As is typical during any holiday, lots of my ebooks are being returned on Amazon. $20 returned so far today, approximately $50 so far this month.

This worrying trend was started by TikTok, where readers were encouraged to treat Amazon like a library. That is, you purchase an ebook, read it and then return it for a full refund, no questions asked. This has been going on for years, and obviously eats into the meagre profits that authors can make on the site, but it has definitely got worse this year.

On the positive side, Amazon has promised authors that by the end of 2022 (to which we assume they mean 31st December 2022, because why rush?!), if readers have read the whole ebook, returning it is going to be made much more difficult for them to achieve.

Fingers crossed!