I hope everyone has a great Halloween if you celebrate. My town had trick or treating a night early, so I took the boys out and they got plenty of candy. Far fewer houses gave out treats compared to previous years (maybe 25% of what we’ve seen in the past), so we had to do a lot more walking, but at least we got some good exercise!

I’ve gotten some amazing reviews and enthusiastic responses from those who have picked up A Time of Gladiators and Fate, the first book in the Last Road to Rome trilogy that I released on October 12th. I appreciate everyone who has picked up the book and given it a chance. Having said that, despite marketing my books (including my other series) more than ever before, I’m seeing a significant drop in recent months for sales and Kindle Unlimited borrows on Amazon.

While the economy and world events likely play some role in this, I think the biggest problem is the flood of AI books on Amazon. They have begun to clog the bestseller lists, despite no human being involved in the cover creation or writing. Some authors have confronted Amazon about this, but the retailer refuses to do much, claiming many readers enjoy those books, so they have no reason to remove them. It has resulted in a lot of human writers watching their books fall down the ranks and we’re fighting for visibility now. The various genre categories are filled with AI books even though they are obviously not real with their strange keyword filled titles and ridiculous author names.

Kindle Unlimited (now Kindle+ so they can include the AI narrated books in the program), is no longer seeming like the best option for real human authors. Across the board, including many bestselling writers, we are seeing a massive drop in page reads. Some people believe Amazon’s system isn’t reporting accurately, but that’s hard to prove since there’s never been a way to track who borrows our books aside from someone directly telling us.

I know I have some readers who still find the program to be the most affordable way to read, but it’s hit the point that many of us can’t even earn back what we have spent publishing our books. We are going into debt that we have to pay back with non-book earnings. It’s not the readers fault, of course. The publishing landscape has simply changed to give AI books a significant advantage, except the mega-selling titles. Even some real authors have begun resorting to AI marketing to give them a boost. It has worked for them, even with the backlash of a minority of readers getting upset over it, but I don’t want to do that for my books. I think up my own hooks and tag lines, and either design my own posts/banners, or pay a real artist to do it for me. Lately, I dedicate at least 1-3 hours a day working on promoting my books in the hope of getting some reader’s attention.

For October, I average about $5-$10 a day in earnings for page reads from Kindle+. With this being a new release month, that is ridiculously bad. I should be seeing a major surge right now. Instead, my book sales (ebook, paperback, and hardback) are actually the bulk of my earnings for October, but since I spend about $5 a day in Facebook/Instagram ads (promoting books on social media has also become exceedingly difficult and expensive), I’m starting to think it might be better for me to take all my books wide again.

Right now, only the Sensor Series and Dark Destiny Series are on all the retailers. I’m going to watch how things go for the rest of 2026, but if they don’t improve, I will look at pulling all my books from the program. It just doesn’t seem to be making sense anymore for those of us not using AI because Amazon appears to be favoring computer generated work over real books. I simply wanted to warn readers who may still plan on borrowing some of my titles they haven’t gotten through the program yet. Make sure to do so in the next couple of months in the likely event Amazon doesn’t fix this issue. After that, they’ll still be available to buy. I’ll also have them in Kobo Plus.

In other news, I’ve ordered some more hardcover copies for the two Realm of Zadrya installments (Oaths & Vengeance and Wrath & Desire), plus A Time of Gladiators and Fate copies that I’ll be selling signed copies on my Etsy store once they arrive. They’ll be at or a little below the retailer price, though you’ll also have to pay shipping. I will include special bookmarks with each sale as a bonus. When those are up in a few weeks (shipping is slow), I’ll announce it and provide a link. For now, there is just one copy of Oaths & Vengeance left available there. I also offer custom signing at no extra cost if you want more than a signature.

As for my writing plans, I’m getting back to book 3 of the Realm of Zadrya Series. I’ll post updates about that as I have them. Thanks for reading this far and hope everyone has a great weekend!