[Doctorow-L] Enshittification, the audiobook (the Kickstarter)

[Cory Doctorow]

Audiobooks are hands-down the most enshittified aspect of publishing, which is why I make my own audiobooks and pre-sell them on Kickstarter, which is how I get around the fact that Amazon *refuses* to carry my audiobooks:

http://disenshittification.org

Why are audiobooks so enshittified? Because they have the two essential characteristics for enshittification:

1) They are digital, which means the rules for them can be shifted on a per-customer, per-usage basis; and

2) They are controlled by a monopoly, Amazon, whose Audible division is responsible for 90% of popular audiobook sales.

https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/07/audible-exclusive/#audiblegate

Amazon refuses to sell any audiobook unless it is first wrapped in the company's proprietary encryption (AKA "Digital Rights Management" or "DRM"). This DRM permanently locks Audible's audiobooks to the apps it approves, because US copyright law makes it a *felony* to tamper with that DRM. That means that neither the author nor the publisher can authorize you to take your Audible purchases to a rival platform, and if they try, *Audible can have them imprisoned for up to five years*:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/18/descartes-delenda-est/#self-destruct-sequence-initiated

Which is why none of my books are for sale on Audible. I'm not gonna submit to conditions that will let Audible take you, my reader, hostage. Not only does that make you vulnerable to whatever evil shit Amazon thinks up (remember a couple years ago, when they experimented with putting *ads* in the audiobooks you *paid for*?!), but that also makes *me* (and every other author) vulnerable, because if you can't leave Audible, neither can we:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/25/can-you-hear-me-now/#acx-ripoff

Which is why I do these Kickstarters for my audiobooks! Since 2013, I've either paid narrators (like Wil Wheaton and Amber Benson) to perform my books, or I've gone into Skyboat Media's studios myself, to record under the expert direction of the legendary Gabrielle de Cuir:

https://skyboatmedia.com/

That's what I did this time, recording my forthcoming book *Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What To Do About It* in early August. Since then, I've been working with my trusty sound engineer John Taylor Williams to polish that recording to perfection. Now, I'm selling that pre-selling that audiobook on a Kickstarter where you can also pre-order the hardcover, ebook, as well as an *extremely* limited edition art-book collecting the collages I made for my Pluralistic.net newsletter while developing the ideas behind *Enshittification*:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/enshittification-the-drm-free-audiobook

You can listen to a generous, one-hour sample of the entire first section of the book here:

https://archive.org/download/enshittification-sample/Enshittification_Kickstarter_Promo_FMx1.mp3

The audiobooks and ebooks I sell through my Kickstarters are sold without *any* DRM, and also without any "terms and conditions." You are *buying* these books, not "licensing" them. That means you can do anything with these books that copyright law allows: sell 'em, give 'em away, lend 'em to a friend. Just don't violate copyright law and we're cool.

This book, *Enshittification*, synthesizes all the essays, speeches and panels I've done on the subject of platform decay into a single, coherent argument designed to be accessible to everyone, even (especially) your normie friends who know that everything sucks but don't understand why and are paralyzed about what to do about it.

The book's not out until October - it'll be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (US/Canada) and Verso (UK/Commonwealth), but it's already getting *fantastic* early notices. The *Financial Times* has already longlisted it for 2025's best business book of the year:

https://www.ft.com/bookaward

It's gotten starred reviews and raves from trades like *Kirkus*, *Library Journal*, and *Publishers Weekly*, and we've sold foreign rights in more than a dozen countries, all over the world. There's also a 2026 graphic novel edition (adapted by Koren Shadmi) coming from First Second's 23rd Street Books.

Just as exciting is the Enshittification *documentary*, which is currently in pre-production, directed by Emily James (Just Do It), edited by Kurt Engfehr (Fahrenheit 9/11) and produced by Eve Marson (Web of Make Believe: Death, Lies and the Internet). You can pre-purchase tickets to the theatrical run and a DRM-free download here; your early support will help raise the $75,000 we need for principle photography:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/one-time-137256536

We recorded a sizzle reel at the Teardown conference in Portland last spring, and Kurt's edited it into an *amazing* trailer:

https://vimeo.com/1111178798?share=copy#t=3.009

The documentary is a road-movie, with a crew following me on tour and interviewing me and other experts on the subject (think *Inconvenient Truth*, but for platform decay). We've got *quite* a tour planned: I'll be in Boston (with Randall "XKCD" Munroe); DC (with former CFPB chair Rohit Chopra); New Orleans; Chicago (with Kara Swisher); LA (with *The American Prospect*'s David Dayen); Calgary; San Francisco; Portland; Seattle (with Ed Zitron); Vancouver; Calgary, Montreal, Toronto, New York City (with Lina Khan); Miami; Burbank; Lisbon; London; Hay-on-Wye; and Madison, CT. Other tour dates are still being finalized - more details to follow.

I developed enshittification as a series of posts on Pluralistic.net, my blog/newsletters/social media feed. Each edition of Pluralistic goes out with a graphic, usually a collage I've made from public domain and Creative Commons materials:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/albums/72177720316719208

Making these collages has turned into one of my major creative outlets, and dozens of readers have asked if I would ever do a book of them. Then, last year, I got to talking to Creative Commons CEO Anna Tumadóttir about her plans for CC's 25th anniversary and we cooked up a plan to publish a little book of my Pluralistic collages to give to major donors as a premium. Anna needed 400 of these, but my printer gives me a quantity break at 500 copies, so I'm making 100 signed, numbered copies available for backers of this Kickstarter.

The books are *gorgeous*. Cyberpunk icon and electronic art impresario Bruce Sterling wrote me a wonderful introduction. It's designed by John D. Berry, president of the Association Typographique Internationale, a legend of type and book design:

https://johndberry.com/biographical-note/

For production, I've tapped Pasadena's Typecraft, a 118-year-old printer who ran the book on 100lb Mohawk paper. It's a gorgeous little 4.75" x 6.75" paperback, and this is the only run I plan on doing (though if people like it, I might do future volumes collecting more collages).

One of the things I love about these campaigns is the chance to work with so many wonderful partners. There's Skyboat Media and director Gabrielle de Cuir; editor John Taylor Williams of Wryneck Studios; Emily, Kurt and Eve working on the documentary; John Berry, Bruce Sterling and Typecraft for my art book. I'm also working with some of my favorite booksellers in the world to fulfill print book orders: in LA, I've got Secret Headquarters (the best comics shop in the world!), who'll fulfill US orders as well as worldwide orders for signed books and *Canny Valley*. For Canadian hardcover orders, I'm working with Winnipeg's McNally-Robinson. For EU orders, I'm once again working with Berlin's magnificent Otherland Books. Orders in the UK will be fulfilled directly by Verso. Working with local shippers means we don't have to fuck around with the Trump tariffs.

*Enshittification* is the product of my open-access publishing program. I don't charge anything for the essays I publish nearly every day on Pluralistic.net, and I release them under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license, which lets anyone reproduce and adapt them, including commercially. Releasing my work this way means that it gets spread far and wide, which means everything to me, and I'm so glad to see everyone from scrappy progressive news sites to Conde Nast taking my work and reprinting it widely.

Readers frequently ask me how they can support my work, whether I have a Patreon or some other way to accept donations. I don't have anything like that. What I have, instead, are these books, which I can't seem to stop writing. The best way to thank me for my work is to buy the books, in any (or every) format. Selling books benefits a whole community of people who are important to my work, including my publishers and agents, and also all the people who work on publishing, fulfillment and production with me. These people don't just work on my projects, of course: they have many partners of their own.

When you buy my books, you help ensure that I'll keep doing what I do - and you help all my partners keep doing what *they* do. And the best way to support my work is to back it on these Kickstarter campaigns. The extraordinary generosity of my Kickstarter backers since 2020 has made a huge difference to my artistic career and my family's financial stability. If you backed one of those campaigns, I thank you, sincerely. And whether you've backed before, I hope you'll consider backing this one:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/enshittification-the-drm-free-audiobook