Blog Version: Is Amazon Ending Permafree Ebooks?

Is Amazon quietly ending permafree? One KDP author watched 26 of 37 free books flip to paid in a single weekend. We unpack the one word in Amazon's price-match rule that puts every wide series at risk, and what to check today.

Why did Tapas, Radish, and Kindle Vella die while Royal Road, run by just seven people, keeps turning hobbyists into full-time authors? The answer says a lot about how American readers want to pay.

In tech news: the cheaper Claude Sonnet 5.5 beat Opus 5.5 on a coding test, OpenAI launched always-on Dots agents, Grok Bot started suggesting work before you ask, and the White House swapped "AI" for "Super Intelligence."

In the Zeitgeist Report: Meryl Streep will voice Aslan. Why can't Narnia fans do anything about it, and what does that mean for your own books after you're gone?

Plus another Grok Bot for Authors workshop on October 22. Check out the blog version for links to tools, webinars, and sources.