Amazon's "Ask This Book": Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down?

 

Amazon just added a new Kindle feature called Ask This Book.

Reading a book on Kindle and have a question? You can type a question about the book you’re reading and get an AI-generated explanation instantly ... inside the book itself. Not a quote. Not a page jump. An interpretation.

Forget who a character is? Ask. Unsure why something matters? Ask. The system explains it in its own words, without the author’s voice, and without leaving the page.

And that raises a real question for writers.

This isn’t a reference tool. It’s not helping readers find what they already read. It’s telling them what the book means. And it’s doing that without the author’s voice.

There’s no opt-out. If your book is on Kindle, this feature can explain it, summarize it, and interpret it. You don't see the questions. You don’t see the answers. You can’t fix mistakes. You don’t get a say in how your work is framed.

So, writers, how does that feel?

Does this help readers stay immersed or does it put a machine between you and your audience? Is this a useful assist, or the start of something that slowly rewrites how your work is understood?

The Authors Guild is already pushing back (as they should), arguing that this effectively turns books into annotated editions, without permission or new terms. Amazon didn’t negotiate. They just turned it on.

Some people will say it’s accurate. Maybe it is. But accuracy isn’t really the point. The question is control (and voice) and where interpretation begins and ends.

Copyright is about control over how work is reused and reshaped. This puts a machine between the writer and the reader. Even if it’s accurate, it’s no longer the author’s voice doing the explaining.

And once this becomes normal, it won’t stop here. Explanations become summaries. Summaries become condensations. Condensations become rewrites. Then something else entirely. And every step moves the reader further from the original work.

Does Ask This Book feel like a helpful tool for your readers or a line that shouldn’t have been crossed?

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For more details, check out “What Amazon’s ‘Ask This Book’ Feature Means for Authors”