#really ill-advised corporate attempts to jump on a bandwagon that's not FOR them

[rubyjones]

This is highly misleading to add. It's really not true.

Look, I hate Amazon's monopoly, but here are some truths to bear in mind:

The vast majority of people still want to buy there; it sucks, but it's true, and choosing not to have an Amazon presence is severely limiting for an indie writer.

What IS true is that if you OPT IN to selling your book through Kindle Unlimited, Amazon will want exclusivity for the first 3 months. But you don't have to opt into that and after the 3 months you can sell it somewhere else as well. You'll also need a different ISBN, but I believe D2D and other publishers want you to use their own anyway.

I currently sell my books through KDP and Draft2Digital, both of which I mention in the blog post. I originally opted into the Unlimited programme, because it was easier and I'm pretty disabled, but folks on Mastodon really wanted to buy from Smashwords, so eventually I found the spoons to switch it up - please bear in mind when you're critiquing indies on how we publish from the very limited options we have that things like disability, childcare, a day job, and having to do all the work and marketing yourself, play a big factor in the choices we make. I also don't think Barnes and Noble sell the kinds of books I write anyway.

The post is not about where you can publish. It is very specifically about making your own cover for free or cheap without 'AI'. I am expanding this into a series and I may eventually address that, but there was no intention to cover all the options and their pluses and minuses.

I'm given to understand Kobo has an non-exclusive publishing service similar to Kindle Unlimited, but a) this didn't exist when I first started publishing; and b) as mentioned before, I am pretty damn disabled; it took me a year to prepare my last (already written) novella for publication using the systems I am already familiar with. Had I been writing an article on how and where to self-publish, I would have researched that, but again, that is not what this article is about. And I would not have written that article. Because I am too damn sick to write articles about things I have not already researched right now.

To be honest, I would appreciate it if Barnes and Nobel would consider making their catty comments about Amazon somewhere else than on a post by a disabled indie creator having their first viral moment.* especially as I know for a fact you won't be stocking Ruinous Attraction or Oviposition any time soon anyway, and that has nothing to do with Amazon.

*Under this name. But I never made any money from the others either.

Too many writers are using generative 'AI' to make their book covers, so I've written a guide on how to make your own cover for free or cheap without turning to a machine.

If you can't afford to pay an artist, you CAN make your own!

I hope this is a helpful overview that covers the basics and points to some free resources.