Collar Theory

It sounds like KDP's rolling out ID Verificaton to more North Americans now. Authors are required to submit a government ID for verification.

This is not a new program, it was announced a year ago, yet there are reports of people having their accounts terminated because they can't upload their government ID or get Amazon to recognize it. It's not surprising because Amazon KDP's customer service is notorious for being highly-automated and script-driven.

You already have to give Amazon your tax info to get paid, so this is not a huge ask, and it can potentially curb abuse since KDP only allows people to have one account per lifetime. These days a single person can feasibly run a content farm thanks to AI tools, so maybe this will help with slop, but I feel like it will probably only deter people casually trying (and failing, I assure you) to make a quick buck, and not the organized content farms who are really abusing the system.

I sometimes wonder if banning low content and public domain books outright would help at all. Kobo is reportedly cracking down on restricted content (which also includes partially or completely AI-generated work, but if memory serves they're primarily targeting PD and LC books) and Draft2Digital will not distribute PD books at all. Amazon does scrutinize this content to the extent public domain ebooks are generally considered risky and not worth risking an account ban.

I guess the truth is, the real volume of problematic content is gonna be slop: either AI generated mishmash or machine-translated works that are able to get past Amazon's "content published elsewhere" sniff test. Enough forbidden extreme/taboo content already somehow gets past their content checks, so I'm not sure how good their sniff tests are in the first place, but they're definitely not good enough to reliably sniff out AI slop.

In the spirit of trying new things, I once again tackled the problem of writing on the go. Last year I resisted expanding my writing time, but now that writing is a "hobby" (lol) and I have a better handle on my time management, I decided it would be a more fun way to spend downtime than doomscrolling my feeds.

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Obsidian is not Scrivener

I'm convinced that adopting Scrivener made it possible for me to finish novels. I simply could not wrap my brain around the story when I used a word processor, and the visual organization of the Scrivener binder, plus the ability to have side notes, was a game-changer. Now I think Obsidian is going to make more complex books and series possible. I'm simultaneously outlining book one and the full series right now, and I'm powering past the points where I got stuck before because I was just so goddamned overwhelmed by the volume of stuff I was juggling.

It's the links, folks. It is EFFORTLESS to link and track data in this tool. Need to rework a bit of lore? Toss in a [[TODO]] link with a brief sentence explaining what needs to be done. Need to fill a placeholder? Drop a link to the placeholder link in the outline. Having a dynamic TODO list that I don't even think about, that is always updated and links right to the spot I need to make the change, is chef's kiss

Obsidian's other big strength is layout flexibility and unlimited split panes. Scrivener only allows a single split pane. Most of the time, this is fine. But in the planning stages, being able to have chapters, series notes, outline notes, and wiki notes all open as needed in various panes has really helped.

Scrivener is gonna come into play after the rough draft, when I'm splitting and moving big chunks of text around, running my various editing tools, and getting ready for epub output.

Anyway, writing Baby's First SeriousBook Series is kinda scary! D: I'll talk about that next time. But I feel a lot better now that I have ways to organize that seem to be working.

I said TOW2 was a day-one purchase for me, and I'm gonna have to go back on that promise, but I sincerely appreciate the irony of the Outer Worlds, of all things, being Microsoft's first $80 title.

Come October, I shall play through the first game and associated DLC yet again, and when the sequel invariably goes on sale for $40 two months later I'll be there, slobbering and drooling as I gorge myself on sweet, sweet anti-capitalist jank.

You can be a complete freak about something and still set the price, lads. That's all I'm sayin'.