What factors would lead Amazon to shutting down independent Kindle publishing?

8 replies
I know Kindle publishing makes Amazon quite a bit of money, but let's not kid ourselves here. In the big scheme of things, Amazon is making a lot more money with its other businesses. Can you think of factors or events in the future that may push Amazon to completely shut down independent Kindle publishing?

I need to clarify independent Kindle publishing. I'm not talking about shutting down Kindle altogether, that’s not going to happen. Instead, I'm thinking about a situation where Amazon shuts off Kindle publishing to independent authors. Professional publishing houses would still have Kindle books, there's no doubt about that.

I'm worried more about the possibility that independent authors can no longer access Amazon's huge supply of internal traffic.
#amazon #factors #independent #kindle #lead #publishing #shutting
  • Profile picture of the author agmccall
    They will never shut it down. There are too many quality authors that are choosing the independent route of publishing their works.

    They will, however, probably start, if they already haven't, shutting down individual publishers and authors. And, this will be done based on complaints to amazon.
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    • Profile picture of the author danieldesai
      Originally Posted by agmccall View Post

      They will, however, probably start, if they already haven't, shutting down individual publishers and authors. And, this will be done based on complaints to amazon.
      This.

      The thing is, most of the spammy self-published books on Amazon are random non-fiction books slapped together by marketers who just hire regular article writers to create low quality books.

      Well, those and mostly short "erotica" works that are all smut and no story.

      Regards,
      Daniel
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      • Profile picture of the author BradVert2013
        Originally Posted by danieldesai View Post

        Well, those and mostly short "erotica" works that are all smut and no story.
        Funny you should mention erotica. I know a few erotica authors and it's actually a pretty lucrative niche. Most consumers of erotica don't really want a good story, they just want to be aroused. It's basically just porn that's read instead of watched. Lol.

        Personally, it's not my cup of tea, but erotica seems to be a pretty big revenue stream.
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  • Profile picture of the author TinkBD
    I think the odds are pretty low. COULD they? Sure. WOULD they? Unlikely. If you look at the recent Author Earnings report, Indie fiction ebook sales are the clear leader ;-)

    Will there be a shake-up and changes with an announcement in the next couple of weeks? Probably. Historically they announce changes in mid-June with a July 1 implementation.

    But I don't see it being anything as drastic as dumping Indies, at least not for fiction.

    Bezos has said over and over, the goal is to keep the customer happy. There are beaucoodles of Kindle owners who would be unhappy to lose Indie authors. These days I buy Indie far more than trad pubb... Partially because of the absurdly high prices, but also because of the lack of choice.
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  • Profile picture of the author BradVert2013
    I can't see Amazon shutting down KDP. Like others have said, it generates a lot of money for them and many established authors are self publishing. It'd be an all-around bad business move for Amazon to shut it down.

    I think we will see Amazon crack down on spammy ebooks. They'll also continue to fight against fake reviews. They'll tighten up the KDP rules but won't actually get rid of it.
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  • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
    Originally Posted by danieldesai View Post


    Well, those and mostly short "erotica" works that are all smut and no story.
    Would you believe that most viewers have never seen more than the first ten minutes of the average porn video?

    I remember a bit on SNL where the character was "reviewing" a porn flick.

    "Interested, interested, interested, VERY interested...not interested..."

    At least with erotica via Kindle, the app lets you open the piece right where you hit "not interested" and continue - or so I've been told...
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  • Profile picture of the author Sarevok
    In short; violating their terms of service agreement.

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  • Profile picture of the author writeaway
    You raise a very powerful point

    Many people have raised this point before in broader terms: DO NOT GET ADDICTED TO ONE MONETIZATION/TRAFFIC PLATFORM

    Make sure you build a list so no matter what happens, you will have something to fall back on

    With that said, the rise of "spamphlets" ('books' that are less than 50 pages in length) as well as PLR jacking might taint the Amazon brand thoroughly enough that they might want to bring the hammer down.
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