PSA for anyone who uses ingramspark, or anyone you know who does, you now need to opt out to prevent them from selling your books to AI tech companies to train their AI. 🤦♀️
Actually I'm still angry about this.
Here's the angry email I wrote to the customer service desk. I don't know if I'll get any answer but feel free to copy and paste if you want.
Hello, I am writing to express my deep disappointment and concern about Ingram's behind-closed-doors sale of author's work to AI companies. I learned about this new practice through posts on Instagram and tumblr, not through any official email announcement or documentation through my author portal, and I was horrified to learn that it was an opt-out situation. How do I know my work hasn't already been scraped or stolen before I opted out? Would I be paid for the sale, or would Ingram spark receive all the proceeds of my hard work? Furthermore, the opt-out form had to be linked in these off-site posts. This is a huge breach of trust for a small indie author who's trying to break out in the industry. When I searched for "AI" on Ingram's website, the opt-out page did not come up in the search results. Also, I publish through the IngramSpark Website, so I wouldn't have known to go to the "Ingram Content Group" website to find the page, and the opt-out page didn't show up in the search results on that page either. The only results that come up are "helpful" guides on AI marketing strategies, which I find offensive as well (though irrelevant to the topic at hand). It's as though the company is intentionally trying to hide the opt-out form to keep as many authors as possible ignorant and enrolled to unfairly profit off their stolen work. This is a huge breach of trust for a small indie author who's trying to break out in the industry. I am betrayed, angry, and hopeless. I chose Ingramspark because of your wide distribution network, access to libraries and small bookstores, and high print quality for my illustrations. I want to sell wide. I bring my book to art markets. I want to have a product I can be proud of. I don't want to rely on Amazon's monopoly, and other distributors don't offer what you do. Please reverse this decision and publicly apologize to the writing community. You would not have your business without us.
