A while ago, Amazon added a capability to offer eBooks published via KDP as DRM-free EPUB3 files as an alternative to native Kindle KF8 format. We at Fenian House immediately updated all of our eBooks to offer the EPUB3 download option.

It has just been brought to my attention by a reader that, well… to be blunt about it, Amazon does a lousy job of generating the EPUB3 downloads. In fact, even when a book is originally uploaded to KDP IN FULLY VALIDATED EPUB3.3 FORMAT, they throw that away and generate their own EPUB file from the Kindle KF8 file. And they generate it badly. Amazon-generated EPUB3 files do not pass W3C EPUB3.3 validation, and throw away much of the book's metadata. (I suppose I shouldn’t be terribly surprised by this.)

If you have bought any Fenian House eBooks in EPUB3 format from Amazon, and this non-compliance is a problem for you, please contact us with some form of proof of purchase/ownership, and we will provide you in return with a copy of the latest up-to-date EPUB3.3-validated book.

Additionally, if you are a Unix/Linux or Mac user, there exists a Python tool called KindleUnpack which does a far better job than Amazon does of generating an EPUB3 file from a Kindle KF8 file. There are caveats; don’t use it blindly on any Kindle book and expect clean results. However, it should work on any Fenian House eBook purchased in Kindle format, as all Fenian House books are uploaded to Amazon as fully validated EPUB 3.3 in the first place.

(I wish to personally thank reader Timothy Wynn for making us aware of this.)

Four days ago now I received an email solicitation claiming to be from Spine Story Hub, and even including what appeared to be their contact address (support@spinestoryhub.com), purporting to want to do an “author feature” on In Flux.

There’s several things about this that are suspicious.

• First, In Flux is not among my top-selling books… but it does happen to be my most recent.

• Second, the message did not come from a spinestoryhub.com address; it came from a gmail box.

• And third, the sender identified themself only as “HAIZ” (the username on the gmail box is hello.haiz.o.glenn).

Additionally, much of the message reads like LLM-generated boilerplate. Stock phrases, zero specific references about the book.

Well, Spine Story Hub is easy to find online. So I did the obvious thing. I found their Contact page and sent them a query about whether this “HAIZ” person is a real person associated with them.

What did I get back?

CRICKETS. (No, not the Chhrt’ktk’t. The insect kind. Silence. Nada. Zip.)

So I looked in more detail at Spine Story Hub. They have a convincing-looking presence, they have a lot of posted interviews, they have a page of books they’ve reviewed… the first author there I’ve ever heard of is Frank Herbert, and the DUNE book cover image is clearly AI generated. The next one I recognize by name is Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary; but that is not the cover of Project Hail Mary. It looks AI-generated again.

So now not only am I highly dubious about “HAIZ”, I’m now pretty certain that the entirety of Spine Story Hub is a predatory scam in the first place.

Writer Beware.

I have been advised by Ingram that In Flux and Godthief are now available to bookstores via the Ingram catalog. You will still be able to buy individual copies via Amazon KDP, but should now also be able to order them through your local bookstore.

There are publishing and distribution changes coming to Fenian House.

Amazon Kindle will remain the primary distribution avenue for existing eBooks, for now. (Future eBooks may possibly be released through Ingram.) Print editions will remain available through Amazon KDP, but going forward, their primary production will move to Ingram.

What this means is that it will become very much easier to get them into physical bookstores. In particular, even if your local bookstore does not carry Fenian House books at this time, you will be able to order them through your local bookstore from the Ingram catalog.

The ISBNs for the print editions will not change, and although printed by Ingram, the imprint will remain Fenian House Publishing.

BONUS! I have just learned that I will be able to generate direct purchase links to sell the print editions here, directly, fulfilled by Ingram.

The Stardock Trilogy eBooks have needed an update for quite a while. I freely admit I’ve been putting it off because they were originally generated directly from LibreOffice’s EPUB3 export, which uses a third-party software library called libepubgen, which generates unspeakably ghastly XHTML that would make Howard Phillips Lovecraft quail in horror and hide under his desk. (Have you ever noticed that H. P. Lovecraft and Mark Zuckerberg look like twins separated at birth? It’s disturbing.) This means that it is a massively daunting task, even after multiple manual interventions to partially clean up the godawful XHTML, to perform any non-trivial update to them, let alone a major update. And the scope of this task has dissuaded me from spending the time to do it.

Well, I just bit the bullet and did it. All three volumes have been fully updated, enhanced, and brought into sync with the softcover print editions.

Amazon won’t tell you there's an update available, because… Well, let’s not get into that. The short version¹ is that Amazon COULD push an update to you, but realistically, they won’t. But if you’ve already bought the Stardock Trilogy in ebook form, and you go back to the Amazon page and re-download the books in EPUB3 format, you should get the latest, fully updated version.

And if you can’t get it that way, but you bought the eBook… well, talk to us, and we’ll find a way to set you up.

¹ The longer version is, Amazon states that it technically can do a push update on a book by request; and then goes on to list as reasons why it will not, pretty much every reason why you might want to. At no point is a list given of conditions under which Amazon WILL do a push update.

A heads up for those who are paying attention: The eBook edition of In Flux (in your choice of Kindle or EPUB3 format) will be offered in a free book promotion from Saturday, January 31, through Monday, February 2.

We have been informed that Podium Entertainment, our audiobook publisher, has added Agency to expanded platform distribution. The Agency audiobook edition will now be available on all major audiobook platforms, including in public libraries that use the Libby and/or Hoopla services.

This is Fenian House's second major distribution improvement for 2026. As previously mentioned, from January 20 forward, you will be able to buy all Fenian House eBooks through the Kindle store either in Kindle native format, or in EPUB3 as Fenian House originally publishes them.

We at Fenian House hate vendor lock-in.

We really, really hate vendor lock-in.

This is a part of why all Fenian House eBooks are published DRM-free. But that only goes just so far. Your Kindle book purchases come in Kindle's native file format, which is horribly obfuscated. Seriously, we could point you at the long post from the person who finally managed to successfully reverse-engineer it, but take it from us, the level of obfuscation is truly Byzantine.

However, Amazon just announded that beginning January 20, 2026, Amazon will allow titles published without DRM to be downloaded in PDF or native EPUB3 format. This means you, our readers, will no longer be tied to a Kindle reader app or device; you will be able to download our books in EPUB3 format and read them on any eBook reader.

We have just performed the necessary steps to make this happen for all existing Fenian House eBooks. This is a retroactive change. If you have ever bought any Fenian House eBook on Amazon Kindle, then starting January 20, the Kindle store will allow you to go back and re-download it as an EPUB3 that you can take with you wherever you go.

Because at Fenian House, #WeLoveOurReaders.

A few months ago, we tried removing Becoming Real from KDP Select to try cross-listing it on Kobo, at the request of a number of our readers who prefer not to buy from Amazon.

To put it mildly, this was not a success. The cross-listing generated one sale.

For those who really do not like Amazon (believe me, we understand*¹), we still have a plan for implementing a way for you to buy Fenian House books in epub3 format *direct from Fenian House. That plan is not near to fruition yet, but it’s still on the roadmap. We ask for your continued patience. There are a perhaps-surprising number of moving pieces involved, and some of them we cannot run ourselves.

¹ Honestly, if I had a non-Amazon alternative that would pay my bills, I’d gladly use it. But so far it appears there isn’t one. Amazon is the 800lb gorilla in this market.