Comment on Amazon upsets ebook lovers by ending support for old Kindle devices
Quexotic@beehaw.org 1 week ago
Is the simplest solution here not just to leave the ecosystem entirely?
I had a Kindle type device a long time ago and I decided to get rid of it in favor of something that is much more flexible and can actually handle whatever kind of book I want to put on it.
Cool Reader.
Works on win, *nix, and Android. Probably also Mac, maybe ios
definitemaybe@lemmy.ca 1 week ago
The challenge is the monopolistic death grip Amazon has self publishing.
For many genres, authors get almost all of their income from Kindle Unlimited. KU requires exclusivity. The result is entire genres of books that are almost entirely Kindle exclusive.
So, the only real options for readers of these genes is either Kindle Unlimited (or buying on Kindle, I suppose) or piracy.
Some authors release serialized content on Patreon or a similar paid or free platform, but those platforms often only get first drafts, are difficult to navigate to get full books, and only cover a subset of authors anyway. And books get “stubbed”, which means everything past the 10% mark gets deleted to comply with Amazon exclusivity, so this is only even an option if you read the whole thing as it is being written. (FWIW, it’s also crazy expensive if you want to sort authors; it can easily cost hundreds of dollars monthly with all the subscriptions.)
So, if you want authors to get paid for their work, then, realistically, you’re stuck using Kindle.
It sucks, but that’s the reality until regulators prevent Amazon from forcing exclusivity for inclusion in the KU program.
Quexotic@beehaw.org 1 week ago
Maybe time for a different system?
definitemaybe@lemmy.ca 1 week ago
Totally agreed, but authors are straight fucked if they try. Popular authors in my genre of choice have tried, and they all say it was a financial disaster for them, and that they can’t afford to be a full time author author KU income. And readers will follow where authors are, since those are the books they want to read.
Amazon’s monopoly on self publishing is probably illegal, but until regulators notice, network effects and anticompetitive practices from Amazon reinforce their monopoly.
Like, my options are, literally:
Authors have also said that they’re so dependent on The Algorithm, that praying their books hits them double, from the lost revenue and from the reduced visibility. So that’s a double dick move.
I hate it, but here we are.
At least I read so much that Amazon pays authors like 10× what I pay to subscribe, so that’s pretty cool. (~300-400 books/year adds up to a lot of KENP pages!) And I’m not paying $3-5K/year for books to buy them all, sorry. I can’t afford that!
Quexotic@beehaw.org 1 week ago
I feel ya. Collective action would seem to be required, but that’s herding cats.