Amazon Trying to Capture Total Print on Demand Market

There’s quite a stir these days with the rumblings about Amazon trying to basically corner the print on demand market. What it means for small publishers, like myself, is perhaps a way of life coming to an end — before I even get started. I’m going into a wait and see — my book is scheduled for release in June of this year and perhaps there will be a different scenario by that time. Again, only time will tell. Anyone interested in reading about what’s going on can visit this page, writersweekly. Angela Hoy has a ton of links in relation to what’s happening almost up to the moment. http://www.writersweekly.com/amazon.php

Another good one is Shel Horowitz’s write up at http://principledprofit.com/good-business-blog/amazons-stupid-anti-competitive-move/2008/03/29/

Victoria Strauss at http://accrispin.blogspot.com/2008/03/victoria-strauss-use-booksurge-or-die.html/

What is Kindle?

I understand it’s a device where you can read books that are downloaded from Amazon.com. I’ve checked this out as a viable source for marketing my book when it is available on Amazon.com.

Most of the articles I found in google searches relate to the price of the Kindle, around $399. What I wanted to know was were there any downsides to signing up with Amazon regarding my rights. What if I want to do an ebook on my own website? I am working with http://www.selfpublishing.com for my printing, book cover design and book formatting for the printer. I read Amazon.com’s terms of agreement and it sounded pretty straight forward, but I wanted to make sure.

I found in http://www.selfpublishing.com’s December newsletter an article by Rick Munarriz about Kindle. I emailed him regarding my questions, and asked him based on what he knows about Kindle, is there any downside to a self publisher as far as rights. Rick emailed me back that your ebook account can be taken down or removed at any time by the self publisher. This sounded good to me.