I love that you're asking this! I have a few thoughts for now, but if you want to share about any specific challenges you're facing, I'm glad to nerd out more. I’m a fact checker for Book Launchers, and this is one of my favorite topics. :) So personally, I don’t have one go-to site for everything—it depends on the claim. For a company’s policy, I’d check its own documentation; for a statistic, I’d look for the original report or dataset; for science or history, I’d use relevant scholarly research or reputable specialist sources. For education on a totally new-to-me topic, I’d find a few overview articles on that topic, but I’d make sure that they were from reputable sources, and I would try to find primary sources for a deeper dive once I felt I had a basic understanding of the material. It’s absolutely still OK to use Google—you just want to make sure that the resources you find through Google are good ones! The important part is checking who produced the information, what evidence supports it, and whether it actually supports the specific claim you’re researching. Here’s a helpful guide on vetting sources: https://guides.library.cornell.edu/critically_analyzing! There are tons of similar guides out there (especially on university websites), and many go into other aspects of the research process as well. While these tend to be aimed at students, the advice is solid and can benefit any of us. Pro tip: Many of these sites mention using resources like JSTOR or other academic databases for deeper dives. You can often get access to all kinds of incredible research tools and databases using your library card—just check the “Research” tab (it might have a different name) on your library website! If you want to make a librarian’s day, you can also go into the library in person and ask for help researching your specific topic, and you’ll likely get a whole personalized tutorial on research methods. Librarians are amazing.

@Paula Johnson Feel free to ask any questions that come up for you! I know that research is a really big topic, but a lot of us here love to nerd out about it :)

@Barb H I wanted to pop in to this subthread with a quick clarification! KJ, that detailed breakdown is helpful, but it actually comes from a third-party blog post shared around the time these policies first rolled out, and it doesn't reflect the current policies! Amazon actually currently requires authors to inform Amazon of AI-GENERATED content, but not AI-ASSISTED content. AI-assisted content doesn't currently need to be disclosed! You can see the current disclosure options in the attached screenshot, which I took from my own KDP account this morning. So Barb, as described, it sounds as if your content would likely fall under the AI-assisted umbrella, but you can read more about the specific policy here! https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200672390

@Barb H Sorry to have missed your tag last week! Thanks for tagging me in again. 😊 I would say that it sounds like your images are decorative, so in that case, I wouldn't worry about including image credits below each one—instead, yes, a copyright page credit is totally fine! I think you're all set to go with your current draft ("All images used in this book are licensed from DepositPhotos under a Standard License that permits commercial use.")—no need to worry about the "royalty-free" language or anything else. Since they don't require a credit line, you can really say whatever feels most appropriate to you, provided that it's accurate. And just so you're not worrying, I want to reassure you: Since DepositPhotos doesn't require a credit line, that means that no one does and there's really no huge pressure to get this perfect! Including this credit line is really just about looking professional, nothing more. As for how to write the company name, again, I wouldn't stress about it, but generally the Chicago Manual of Style recommends that one uses the styling that the company itself uses, so in this case, that would be DepositPhotos (or depositphotos.com). That being said, it's definitely no big deal, so if a different styling feels more appropriate to you, that's fine!

@Barb H Of course! Tag me in any time 😊

@Joe Tyndall You should be all set with Libre Cason Text! Unfortunately, though, Helvetica Neue is not free for commercial use, and its license is actually quite expensive. I would recommend finding a different font for your final formatting. I know Helvetica Neue is iconic, but there are so many other gorgeous fonts out there—I'm sure you'll find something else that you love! As for the screenshots, I want to make sure that I understand. If you're saying that you're currently using screenshots from an outside source as is, then unfortunately, I would recommend swapping those out as well. If that outside source is copyrighted (which is almost always the case), then you would need permission to reprint those materials, and getting permission can be difficult and time-consuming. Screenshots are also likely to be lower-quality images, so even if they look nice on your screen, they might not print well in your final published book. Thus, if you have the ability to re-create the images, that's a win-win! Not to mention that that might give your book a more interesting unique touch since your images will be yours alone. :) I know that these things are a little tedious, but it's great that you're so on top of them!

@Owen Bergman Unfortunately, yes, you do—here are the terms! But if someone doesn't qualify to review on Amazon, they can still support you by posting their review elsewhere 😊 Most sites do require users to create accounts or validate their identity in some way, but it really is just to keep out bots, like you say. Barnes & Noble has users confirm their emails, for instance, but as far as I recall, it doesn't subscribe them to an email list or anything—or if it does, it's super easy to unsubscribe! As for how to get reviews on different platforms...exactly the same way you get them on Amazon! If you do want to encourage people to post reviews to a specific platform, you can share the link to your book's pages on Goodreads, Storygraph, etc. the same way you would share your book's Amazon link. :)

@Cynthia Moore Amazon does display Goodreads ratings now, yes! That's specifically the numerical/star ratings a book has received. They do NOT currently display reviews across platforms, so if you want Goodreads reviews to appear on Amazon or vice versa, readers have to post them to both sites (which is allowed, by the way!). 😊