutting down all of my IngramSpark titles and transitioning everything over to Amazon.

I can’t stop if someone goes onto Amazon and buys my books for this usage, but at least Amazon is not openly pursuing purchase agreements with these AI firms without making me aware they are doing it.

And no, I have not received any communications from IngramSpark (at least at the time of posting) regarding the sale of print books to AI firms.

I will be testing hardback editions through Amazon, which will be in the 6×9 trim size. Special edition hardbacks will be printed through a company in China, shipped to my PA, who will package and ship all books. I will be doing a minimum print run of 200 copies per special edition or the number of people who preorder the book (once again, through my PA) plus fifty copies, should there be more than 200 desired copies.

I will not be doing reprints of the special editions, so once they’re gone, they’re gone.

You can sign up for the special edition notifications here.

The first special edition book to be done will be the Cindercorn Trilogy, which you can order in eBook edition from Amazon. Other vendors will be coming in a few days.

Please note that I will not be doing a price reduction on the Cindercorn Trilogy until May of 2027. If you want this trilogy in digital at a reduced price, mark your calendars for May 1, 2027. The Cindercorn Trilogy will be discounted to coincide with the release of Herding Polecats. (I will reduce the Cindercorn Trilogy a week or so before the release of Herding Polecats to help promote the new release.)

Anyway, I’m enabling expanded distribution on Amazon so that it is at least possible to order my books through other retailers in print, but with Ingram’s new rules… I have a few words to say: fuck that shit.

I use no AI to write my books. Hell, I usually have even basic spellcheck turned off. I don’t use grammar check, either. I use real people to produce, edit, proof, and prepare my books for publication.

The closest I get to AI is the usage of templates to prepare books for publication, which… is not AI. It’s a template.

I’m going to go to a corner and breathe fire for a while over this. Who would have thought Amazon would have more ethics than IngramSpark on this?

… definitely not me, not until this morning, when I found out what they were up to…

Gross.