“This book exposes how the same tired structures of exclusion and inequity are recreated by publishing platforms under yet another promise of creative freedom and opportunity. If you like reading books, particularly genre fiction, this book is extremely relevant to your interests.”—Sarah Wendell, cofounder of Smart Bitches Trashy Books

“Parnell deftly zooms in to the human impacts of platform-based publishing as well as zooming out to the broader implications on the publishing industry. It brings together publishing and platform studies in an accessible manner and offers a valuable contribution to both fields.”—Simon Rowberry, author of Four Shades of Gray: The Amazon Kindle Platform

“Though often sneered at, the romance genre is the canary in the coal mine for new ideas in publishing, and the exploitation of these authors by entities only concerned with data is a warning that should resonate far beyond the genre.”—Steve Ammidown, romance genre historian co-host, Black Romance Has A History podcast

“Parnell shows that two self-publishing platforms—Amazon and Wattpad—are not the democratizing utopian platforms they would like to be known as, and through interviews and case studies the author shows that these platforms tend to replicate the inequalities found offline in the traditional industry. This book adds a new, necessary depth of research into the world of publishing on platforms that were supposed to bring equality, but, in fact, exacerbates inequalities in the name of monetization.”—Miriam Johnson, author of Books and Social Media: How the Digital Age is Shaping the Printed Word

“This delightfully detailed book exposes these platforms’ techno-cultural and socioeconomic infrastructures that promise a democratization of cultural production, but that perpetuate and add to power hierarchies inherent in traditional publishing practices informed by conglomerate and platform capitalism. Through meticulous and effective argumentation via findings and individual stories, the author successfully convinced this reader that new technologies don’t create new realities for marginalized writers.”—DeNel Rehberg Sedo, coauthor of Reading Beyond the Book: The Social Practices of Contemporary Literary Culture

"A timely investigation into the operation of online publishing platforms as they relate to romance fiction and a broader media ecology. Parnell’s inquiry is especially valuable for its inclusion of the voices of marginalized authors and how algorithms, deep learning software, and technological redlining affects their autonomy and reach. Through a mixed methodology drawing on platform and publishing studies, library and information science terminology, as well as interviews with romance writers (spanning the globe), Parnell uncovers the workings and capitalist logics of the e-book marketplace. A welcome and necessary addition to popular culture scholarship and the digital humanities as well as an accessible read for anyone curious about who profits from online media."—Jayashree Kamblé, author of Creating Identity: The Popular Romance Heroine's Journey to Selfhood and Self-Presentation