Today my Amazon KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) account was terminated. That's the platform where people publish their ebooks.
They don't tell the reason. And this is not the first time. Several years ago I had an account on Amazon KDP and that time I was publishing many books, actively promoting them, investing my funds in their promotion. They terminated it without saying and of course, didn't pay royalties for several months (that time it was a big amount, maybe around $2000). I tried to contact whom I could and even put Jeff Bezos on carbon copy in an e-mail (in the book about Amazon, and in some online tips it was said that sometimes this helps). No answer.
This time, few months ago I set up a new account, as some of my friends asked about my poetry book, so I uploaded it and 1 more small non-fiction book. Remembering bad experience I didn't want to spend much time in designing and uploading other books, and I didn't do much promotion (maybe some posts, some links sending to interested people, and that's all). Because I didn't spend time and money on promotion - I had very small revenue. But today after trying to login - I saw that my account was terminated. And now I won't even try to ask why. And I don't care.
The goal of this post is to explain why I think the crypto publishing platform will destroy Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing. As a company Amazon is huge, and it's hard to imagine it will be destroyed in competition. But it's possible to compete and destroy it's ebook part - the platform for independent publishers. Amazon started with selling books - maybe it's decline will start with losing its part of the ebook market. I will add my stone in breaking the wall.
KDP is platform where people can self-publish eBooks and paperbacks. But if you are self-publishing independent author - is it independence if you can be banned for no reason? Or with some reason which only Amazon clerks know. Moreover, when they do it - they will take your earning for a few months (the payment system is that you receive your earnings only in around 2 months after sales)
Amazon takes 30-70% of your earnings as commission. I don't know about you, but I was surprised to see this number! 70% for a DIGITAL, ELECTRONIC book! If your book is in the price range of $2.99-9.99 - they will take a cut of 30% only. But still I think it's a big percentage for hosting your book.
Amazon is a monopoly in ebooks for now. But if you publish there your book and expect many sales - you will be probably disappointed. In order to have sales - you need to promote your book, work on its promotion, ask others for reviews, build your ranking, etc. All these efforts you can apply to other platforms, or even multiple crypto blogs which are available now.
Amazon not only take a big cut of your earnings, but also delay payments for around 2 months (and then depending on your payment type there are additional fees). While with cryptocurrency you won't have such problems. On some crypto-blogs you have instant rewards, on others - daily rewards, and sometimes - weekly.
Judging from experience (both personal publishing and observations) I came to the conclusion that you can earn more on crypto blogs. So there is NO ECONOMICAL REASON to publish ebooks on Amazon when you can earn more by publishing it (probably in parts) on crypto blogs, where you can also build your audience and invent something additional for content monetization. I think this is true for self-publishing authors who are not very popular. But if you are well-known author, you don't have these problems at all. You publish your works with some mainstream publishing house, then focus on writing new content, not on its distribution and promotion.
When different authors will understand this - and will move to crypto-blogs, this will enlarge general crypto-adoption. The comparison which I made between Amazon KDP and crypto-platforms, are applicable for the writers in numerous genres. Of course, if your content is crypto-related you might do get bigger attention and audience on crypto-blogs, but not necessarily. I know cases of fiction writers, travel-blogger, and just people posting about their life who earn hundreds of $ a month with their publications. On Amazon KDP many ebook publishers can't dream to reach this level.
The destruction of Amazon KDP won't happen fast. Firstly because many people are not willing to try something new, and they still might think they will earn more with Amazon. Moreover there is no crypto platform designed for selling and buying ebooks (there were attempts to make it, and some ICOs around this topic).
But it might emerge. In fact, I was thinking about it. The platform will integrate crypto-blogs and its social aspect. The platform which will take modest % from royalties (maybe as low as 3%) and not 70% like Amazon. The main thing which stopped me is of course lack of resources, but if this idea didn't disappear in years, maybe I will return to it later.
Crypto-blog platforms change the paradigm of content using. The reader is not paying (although he or she can pay additionally to the author they like) - either the system or the advertisers pay.
Each of the crypto-platform is unique, with unique aspects and communities. I will write detailed article about all of them and now I will list only main ones. Also they are the best from the point of income amount.
As a crypto fan I'm using more than 10 platforms, but these 5 I will recommend for the beginning authors. It's easy to cash in, easy to cash out. And for financial reasons, it's better to use all 5 networks. If you are somebody who looks for Amazon KDP alternative - it's worth to try crypto-blogging. See you somewhere there!
Amazon delenda est