How Amazon is Ruining Reading

My Books:

In this video, I break down how Amazon is harming the future of books—and what we can do about it.

Topics Covered:
Amazon’s Monopoly: How Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) controls the market.
Royalties Are Shrinking: How much authors actually earn on Amazon.
You Don’t Own Your eBooks: Amazon can take them away anytime.
The Audiobook Problem: Audible’s monopoly and low pay rates.
Print Books & Small Businesses: How Amazon is crushing competition.
Algorithm Manipulation: How Amazon decides what books get seen.
Worker Abuse: The hidden cost of cheap books.
📢 Sources & Further Reading:

📢 Like, subscribe, and drop a comment—how do you feel about Amazon’s impact on books? 🔥📖

[DanielGreeneReviews]

The royalty plan for qualifying for 70% on kindle has changed from when I first published. Now, they are price controlling and forcing into KDP by saying to earn 70% you must do the following:
Your book must be priced between $2.99 and $9.99. These are reasonable ePub prices, but this means that if you write sequels to a book and want to price the first book at 99 cents, to draw in readers, you won’t be able to.
You pay for file delivery. This can be as much as 15 cents a megabyte or more, and means that if you have a file that includes images it may be quite a few megabytes.
The 70% is only applicable in the 70% territories, and everywhere else is 35%.
Your book has to be included in KDP select if you want a 70% royalty from some select countries.
You can allow buyers to lend their book to other readers.
Your ePub cannot be in the public domain.

[JediMasterJinx]

Amazon is doing a great job of convincing me to exclusively shop for books in person

[snuf]

I mailed my kindles back to amazon as trade-ins, downloaded all by books to my PC, bought a Kobo Libra Color, and not looking back. I'm going to be far more conscious of where I purchase books from now on.

[ziloe]

My dad published his indie book on Amazon, and it didn't take long for some random to reupload it, and sell it under their name, of which Amazon did nothing. Another time, they did use his name, hosting things in his genre, too, but he didn't see a dime. Apparently, it's a big problem with their service, Indie authors having very little protections for stuff like this

[hammersticks]

Speaking of physical books. I just have to add, I don’t get why target puts stickers on all the book covers. It drives me insane.

[ethansexton]

Obligatory Libby plug: listen to audiobooks for free with your library card

[krave]

The "If buying isn't owning then pirating isn't theft argument" does carry water with me personally, but I almost always buy physical anyway. If I'm getting an ebook, it's of a book I already have a physical copy of and I just want to easily travel with it. In that case, I'm 100% pirating it if it's an Amazon exclusive.

Also, "Ozempic Dr. Evil" is fantastic.

[cryptic_spren]

As someone who has published things, I would personally rather email the file for free to someone than support a monopoly with atrocious business practices. I've seen a lot of comments saying that "boycotting Amazon only harms indie authors"... but this places all the blame on the people taking an ethical stance, and none of the blame on the actual villain in this context.... It seems that so many people think it's morally fine to not take an ethical stance for financial reasons. If I relied on my royalties for groceries, I would get a different job. I wouldn't bend my moral beliefs for a paycheck. Needless to say, I returned my Kindle to Amazon, bought a Kobo, and will happily boycott big monopolies.

[giants]

It’s tough. I work for a small business. Due to the nature of our products, we rely almost solely on online retail sales. We sell on about 16 different American websites. Amazon account accounts for 70% of our sales.

We wish that wasn’t the case. We are trying to get more money on other websites, but they are just a monster and a juggernaut.

There is no doubt they have negatively impact the business in ways, too. We are forced to sell our products at a much lower price and make very low margin due to their pricing system, and the ability of Chinese made copycats supported in their marketplace.

[queendsheena]

I might fundraise for a Kobo e-reader. Not many people realize how Amazon has devastated the world of reading by closing down Book Depository. I'm Jamaican and it heavily impacted my ability to get books. The shipping prices are terrible for the Carribean. So the kindle was convenient. Not so much now. I'm already in poor health. This situation is upsetting.

[Gburn]

Amazon: Be enslaved to our reading platform and accept our ability to alter your library at any time.

Readers: 👀

Kobo and Barnes and Noble: Thanks, Amazon!

[Buchertn]

I was able to get my books downloaded and backed up offline and converted to formats so I can read my owned titles on any device. I am switching to a Kobo Libra Colour as my new Ebook device.

[NekoSamaIru]

Why is this happening? Artists, writers, musicians and the lovers of their works keep getting screwed over by the world again and again. What do some people have against creativity and small little things that give people joy? This world is sad.

[marcos.a]

As a big comic reader. I always appreciate amazons free comics with their comixology subscription. But its such a shame knowing how these programs almost never support the artists

[MissNemo]

Pirate the book then donate the value of the book to the author.

[whalesong]

Your local library is another great choice for books. With intra-library loans you can get almost any book you would like. I live in a small space so having many physical books just isn't possible for me. I love my library.

[henrique-wymn]

I think it's important to point that Amazon's market strategy is not focused only on the United States or North America. Brazil (where I live and it's still America) had it's on market basically destroyed by Amazon. Local bookshops still resist with some 'gourmet' alternatives, such as opening a café or becoming a place to hangout - but that niche market is restricted to bigger cities, or cities with universities

I really like your videos, keep the good work

[IronDiggy]

My 12 year old Kobo died this week. I'll be picking up another Kobo esp with the recent shenanigans amazon has pulled.

[Christian_Potatoes]

SquareSpace is the first sponsor you got back after the drama? Good on them for staying up to date.

[ndle_king]

Pre-ordered Wind and Truth through my local indie book store even though Amazon was $10 cheaper and got rewarded with an unexpected signed copy AND they let me pick it up a day early.

There are real material benefits to supporting indie. It’s not just a virtue move.