Diary of a Self-Publisher #2

ENTRY #2: My Soul vs. the Algorithm
From the Indie Author Diaries of Lloyd Lewis

I poured my soul into a book.
Emotionally-draining poetry and hand-developed black-and-white film.
Grit scraped from the pavements of Cardiff.
Poems carved from disability, loss, and memory.

Amazon, in its infinite machine-wisdom, decided to shelve it alongside:

• High Fashion Beauties: 120 Photos of Gorgeous Adult Women Vol. 001
• The Gods of the God’s Own Country: Confessions of a Monkey-Trapped
• Purest Fashion Beauties Vol. 002: LARGE…

This isn’t satire. This is my real “Products related to this item” list. 👇

I’m not here to shame anyone’s taste in erotica or cultural anthropology.
I’m here to point out that the indie author pipeline is so broken it’ll throw a poetry-photography collection about a working-class Welsh city into a digital orgy of pixelated cleavage and trauma cosplay.

And this, dear reader, is the moment when you either cry or laugh.

I laughed.

But only because I’d already cried when I realised that Amazon won’t even let me separate my real name from my pseudonym — so now Lloyd Lewis is lumped into Awen Null, and all future books, unless I build a second life (and email address), will be algorithmically tangled together like the limbs of a content farm orgy.

Why write this?

Because no one tells you what it’s really like.

No one says: “Hey, congratulations on finishing that book — now get ready to be recommended next to adult swimsuit compilations and pulp thrillers with titles like The Window Screamed Back.”

This is not a pity post. This is a heads-up for other writers.
Especially disabled ones. Especially outsiders.
Especially those of us doing it with zero budget, zero contacts, and 100% stubborn resolve.

Coming Next:

• How The Hollow Circuit might end up filed under “Time-Traveling Teen Romance”
• Why I still believe in books
• And what you can do instead of giving up

This post is part of the Indie Author Diaries series from Art of FACELESS. Stay with us.

Featured image photography by Lloyd Lewis © 2025 Art of FACELESS