Kindle Unlimited Is Dead: Long Live Kindle+
Amazon retired Kindle Unlimited, Meta gives ultimatum to business accounts, PHP patch, and another trad publisher closes. And in Zeitgeist news, Britain arrests 62,199 people over social posts!
Barnes & Noble Foot Traffic Soars and Cars Can Fly Now
Smashwords offers preorders, September’s KU pot is $65.9 million, and Substack remits sales tax for you. Plus, a flying car!
Audible Audiobook Ads Are Finally Here
Kindle Previewer 4 arrives with a warning, Amazon opens audiobook ads, Spotify expands to 180 markets, and an AI chatbot leads to a user’s arrest.
Is Amazon Ending Permafree Ebooks?
Is Amazon ending permafree? Why Royal Road thrives as others die, new AI models, a $16M Kickstarter, and Meryl Streep as Aslan
Amazon Cracks Down on AI Authors
KDP caps new titles, OpenAI’s piracy memo is evidence, urban fantasy royalties fall, and Anthropic talks slowdown while shipping new models.
KU Payouts Fall While Economy Surges
Amazon extends Kindle pre-orders to 18 months, KU payouts shift, indie books outnumber trad books 5:1, and macOS 27 arrives.
The US Copyright Office Is Flagging Human-Written Books as AI
The U.S. Copyright Office is flagging human-written books as AI, plus Spotify’s free indie audiobooks, publishers’ new AI promotion agents, the open Anthropic settlement window, and Apple’s foldable iPhone.
Amazon Caught Stealing Authors’ Ad Dollars
Amazon sued for overcharging advertisers, AI’s custom romance novels, Mr. Beast and James Patterson’s book bomb, and the anti-AI movement may have its leader.
Facebook Advertising Changes Forever… Again
Meta killed the setting that kept ads off Audience Network. Amazon hiked Kindle prices $40 overnight. 63% of religious books may be AI-written.
AI Read Aristotle That’s Why It Writes Better Than You
Amazon is destroying rare books to train AI, an AI-writing tool beats detectors, author AI controversies grow, and Anthropic checks are delayed.
Barnes & Noble Just Banned the Front-Table Author Signing Nationwide
For Week Ending August 14, 2026 This week, Barnes & Noble dropped a corporate memo that ends the easy front-table book signing. A copyright lawsuit stretched four years and finished with a $3.4 million fee against the plaintiff. Claude is now stamping an invisible...
AI Fiction Seizes 27.5% of KDP’s Genre Catalog
Libro.fm expands ebooks to 5,000 indie stores, while AI disrupts a $2 million book auction. HarperCollins grows 15%, Fable reaches 5 million users, and AI fiction nears 30% of Amazon’s genre catalog.
Fauci’s Diary, Joe Rogan, and the Magic Boom in Fiction
AALA’s new pay-to-play agent rules, Substack’s faulty AI detector, publishing’s low AI adoption, and the supernatural fiction surge.
The Digital vs. Physical War: AI Companies Are Pulping Books by the Pallet
Literary agents can now charge for marketing, indie print revenue jumped 75%, the $1.5B Anthropic settlement was approved, and AI may have crossed the AGI line.
The Atlantic Just Declared the Age of Reading Is Over
Post-literate America, the Google Gemini lawsuit, AI audiobooks winning, and indie authors out-earning traditional. Plus: is the debate hurting your creativity?
