Joe Wikert's blog on Kindle
Last week Amazon announced a few things.
One, Amazon Encore, a program that rewards successful self-published titles, and the other – Kindle Publishing for Blogs in beta: a fast track self publishing tool to upload your blog for sale via the Kindle Store. In a nutshell, via Kindle Publishing for Blogs, bloggers can create an account, login and then add blogs for publishing to the Kindle Store. After review, there are chances the blog will be published in 48-72 hours (it could initially take longer because of the initial rush). Amazon will define the price based on what they deem is a fair value for customers, and bloggers will (eventually) be paid 30% of the monthly blog subscription price for every subscriber to their blog. (For more details, read the FAQ’s here.)
“Hmmm,” I thought. “I blog. I know bloggers. This sounds like something worth looking into, thinking about, researching, perhaps.” Because, you know, I’m one to hold a grudge (I’m working on this – therapy helps) and am still a little bit miffed about Amazon’s lack of interest in community relations during and after the whole #AmazonFail kerfuffle. And, to be honest, as a small press publisher (on many occasions, in past and future lives) AND as a book marketer for publishers and authors big and small, I’ve always had mixed feelings about the equity in relationships between Amazon and content providers. No one can argue that Amazon doesn’t offer unequaled wide-reaching distribution, but their terms tend to lean largely in favor of Amazon.
I know, they’re in it for profit and what should I expect? Amazon’s “odds in the house’s favor” policy is exactly why they’re enjoying life aboard the good ship Amazon, while the rest of us in the book publishing ocean are fighting over the last remaining life rafts.
Yes, Amazon is very good at what they do. Anyway, this isn’t exactly my point, or points — trust me I have one or two. And, I’ll get there eventually, but let’s get back to the story…
I was curious to find out more. I wanted to read Amazon’s agreement and perhaps flesh out what I could discern about what Amazon was offering to bloggers, and what bloggers were possibly giving up in exchange. So, I took a gander at that agreement.
I started reading.
And, I got confused after the second sentence.
And, as I always do when I get confused – I went to my Bookish Tweeps. Surely someone in Twitterland was twittering about Kindle publishing for blogs, and they’d be able to offer a fair and balanced view of the pros and cons… Okay, that’s just not true. Honestly — I just couldn’t wait to read what I assumed would be defiance from my upstart, renegade bookish blogging tweets. Surely they would be up in arms about this. “30%? HAH! Who does this Bezos think he is, anyway?” Yeah. I was looking forward to some indignant railing against the man.
Wow.
Was I wrong. Instead of protests and jeers, I was quite surprised to find that some of the people I wouldn’t have expected in a million years to sign up for anything even remotely related to Amazon, were jumping quite readily on the Kindle blog publishing bandwagon. Yup. They were signing their blogs up for Kindle distribution, and they appeared to be not only willing, but also gleefully excited at the opportunity to do so.
I won’t name names (it would take too long). But, a LOT of book bloggers have signed up for Amazon’s Kindle blog publishing beta program. To paraphrase, the reasons blogging buddies are signing up for the Kindle program are all quite reasonable and run the gamut:
- To claim one’s blog feed as their own rightful property (you see, a rather large loophole was/is still? allowing just anybody to claim just any blog as their own and sign it up to the program. See TechCrunch’s article: “How The Kindle Now Lets You Steal This Blog” to learn more about this.)
- Make some income off of their blogging efforts.
- Gain access to a huge potential audience of readers.
- Just curious to see how it works.
But, I needn’t have completely despaired–a bit of banter on Twitter revealed that not everyone was jumping on board. Some individuals were joining me in my cautiously skeptical approach. Among the reasons for refraining from signing on that dotted line:
- Amazon’s murky Digital Publishing Distribution Agreement including open-ended phrasing such as: “You grant to us, throughout the term of this Agreement, a nonexclusive, irrevocable, worldwide right and license to distribute Publications as described in this Agreement.” Sure, the “nonexclusive” part sounds good, but “irrevocable and worldwide” are rather broad terms. Oh, and this part is also a little daunting: “We reserve the right to change the terms of this Agreement at any time.”
- Keeping one’s blog free. (One blogger said, ” I don’t want some users to have to pay for it. I’d much rather optimise it for mobile use so people can read it on their phones.”)
- And, as expressed by Eoin Purcell: “the locking in of revenue splits.” In his post, Bloggers: Amazon will eat your lunch, Eoin states, “One of my major concern is that if bloggers agree to this completely uneven deal from Amazon now, it will persist. This will give Amazon an enviable position and allowing even their competitors to take hefty slices of the distribution chain value even while offering better terms than Amazon itself.”
Myself, I have all sorts of crazy ideas about the longer-term effects of bloggers jumping on board with Amazon’s blog publishing to Kindle program. I think Amazon stands to gain a lot more here than the rights to distribute blogger content. They are also:
- Gaining access to very valuable customer data, and
- Gaining access to high-quality, trusted reviews of products (e.g.: books, movies, music, water heaters, etc.) that they also happen to be selling on their world-wide web of a global marketplace.
With this new program, Amazon will have access to data on who is paying for blog content and what content they are paying for. That data is incredibly valuable. Even more so than mere web-based traffic analytics. Because, not only will they be able to track who the blog customers are and what they are interested in topic-wise, but they can use that data to make decisions about what products would most likely be the best bets to offer for sale in their big world-wide-web super store.
Add to that the potential to aggregate and repurpose blogger content (the high quality, trusted reviews I mentioned before) on Amazon product pages, and Amazon sure has a lot more going for them in this deal than a mere 70% of blog subscription sales via the Kindle. Amazon has already scored big points with their customer reviews, and they license some “professional” review content, but with the Kindle Publishing for Blog program, they will be in a position to aggregate and post the most-highly read blog reviews for books, movies, virtually any product they sell — AND they’ll be getting passive income from the sale of the content to Kindle to boot. Smart!
So, it is the proverbial double-edged sword. While bloggers will no doubt enjoy some immediate benefits, they will also be aiding Amazon’s efforts to be conquer the world, er I mean become even stronger in the online marketplace. Bloggers may not care so much right now, but in the future they might find themselves in the unenviable position of competing against Amazon for a share of that market. And, that my friends, is one heck of losing proposition.
Of course, bloggers are getting SOMEthing. Wider possible readership, and revenue (albeit not much) where they had none before.
So, I open up the floor to you — you Book Bloggers, you. What’s your 2 cents (i won’t take 70%, I promise) on this issue?
Have you signed up for Kindle’s Blog Publishing Program? Why, or why not
Do share!
Luv,
Kat
Also on the Web re: Amazon’s Kindle Blog Publishing:
HOW TO: Publish Your Blog on the Amazon Kindle (Mashable)
Amazon Puts Any Blog on the Kindle, for a Price (PC World)
Bloggers: Amazon will eat your lunch (Eoin Purcell’s Blog )
Note to FOFTR (that’s “Friends of Follow the Reader” – acronyms have never been my strong point): Please join this week’s publishing discussion on Thursday May 21 from 4-5pm ET. We’ll be on Twitter at #followreader, a day ahead of our usual Friday timeslot because of the Memorial Day holiday in the U.S. This week’s topic is the connections between librarians/publishers/authors/readers. To follow to our discussion in real time, go to Twitter Search and type in #followreader. To join in the discussion, follow @charabbott and @katmeyer on Twitter, and include #followreader into your responses.
I’m not one of those hugely anti-Amazon people. I was greatly hesitant, on so many levels, of this blog publishing thing. I haven’t signed up. To start with, I question the potential for revenue. And I hesitate about giving over control of my content (let alone pricing of my content).
[...] Check out Kat Meyer’s lengthier post about bloggers and the Kindle. She spells out some of the reasons against signing [...]
I don’t have a good feeling about it either, but I am one of those people who think Big Brother is always watching- and in this case, profiting from what I do.
>>>I was quite surprised to find that some of the people I wouldn’t have expected in a million years to sign up for anything even remotely related to Amazon, were jumping quite readily on the Kindle blog publishing bandwagon
If you have a list, send it me. That’ll tell me who else HAS NO PRINCIPLES. The Net is full of sell-outs.
And no, I won’t bother to claim mine. I’ll just slap Amazon with a DMCA and possible suit if someone steals mine. (Don’t get any ideas, you reading this. Amazon gets the DMCA, but *you* get the bleeding part.)
I signed up as soon as I found out about it for the reasons you mentioned. First, I want to claim my own blog before someone else claims it (easier to not let it happen than to deal with the fallout later). Second, if blog readers are going to Amazon to find out which book review blogs they might like, I want them to see mine.
(Actually, I don’t really know why someone would pay to get my blog on their Kindle when they can have it for free with any internet connection, but if they’ve decided to purchase blog content, then let it be mine.)
Well, in defense of Maud Newton, Michael Orthofer, and Galleycat, they were locked into the Kindle scam because of agreements they had with Newstex that through them into the mix (and that couldn’t be anticipated at the time they signed their respective agreements). As to the rest, well, the list is easily locatable. But let’s just say that I’m extremely disheartened to see so many ostensibly intelligent people have their content taken away from them. Clearly, they don’t value their labor. Clearly, they have bought the snake oil argument promulgated by the print people that online writing isn’t worth anything. But then, as we all know, most writers don’t even bother to read their contracts or agreements. And they wonder why they get screwed over in the process.
As for me, I have no intention of distributing my online writing through Amazon Kindle. Particularly when they are paying bloggers pennies on the dollar for the pleasure of gadget-happy rape. If you compare the agreement with Scribd, which isn’t the greatest, the writer still gets more dollars and more rights. This is corporate hubris, pure and simple. And with so many willing to sell their souls for pennies (without considering the option to fight, should someone else or Amazon claim our writing), the desire for desperate get-rich-quick solutions is apparently greater than even I could have possibly anticipated.
No offense to anyone, but I’m really struggling to understand the “claiming it before someone else does” line of thinking. What are the odds of that happening in the first place, except in the case of truly huge-traffic blogs? (The minuscule revenue likely to be generated by the average blog is just not worth the effort or the risk on a scammer’s part.) And is it really worth signing over the rights to your content in exchange?
This is Amazon asking people to bend over, and I’m amazed and disappointed that so many are (apparently) doing it. If people will willingly cooperate with something this insane, what will Amazon come up with next?
I haven’t signed up and won’t, both because of your reasons and because I’m uncomfortable with the entirety of this method of distributing blogs. Blogs are free to read. They always have been. I’ve never met one I had to pay for. Remember back when readers put up a huge fuss about even having to register to read *newspaper* articles online? That was for content they would get for free but that they’d always paid for in the past! That was a complaint about having to just sign in to read articles. Amazon is charging money for something people have *never* had to pay for, and in fact still never have to pay for unless they want it on their Kindle.
They’re taking power away from the blogger, and I’m just not okay with that. Sure, you could argue it’s a sound business principle to make money off something that’s free to obtain, but often that just reeks of a business taking advantage. In this case, Amazon is taking advantage of readers by charging them for something they can get for free on any other device (which is, in essence, making it so that the Kindle *fails* to provide them that service), and of bloggers by giving them the impression the TOS and measly 30% is a windfall.
There are loads of ways bloggers can make small amounts of money from their blogs, and almost all of them don’t involve taking advantage of their readers or being taking advantage of.
Now, how do we monitor whether someone else has stolen our blog and is selling it to Kindle subscribers?
[...] in both text and radio form on these pages. In addition to the reasons eloquently provided by Kat Meyer and Megan Sullivan I cannot in good conscience sell us [...]
Part of me wanted to sign up because, well, I was curious. The other part of me was concerned by rights being granted (like Edward Champion, I was taken aback by the fact that I’d be granting rights to contractors and affiliates). I’m not so worried about the “hey my blog is free” concern as, well, if someone wants to pay a few bucks to get information in a manner convenient to them, so be it. I’m not going to dictate consumption.
Right now, the negatives outweigh the benefits for me. The potential to increase readership (and make, what?, a tiny amount of money) is outweighed by the rights (exploited or not) I’d be granting.
What baffles me is why someone would pay for free content. Amazon is selling ice to the Eskimos. Before I even bother about whether or not to put my blog up for adoption by big brother, I would like to see if readers are signing up for this service. Unless you have an expiring gift card and can’t find anything of value, why would you. Why not give that money to the Red Cross or is that not fashionable any more.
If you like what I write / blog, send me a thank you note. It’s easy to please us bloggers.
Thanks for the link!
Nice post by the way.
I think it is fascinating t see the two tracks of discussion that have emerged on this topic:
1) That this is a rights issue and bloggers need to be wary and
2) 30% of something is better than 100% of nothing!
I think from a strategic viewpoint the key for amazon is that each new blog that signs up represents a piece of content that is “potentially” available via the Kindle and is therefore a win, it makes their platform richer and able to offer its users more content which is all they care about! I’m sure they see it as a bonus that publishers and bloggers are willing to help them build their product offering for such little return!
Eoin
We had fun debating this on Twitter today. I am one of the bloggers who signed on with Amazon, and after hearing all of this I still feel totally comfortable with that decision. To those who can’t understand why any bloggers would do this: isn’t it possible that we like the idea of having our work collected in a different kind of edition, that we want to explore new publishing options at low cost/low effort, that we might even be proud to be packaged for the Kindle?
It’s funny for me to be in the position of defending a Kindle-related trend, since I’ve been a big critic of the Kindle. But the fact is, the Kindle represents an interesting new way to package prose. Those of us who are proud of our writing might want to be available on a Kindle. 30% is fine, and if the service turns out to not please me I’ll yank it and go somewhere else.
I signed. I hate the split, I hate the agreement (etc. etc.) but I want to be accessible and available on every channel–and I don’t make money on my blog anyway.
Short-sighted? Very possibly. If I end up regretting it, eh, I’ll find a way to fix it.
Haven’t signed up. Didn’t have time to read through agreement, so thanks for pointing out what I should be aware of!
Thanks everyone for your comments. All the points are very well taken. I’m not necessarily convinced that the Kindle blog publishing deal is a bad one. As Eoin pointed out to me last week during our conversation on Twitter, it’s a nonexclusive agreement. As long as it remains so, blog owners retain the right to distribute their content anywhere they choose to. And, they can opt out of the program (cancel their agreement) whenever they choose to as well (at least I think they can — the legalese is beyond my total comprehension).
So, as an experiment in distribution and revenue models, I think I can see the appeal. I’d like to see more options for book bloggers to earn revenue and receive wider distribution that didn’t involve some of the risks that are likely present with Amazon’s current agreement. I’d love to see a “United Artists” model where the bloggers themselves joined forces and negotiated as a union of sorts to get the best possible distribution deals for their content.
Yes, you can just call me Norma Rae. Hey – it’s an idea, right?
Thanks again for your input everyone. I think it’s incredibly important for all voices to be heard and I know that bloggers who are considering the issue themselves will appreciate hearing from you about what motivated your decision to sign or not to sign with Kindle’s blog publishing program.
~ kat
The whole “sign up before someone claims your blog” thing is quite disturbing to me. My content is protected by COPYRIGHT. If anyone “claims” my blog and collects money through this venture, I will not only go after them personally, but I will also go after Amazon for copyright infringement. That is completely irresponsible and outrageous that Amazon doesn’t verify that the person claiming a blog is the actual blog owner (it would be insanely easy to verify this).
I will not be signing up for this – not only because I don’t trust Amazon or any other large company who is simply out to make more money; but because it is ridiculous that I would be writing ALL the content and Amazon would collect 70% of the profit. I don’t know too many people who would find that to be a great deal.
I have a feeling that bloggers who jump to sign up may find themselves regretting this decision…but time will tell.
I should clarify – when I say “go after them” I mean legally to the fullest extent of the law *smiles*
Levi: I love the idea of bloggers’ work being published in other outlets. But I’m not about to hand over these rights without negotiation. And sure, you can go somewhere else. But I should point out that the extremely broad terms of the agreement (now being argued about on the comments section of my blog post) gives Amazon, affiliates, and its independent contractors the right to distribute your memoir in progress — perhaps in a book form in which you can’t collect the 30%. Did you ever think of that?
I hear what you’re saying, Ed — but it’s only a very abstract and remote possibility that Amazon would actually try to repackage my work in a form that I don’t approve of or that I consider exploitative. And in the unlikely event that they tried to do this, I would have the right to challenge them in court. Since their action would violate the obvious spirit in which I signed the TOS, I would have a strong case — a TOS is not considered a very sturdy legal document.
I’ve been on both sides of TOS battles, since I’ve worked for and managed many community websites. I know that Amazon needs a TOS like this to cover various scenarios in which an end user tries to take action against them, and I have no reason to suspect that Amazon is trying to exploit me or plans to use my content in ways other than I intend them to use it. You can call me a fool for trusting a corporation, but the fact is we all trust corporations in various ways in our everyday lives, and the benefits of doing so work both ways.
As someone absolutely not interested in getting registered but doesn’t hate Amazon, I think it’s fair to say that if someone is willing to pay, they’re getting suckered. Meanwhile, the person they’re paying is cheating someone else. Amazon is sponsoring it and making a nice bundle. All in all, it’s a hugely pointless charade. I’d much prefer Amazon be a man about the whole issue and offer blogs for free, especially if they want to be known as a customer friendly business. Any blogger seeking this type of pay, at the expense of their readers, perhaps needs to reexamine themselves…
This sounds like a lot of paranoia and overthinking of something that will very likely not lead to Amazon monopolizing or stealing content. Mike said NO PRINCIPLES. An overstatement – some basic curiosity in seeing how the thing works does not mean no principles. It’s an experiment in new media, not an example of Big Brother out to rape the blogosphere.
Henry: I wonder what you think about Amazon not verifying that the person claiming the blog is the actual blog owner?
Guys its actually simplifying things a bit. I just ordered my kindle so i cant say much yet but im looking forward to it.
This is a good deal for bloggers. Kindle Publishing for Blogs Beta program to everyone, is a fast and easy publishing tool that lets you upload your blog in Kindle Store.
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I signed on, but I don’t know why anyone would pay when they get it for free. Do people love their Kindles so much? I’m doing a survey of one, see how many people besides family and friends buy mine. If a complete stranger does, that must tell me something.
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Like Eoin Purcell said, this is indeed a rights issue. But with this blog thing going on, I bet Kindle is going to be more of an rss reader for most people instead of an actual e-book reader. Hmmm. Anyway, I didn’t sign up–my blogs are doing just fine without Amazon. Guys, if any of you are looking for cheap kindle covers, check out my site anytime by clicking on the link.
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So, any developments? It’s been three years since amazon launched this beta program. Any info on earnings, successes, faliures?
Thanks,
L
Any updates on this issue?