Is Amazon an eBook Monopoly?

cekilgore:

This is stemming from a conversation over on Konrath’s blog, in which Konrath is debunking some things regarding Amazon in lue of all the bad press and Authors Guild BS floating around lately.

I’ve been doing this whole publishing thing for close to five years now. I’ve seen the changes happening at all the vendors, experienced the updates and slow deaths, and I can see why the concept that Amazon is an evil monopoly may be an easy thing for some to jump onboard with. This seems especially so from those who are either brand new to the game (welcome to the fun!) or to those who have fossilized and are now blaming everyone else for their lack of evolution in a changing publishing environment (Authors Guild) and feel the best recourse is to throw meaningless petitions and angry posts around like rejection letters.

Disclaimer - This post is a bit long, so grab a coffee. 

I am a self-published author of over 30 titles ranging from romance to science fiction, under the pen name C.E. Kilgore.

I am not an Amazon fanboy. Anyone who has ever read any of my numerous blog posts on the subject knows this. Amazon has many (many many many) issues. But, they also do many things right for both authors and readers. They are not saints, but they are also not the devil. They are a company. Period.

But, is Amazon an eBook monopoly? No. Could they become one? Yes. Would it be by their own doing? No.

The problem isn’t with Amazon. The problem is with the competition. 

Let’s face it - no one does eBooks like Amazon. 

Nook is dying. 

Kobo has always been the ‘Meh, I guess since it’s there…’ choice,
Smashwords is behind the times, 

Google Play is developmentally challenged (I’ve never seen someone make loading an eBook so unnecessarily complicated nor have the worst sales tracking from a company that invented Google Analytics…), 

and iBooks is awesome but you need either a Mac or an aggregate to get onboard. 

Then there’s the small potatoes like Scribd, Oyster, etc… 

The thing is - No one makes it as easy to upload your book, distribute your book or advertise your book than Amazon, and you simply have to give them major props for that.

The aggregate Draft2Digital is about as good a comparison for easy upload as you can find - but they are just the aggregate that tries to save you headaches from Kobo, iBooks, and Nook individual dashboards (which are so painfully frustrating) And they don’t have access to Google yet (probably because Google has no idea what they are doing…)

I am totally against Amazon Exclusivity and it being a requirement of KU - but I also have a couple of my books in KU right now because it works. I make money. 

Yes, I make money at all those other places, but when you combine them all together, I am still making significantly less than I do at Amazon (10% vs 70% (& 20% from AllRomance). And it’s not because Amazon is a bully, or cornering the market or putting its thumb over Nook or iBooks. It’s because the competition sucks for ebooks. 

Seriously. 

iBooks shows the most promise (with Kobo at least trying to improve while Nook slowly cuts off its limbs one by one in some sort of horror show). 

Is Amazon perfect? Heck no, but they’re doing many things right.

Amazon’s Scout program makes it easy for newbies to give the whole trad-pub contract thing a whirl and has a far-higher conversion and success rates than others, like the now-defunct Harper Collins Authonomy. 


Amazon’s Marketplace Ads (which has its bugs, trust me) is able to leverage Amazon’s already powerful marketing niches. 


Amazon’s KU program (while lacking in big names because of Exclusivity) is still more successful than Oyster and Scribd, who have been doing it far longer and without exclusivity but still lack a large audience.


Amazon’s Kindle has always been a good, affordable eReader, with decent (but not awesome) aps for any device.


Amazon KDP  - It is by far the easiest uploader of them all, and you can convert directly from MS Word into a beautiful eBook format (it’s how I do all mine now). There are some issues with changes device-to-device (like from Paperwhite to Fire, especially with Image Size) but their customer service is quick. And you have DRM choice (something other vendors have stopped giving you).

Amazon’s website. No one has mastered book searching, highlighting and product placement like Amazon. It makes it so easy to find both trad and indi published books when compared to Nook, iBooks and Kobo that don’t really seem to know how to market, search or categorize eBooks. They don’t understand how to build a powerful web shopping experience.

(Small side note on All Romance eBooks - I derive about 20% of my income from them per month. But, their non-romance counterpart, Omnilit, has far less revenue. It’s great for Romance writers, and has been a mainstay in the Romance reading world for a very long time. Do I expect them to be around forever? I hope so, but they need some updating (which they are working on!)) 

Should we fault Amazon for doing so many things right when the competition keeps doing so many things wrong? No. Does having sucky competition in the eBook market make Amazon a monopoly? No. Does it make it a hard thing to compete with? Yes. Do I wish there was more competition? I…don’t know, to be honest.

As an independent author, it’s already a lot to manage. I’d love to have more time to actually, you know, write.

Would it be easier if Amazon became >the< place for eBooks? Heck yeah, and one can argue they already are. If I didn’t have readers who have asked me to have my books available outside of Amazon, I probably wouldn’t. I’d probably be all in KU. It’s easier for me, the author, and it would be better for my readers who could chow down on all my titles for 10$/month. Would that make me less money and is KU’s subscription service viable (with the new per-page thing)? I think the jury’s still out on that.

Awesome post on Amazon.