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Items tagged with: indieauthor
I turned my rant into a (slightly expanded) blog post, if you want to share this off Mastodon:
7/7
Of course, this all needs to be seen in a wider context:
Stepping away from tech giants like Amazon is also part of a rebellion against the billionaires who are destroying our world out of pure greed.
By not giving Amazon money, you are voting with your dollars and euros and whatever currency you're using.
You are choosing actual human beings - in this case us indie authors - over tech bros who don't give a rat's arse about people.
Let's do this!
6/n
2) Talk to your favorite authors and tell them how you would prefer to buy from them.
Authors who earn all their income from Amazon will be scared. They need to know there is a market outside of it.
Some are already experimenting with selling direct for a week or two before going exclusive with Amazon.
Support that!
3) Stop writing reviews on Amazon
Put them on Bookwyrm instead.
bookwyrm.social/
No, do not use Goodreads. It belongs to Amazon.
4/n
Options for getting ebooks (and print) away from Amazon.
This is what I have explored, and I know there is much, much more out there.
1) Smaller stores: Smashwords, Kobo, B&N, Thalia (Tolino) in Germany (although they are also evil), BoD, and many more.
I absolutely recommend Smashwords:
smashwords.com/
2) Buy direct.
My store is through PayHip, and you may not even be aware that PayHip has its own book catalog:
payhip.com/marketplace/fiction…
Fiction Books | Payhip Marketplace
Browse products from the world's leading creators in design, 3D, crafts and many more categoriesFiction Books | Payhip Marketplace
3/n
So leaving Amazon is doable for me. And it feels like the right move.
But I'm just one little indie author.
Amazon is not going to miss me. It's not even going to miss a thousand indie authors leaving them. They won't care.
They will only care if readers leave them - and that's where you come in.
So in the next toot, I'll list a few options of getting your ebooks and print books away from Amazon - feel free to post your own recommendations below that.
2/n
3) I have a presence here on Mastodon which is already shifting visibility - and people here are much more willing to buy direct and own the ebook they got.
4) I have a day job that pays my bills. I do not rely on book sales for my livelihood. I can take the hit to royalties because I never depended on them anyway.
5) I have taken the steps to kill my publishing business at the end of the year. I guess that was more prescient than I even knew a week ago.
Now that Amazon is getting even more evil than it has been for a long time, by shoving AI into every ebook uploaded to them, I am seriously contemplating taking my books away from Amazon.
I can actually do this because
1) my books have been widely available elsewhere for years and I have a somewhat established presence "wide"
2) I have my own store set up through PayHip, so people can buy direct, if they want to (still need to put everything in there).
1/n