The fall of KDP [Rant]

[Lysander_Works]

Writing this now still feels a bit dated, but I've grown more annoyed with KDP and their services each and every year. I'm sure many have heard about the new scam market that is becoming Amazon's physical market place; already a bad look for them. Anyway, having the option to produce and update ebooks and produce print books is nice, especially the latter. But the process is anything but easy and sensible.

What threw me off today? I went to update the manuscript (not the cover) for a released print book, only to be rejected because the cover's exact specs don't match what they want. Confused faces followed: The cover never changed, and was already previously approved by their shitty buggy system. To fix it would require hours of tinkering in an image editing system, since their cover approval system is a joke and a nightmare. Their handling of ebooks is much more painless, but on the reader side, I've heard of many people becoming pissed off over some horrible practices about ebook lending, and ownership issues across country lines. (I don't remember if was a translation problem or not), but it does remind me of the current issue big companies have with trying to reduce the physical ownership of things people buy; it's the reason physical print books are becoming a bit more popular again (not by much).

It highlights a different problem as well. Where are all the good alternatives to KDP? Did big companies buy them out? Are we just getting f'ed because there are not enough good actors? Sites like Ingram Spark (designed for print book control) and Barns N Noble are horrible in their own unique way, so I cannot ever turn to them for alternatives. But when did we get to this point? Why has there never been a proper kind of tutorial for self-publishing authors to be able to learn how to generate their own print book system and sell on their own website? It's clearly possible, but many including myself do not understand how to do so or where to get started. Lot of the "tutorials" I've run into have been big scams asking for money. Maybe I'm just super unlucky with searches? Has happened in the past.

I'm glad I discovered Scribblehub and Royal Road, because it gave me a way to tunnel away from some problems. It doesn't outright solve some issues such as print books, though I can't hold that against these sites. You make an account, verify age for upper-age content, and read whatever you want whenever you want. That's how it should be. I know this is likely asking for too much, but I would love to see the next big feature from SH setting authors up with the ability to set up and sell physical print versions of the books on SH. I already know that if such a feature was implemented, it would be a nightmare for many just trying to set everything up properly, but I know it would be miles better than KDP, who gives BS reasons for rejecting content edits, a non-existent support team that sends people in circles through forums that don't answer those questions, or better than IngramSpark, who wants to force authors to discount their own books so that they can get about 40% of the profits of selling, a platform which by the way charges a flat fee of $50 to upload a digital file for testing, before ever hitting the print button. SH is a platform I would actually trust with a feature for creating and selling printbooks, even though it would not be an easy feature to implement.

I'm certain I will get some 'feedback' on my little rant, because there likely are some alternative platforms designed just for this situation, but the only few I've ever looked into (which seem legit) cost huge amounts of resources that I simply do not have. I'm not rich.

 

[Deleted member 84247]

Want to make more money as an independent author. Need to spend money to make money. Have no money because you need to be an independent author to have money.

 

[John_Owl]

that moment when you start pricing book printers to say "Eff it" and start your own publishing firm.

Kidding. that's even worse. It's a pain dealing with self-publishing, but that's nothing compared with dealing with the legal system, regardless of your country.

 

[Tyranomaster]

So, I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding going on. Before Amazon KDP, the option to 'self-publish' without sinking thousands of dollars on paying someone to print your book didn't exist. Amazon basically pioneered print on demand services letting authors publish books without needing to pay for a 500-1000 book print run. It's one of many reasons Amazon took over a large amount of the market for printed books.

It can be a pain occasionally, but I'll remind you that it costs time, not money, to handle these things. In the past, changing you manuscript would have taken paying for another print run and having a 'second edition' book.

If your book is selling enough copies, you can probably reach out to Amazon directly to have them manually approve changes. If not, then I don't think you really have a right to complain that an automated system which keeps costs down allowing you to publish for free should be replaced with either workers or a more expensive system.

Yes, it's a pain. Yes, I'd like it to be better. Better costs money though, and if they don't want to invest tens of millions of dollars in making the system better, I'm not going to say it's unfair. Book printing presses aren't cheap to make. Nor is the infrastructure to send it to any location on the planet.

Edit:As an addendum, your actual problem probably isn't even with Amazon, it's with government. Online books have had about 30 years, give or take, to be regulated by governments. Physical books have hundreds of years of laws and regulations put on them. Meaning any book publisher who sells physical books has a boatload more regulations they need to check for every country that the book might be sold in.

The US (as far as first world countries go) has some of the laxest regulations on printed and internet words. If anyone was going to be able to do what Amazon does, but cheaper and better, they'd have to dedicate their market to only US printing and sales. It'd allow them to basically skip a lot of the regulation checks that Amazon has to do.

As an example, if your book has any nazi iconography at all, it's illegal to publish in germany. Most countries have at least a handful, if not more, similar regulations on what can and cannot be said or printed. Amazon has to track all these and operate accordingly.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

I read an article ... well, the day before I signed up here, to be honest, about how it had looked like Ream was going to replace KDP ... a lot of writers were jumping ship to Ream, and leaving KDP, etc.... only to have Ream apparently self-destruct due to a management issue (would have to wade back through a lot of posts to find the specifics).
The whole point of the discussion was to get another service (Substack) to embrace more fiction (apparently "innocent" Romance Fiction is always the trail blazer, followed by Smut/Steamy Romance and then everything else) because every alternative seemed to be failing.

Have not gotten far enough along to look into publishing (still flirting with setting up a Patreon) so only have second and third hand accounts to go by though.

 

[Bitmaker]

So, I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding going on. Before Amazon KDP, the option to 'self-publish' without sinking thousands of dollars on paying someone to print your book didn't exist. Amazon basically pioneered print on demand services letting authors publish books without needing to pay for a 500-1000 book print run. It's one of many reasons Amazon took over a large amount of the market for printed books.

It can be a pain occasionally, but I'll remind you that it costs time, not money, to handle these things. In the past, changing you manuscript would have taken paying for another print run and having a 'second edition' book.

If your book is selling enough copies, you can probably reach out to Amazon directly to have them manually approve changes. If not, then I don't think you really have a right to complain that an automated system which keeps costs down allowing you to publish for free should be replaced with either workers or a more expensive system.

Yes, it's a pain. Yes, I'd like it to be better. Better costs money though, and if they don't want to invest tens of millions of dollars in making the system better, I'm not going to say it's unfair. Book printing presses aren't cheap to make. Nor is the infrastructure to send it to any location on the planet.

Edit:As an addendum, your actual problem probably isn't even with Amazon, it's with government. Online books have had about 30 years, give or take, to be regulated by governments. Physical books have hundreds of years of laws and regulations put on them. Meaning any book publisher who sells physical books has a boatload more regulations they need to check for every country that the book might be sold in.

The US (as far as first world countries go) has some of the laxest regulations on printed and internet words. If anyone was going to be able to do what Amazon does, but cheaper and better, they'd have to dedicate their market to only US printing and sales. It'd allow them to basically skip a lot of the regulation checks that Amazon has to do.

As an example, if your book has any nazi iconography at all, it's illegal to publish in germany. Most countries have at least a handful, if not more, similar regulations on what can and cannot be said or printed. Amazon has to track all these and operate accordingly.

That seems about right.

 

[John_Owl]

If not, then I don't think you really have a right to complain that an automated system which keeps costs down allowing you to publish for free should be replaced with either workers or a more expensive system.

I may be misunderstanding, but I think their issue is with the bugs in said automated system. It's well within our rights, as users of said system, to want said system to work as intended. That's hardly unreasonable.

If I'm paying (either cash, time, or effort) to use a system that's supposed to do A, B, C, but it only allows A and B because C has a bug preventing it from being done, I'd think I was entitled to gripe about it on a public forum.

(In the above, A is publishing, B is marketing, and C is editing already published materials. If OP's cover was fine on initial submission, it should remain fine when not changing it while submitting a corrected proof of the material).

 

[Tyranomaster]

I may be misunderstanding, but I think their issue is with the bugs in said automated system. It's well within our rights, as users of said system, to want said system to work as intended. That's hardly unreasonable.

If I'm paying (either cash, time, or effort) to use a system that's supposed to do A, B, C, but it only allows A and B because C has a bug preventing it from being done, I'd think I was entitled to gripe about it on a public forum.

(In the above, A is publishing, B is marketing, and C is editing already published materials. If OP's cover was fine on initial submission, it should remain fine when not changing it while submitting a corrected proof of the material).

You're right in that if bugs are preventing intended use, they have a right to complain. That said, the conclusion at the end of the rant went into asking if it was because Amazon and other big companies bought out the little guys who used to do this, which is incorrect. Amazon is the pioneer, and it's not a matter of them having made something good into something bad, it's that it is buggy already. Though it likely isn't actually bugs, but rather the difficulties of following all sorts of international laws.

Their automated system has to detect anything that would be illegal, which is a lot of things. In fact, the system probably does a better job of not getting authors and amazon in trouble with the law compared to a physical reviewer. Imagine he pushes up the book, and the system just allows it, and suddenly Germany files a lawsuit against Amazon and potentially the Author over something that they weren't allowed to publish in their country, but did anyway.

It's difficult to navigate because publishing internationally is difficult to navigate. Most countries simply ask that digital content be removed from their country and don't pursue any legal action beyond that if you comply, but physical copies land you in hot water (See Wolfenstein 3D downloads in Germany and the fiasco with physical copies, though the ban has since been lifted). I'm not certain that the automated system isn't doing exactly as intended. I'd much rather spend 4 hours going through a hard to navigate and seemingly arbitrary online system to push out an entire book instead of dealing with international lawsuits for weeks on end. Pushing out a physical product is difficult, and opens up all kinds of legal action.

 

[Representing_Tromba]

Writing this now still feels a bit dated, but I've grown more annoyed with KDP and their services each and every year. I'm sure many have heard about the new scam market that is becoming Amazon's physical market place; already a bad look for them. Anyway, having the option to produce and update ebooks and produce print books is nice, especially the latter. But the process is anything but easy and sensible.

What threw me off today? I went to update the manuscript (not the cover) for a released print book, only to be rejected because the cover's exact specs don't match what they want. Confused faces followed: The cover never changed, and was already previously approved by their shitty buggy system. To fix it would require hours of tinkering in an image editing system, since their cover approval system is a joke and a nightmare. Their handling of ebooks is much more painless, but on the reader side, I've heard of many people becoming pissed off over some horrible practices about ebook lending, and ownership issues across country lines. (I don't remember if was a translation problem or not), but it does remind me of the current issue big companies have with trying to reduce the physical ownership of things people buy; it's the reason physical print books are becoming a bit more popular again (not by much).

It highlights a different problem as well. Where are all the good alternatives to KDP? Did big companies buy them out? Are we just getting f'ed because there are not enough good actors? Sites like Ingram Spark (designed for print book control) and Barns N Noble are horrible in their own unique way, so I cannot ever turn to them for alternatives. But when did we get to this point? Why has there never been a proper kind of tutorial for self-publishing authors to be able to learn how to generate their own print book system and sell on their own website? It's clearly possible, but many including myself do not understand how to do so or where to get started. Lot of the "tutorials" I've run into have been big scams asking for money. Maybe I'm just super unlucky with searches? Has happened in the past.

I'm glad I discovered Scribblehub and Royal Road, because it gave me a way to tunnel away from some problems. It doesn't outright solve some issues such as print books, though I can't hold that against these sites. You make an account, verify age for upper-age content, and read whatever you want whenever you want. That's how it should be. I know this is likely asking for too much, but I would love to see the next big feature from SH setting authors up with the ability to set up and sell physical print versions of the books on SH. I already know that if such a feature was implemented, it would be a nightmare for many just trying to set everything up properly, but I know it would be miles better than KDP, who gives BS reasons for rejecting content edits, a non-existent support team that sends people in circles through forums that don't answer those questions, or better than IngramSpark, who wants to force authors to discount their own books so that they can get about 40% of the profits of selling, a platform which by the way charges a flat fee of $50 to upload a digital file for testing, before ever hitting the print button. SH is a platform I would actually trust with a feature for creating and selling printbooks, even though it would not be an easy feature to implement.

I'm certain I will get some 'feedback' on my little rant, because there likely are some alternative platforms designed just for this situation, but the only few I've ever looked into (which seem legit) cost huge amounts of resources that I simply do not have. I'm not rich.

Yeah, I went through a lot of the same issues. KDP is a good resource but it is difficult to work with at times and scams many authors and readers with their price requirements.

 

[John_Owl]

You're right in that if bugs are preventing intended use, they have a right to complain. That said, the conclusion at the end of the rant went into asking if it was because Amazon and other big companies bought out the little guys who used to do this, which is incorrect. Amazon is the pioneer, and it's not a matter of them having made something good into something bad, it's that it is buggy already. Though it likely isn't actually bugs, but rather the difficulties of following all sorts of international laws.

Their automated system has to detect anything that would be illegal, which is a lot of things. In fact, the system probably does a better job of not getting authors and amazon in trouble with the law compared to a physical reviewer. Imagine he pushes up the book, and the system just allows it, and suddenly Germany files a lawsuit against Amazon and potentially the Author over something that they weren't allowed to publish in their country, but did anyway.

It's difficult to navigate because publishing internationally is difficult to navigate. Most countries simply ask that digital content be removed from their country and don't pursue any legal action beyond that if you comply, but physical copies land you in hot water (See Wolfenstein 3D downloads in Germany and the fiasco with physical copies, though the ban has since been lifted). I'm not certain that the automated system isn't doing exactly as intended. I'd much rather spend 4 hours going through a hard to navigate and seemingly arbitrary online system to push out an entire book instead of dealing with international lawsuits for weeks on end. Pushing out a physical product is difficult, and opens up all kinds of legal action.

For different countries, I'd recommend amazon expand their policies regarding their store to their books.

Ask the author what kind of content is included and have a checklist. you go through and check any that apply. then they have a notice basically stating that if you lie or omit in order to expand into countries that its illegal, amazon is indemnified from any and all legal issues that may arise.

Once you agree, you can then post it to whichever servers it would then be legal on, with regards to any content policies you checked.

That way, only the author takes the heat if they lied and included content that was against it. sucks for us, but from a business standpoint, it should make viable sense to amazon. they get a portion of sales (as they do now) and you, the author, take all the risk. so you'd best be sure you check ALL relevant boxes.

 

[Tyranomaster]

For different countries, I'd recommend amazon expand their policies regarding their store to their books.

Ask the author what kind of content is included and have a checklist. you go through and check any that apply. then they have a notice basically stating that if you lie or omit in order to expand into countries that its illegal, amazon is indemnified from any and all legal issues that may arise.

Once you agree, you can then post it to whichever servers it would then be legal on, with regards to any content policies you checked.

That way, only the author takes the heat if they lied and included content that was against it. sucks for us, but from a business standpoint, it should make viable sense to amazon. they get a portion of sales (as they do now) and you, the author, take all the risk. so you'd best be sure you check ALL relevant boxes.

I wish this could be the case, but since Amazon has to negotiate with these countries, and they're aware that realistically, they couldn't actually get any money or extraditions of US authors who subvert the system, the countries would likely just resort to banning Amazon as a whole. It's the way it is because that's how Amazon negotiates to actually sell things in their respective countries.

The US, for instance, will never extradite a US citizen who sold gay porn to Saudi Arabia (the penalty is death). Amazon has 'washed their hands' of the issue, and claims no legal responsibility. So, Saudia Arabia has two choices, ban all amazon book sales in their country, or go against their own laws. Amazon doesn't want to get banned in any countries, so it takes on some of the legal responsibility in exchange. International business is way more complicated than national business, where you know you can actually legally reprimand citizens (unless they flee to a country that won't extradite).

 

[John_Owl]

I wish this could be the case, but since Amazon has to negotiate with these countries, and they're aware that realistically, they couldn't actually get any money or extraditions of US authors who subvert the system, the countries would likely just resort to banning Amazon as a whole. It's the way it is because that's how Amazon negotiates to actually sell things in their respective countries.

The US, for instance, will never extradite a US citizen who sold gay porn to Saudi Arabia (the penalty is death). Amazon has 'washed their hands' of the issue, and claims no legal responsibility. So, Saudia Arabia has two choices, ban all amazon book sales in their country, or go against their own laws. Amazon doesn't want to get banned in any countries, so it takes on some of the legal responsibility in exchange. International business is way more complicated than national business, where you know you can actually legally reprimand citizens (unless they flee to a country that won't extradite).

makes sense. but my point was more to the hosting only whats allowed where it's allowed. I've seen items on their store that are illegal in other countries. If they can host, say, brokeback mountain as a physical DVD for sale in the US but not show it in Saudi Arabia, why can't they host the novelization of brokeback mountain in just the US and not show it in Saudi Arabia?

edit: and btw, the brokeback mountain was just an example. and I'm well aware the risks of allowing unknown authors publish it. but even then, they could just host it on the uploaded server (Upload in the US? Your book is only on US servers) until you pay to have someone comb through it and approve it elsewhere. say like, $200 per country or something.

 

[Tyranomaster]

makes sense. but my point was more to the hosting only whats allowed where it's allowed. I've seen items on their store that are illegal in other countries. If they can host, say, brokeback mountain as a physical DVD for sale in the US but not show it in Saudi Arabia, why can't they host the novelization of brokeback mountain in just the US and not show it in Saudi Arabia?

I'm sure that they do that. The issue is that they have to be the ones to make sure it's kosher, not the author. Which is why it's convoluted and partially automated. If the author lists it in a way that gets around their filters, then Amazon pays the fine to Saudia Arabia and blacklists the person who violated the rules here.

 

[John_Owl]

I'm sure that they do that. The issue is that they have to be the ones to make sure it's kosher, not the author. Which is why it's convoluted and partially automated. If the author lists it in a way that gets around their filters, then Amazon pays the fine to Saudia Arabia and blacklists the person who violated the rules here.

Which is why I added in the edit that Amazon could choose to host you only in your own country until you pay them to provide someone from their services to check through the content and ensure it's legal. That said, another option would be for the country to ban you, Amazon to fine you and blacklist you, either permanently or until you settle the fine. If the country charges amazon a fee of, say, $500, amazon could then charge you a fine of $700 for misrepresenting your content.

either of these options would leave it entirely to the author on where their content might be shown and sold.

as for the paying someone from amazon to check through it, I imagine it'd be something like $X per country per book.

 

[Tyranomaster]

Which is why I added in the edit that Amazon could choose to host you only in your own country until you pay them to provide someone from their services to check through the content and ensure it's legal. That said, another option would be for the country to ban you, Amazon to fine you and blacklist you, either permanently or until you settle the fine. If the country charges amazon a fee of, say, $500, amazon could then charge you a fine of $700 for misrepresenting your content.

either of these options would leave it entirely to the author on where their content might be shown and sold.

as for the paying someone from amazon to check through it, I imagine it'd be something like $X per country per book.

That then defeats the whole, free to use aspect of self-publishing for people in non-market countries. I would like it to be optional though. That I would take.

 

[John_Owl]

I agree, it would have drawbacks. But it would provide some protection for all parties involved AND still allow you to remain free to use for your local market.

Heck, they could even allow countries the option. "You can join this free to use market, but lose the ability to sue us or the author if they violate your laws, unless they live in your country and can sue individually without us. OR you can require foreign authors to pay to expand to your market."

I can see some countries like Canada and the US joining the free-to-use market, while other markets, like aforementioned Saudi Arabia, requiring authors pay to have their content checked.

But I digress. This is getting complex, and I'm but a humble smut writer. I never expected to make it rich in the first place, so even the $12 I've made thus far on SubStar is a huge profit to my mind.

 

[Tyranomaster]

I agree, it would have drawbacks. But it would provide some protection for all parties involved AND still allow you to remain free to use for your local market.

Heck, they could even allow countries the option. "You can join this free to use market, but lose the ability to sue us or the author if they violate your laws, unless they live in your country and can sue individually without us. OR you can require foreign authors to pay to expand to your market."

I can see some countries like Canada and the US joining the free-to-use market, while other markets, like aforementioned Saudi Arabia, requiring authors pay to have their content checked.

But I digress. This is getting complex, and I'm but a humble smut writer. I never expected to make it rich in the first place, so even the $12 I've made thus far on SubStar is a huge profit to my mind.

Yeah. This is only partially in my wheelhouse. I used to work for a subsidiary of Emerson doing automation work, so I would occasionally have to deal with international red tape on projects. Just before covid took off in the US (early march of 2020) I worked with some Chinese engineers on a project, the international red tape was sure something.

 

[John_Owl]

Yeah. This is only partially in my wheelhouse. I used to work for a subsidiary of Emerson doing automation work, so I would occasionally have to deal with international red tape on projects. Just before covid took off in the US (early march of 2020) I worked with some Chinese engineers on a project, the international red tape was sure something.

So far, my only international dealings have been on here. A surprising number of my readers are international, so it's been interesting hearing different perspectives on the matter.

 

[Lysander_Works]

So, I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding going on. Before Amazon KDP, the option to 'self-publish' without sinking thousands of dollars on paying someone to print your book didn't exist. Amazon basically pioneered print on demand services letting authors publish books without needing to pay for a 500-1000 book print run. It's one of many reasons Amazon took over a large amount of the market for printed books.

It can be a pain occasionally, but I'll remind you that it costs time, not money, to handle these things. In the past, changing you manuscript would have taken paying for another print run and having a 'second edition' book.

If your book is selling enough copies, you can probably reach out to Amazon directly to have them manually approve changes. If not, then I don't think you really have a right to complain that an automated system which keeps costs down allowing you to publish for free should be replaced with either workers or a more expensive system.

Yes, it's a pain. Yes, I'd like it to be better. Better costs money though, and if they don't want to invest tens of millions of dollars in making the system better, I'm not going to say it's unfair. Book printing presses aren't cheap to make. Nor is the infrastructure to send it to any location on the planet.

Edit:As an addendum, your actual problem probably isn't even with Amazon, it's with government. Online books have had about 30 years, give or take, to be regulated by governments. Physical books have hundreds of years of laws and regulations put on them. Meaning any book publisher who sells physical books has a boatload more regulations they need to check for every country that the book might be sold in.

The US (as far as first world countries go) has some of the laxest regulations on printed and internet words. If anyone was going to be able to do what Amazon does, but cheaper and better, they'd have to dedicate their market to only US printing and sales. It'd allow them to basically skip a lot of the regulation checks that Amazon has to do.

As an example, if your book has any nazi iconography at all, it's illegal to publish in germany. Most countries have at least a handful, if not more, similar regulations on what can and cannot be said or printed. Amazon has to track all these and operate accordingly.

You are likely right about my issue being more with government than the services, but in summary, a lot of my frustration actually is with KDP's crummy software. It's not as important to the bigger picture, but it is something I can see getting lots of authors to rage quit from KDP, where print books are involved specifically. They don't care, otherwise it would have been fixed a very long time ago.

Anyway, I guess I'm calmer about it now, mostly cause I just don't care anymore.
I'd rather lean more on SH and digital content at this point.