Independent authors: what’s your Plan B if Amazon fails?

Once upon a time, it hardly mattered to authors and publishers if one Book printer or book distributor or bookstore failed. There were so many others that nobody would miss it all that much.

But now we have independent authors and small publishers that rely solely on Amazon’s ecosystem (through CreateSpace and KDP) to publish, print, and distribute their books. Need a book cover for your printed book? You can use Amazon’s Cover Creator to design one. Need a cover for your ebook? You’re in luck; Amazon has a Cover Creator tool for your Kindle ebook, too. The only hitch is that, once you’ve used Cover Creator to create the cover, Amazon owns that cover. You can’t take it with you — if, for example, you wanted to bring your book to iUniverse, Lulu, or IngramSpark, or even to a traditional offset printing company.

Anyone independent author, with modest mouse-pushing capabilities, can use Amazon’s tools to publish their books and ebooks through CreateSpace and/or KDP. The price is right (how does “free” sound?). It’s easy, even for a novice. Actually, it was designed for first time independent book publishers.

Note that only KDP Select, which is an offering of KDP, requires exclusivity. With CreateSpace and regular old KDP, independent authors are free to publish their books anywhere — just as long as they find other ways to create their covers, generate ISBNs and bar codes, make their books available for sale, and take and fulfill book orders.

In other words, if you want a hassle, you can go beyond Amazon to publish your book. If, though, you want to self-publish your book without paying for the privilege with one of your favorite limbs, or your kids’ college funds, or your retirement account, then you can stay within Amazon’s universe to create and sell your book.

Any book publicist will feel comfortable promoting a book that has been published by CreateSpace or KDP, because it will be a “real” book. It will have an online presence, and people will be able to buy it when they hear about it. That’s all book publicists need to know before they commit to working with independent authors to create book promotion campaigns.

Therein lies the great opportunity for self-published authors.

But therein lies the danger, too.

What happens if Amazon fails? If you rely solely on Amazon for your book’s production and distribution and sales, then what happens if there is no Amazon?

The question has always been there for this Boston-based book publicist who watched as so many stores failed. One at a time, they disappeared: Woolworth’s. Jordan Marsh. Filene’s. And on. And on. And on.

Why not Amazon?

Some said that Amazon was too big, and too revolutionary, to fail.

That’s what they said about Woolworth’s, Jordan Marsh, Filene’s, and all the rest of the stores that once populated downtown Boston, too.

And now some people are finally admitting, in public, that Amazon is not infallible or eternal — that Amazon, too, is vulnerable to failure. Check out this article by Mark Piesing that was just published in PublishingPerspectives.

Amazon’s eventual demise is not probable, even with the expensive failure of some of its hardware offerings. But it is possible.

All good businesses (and all bad businesses, too) have their life spans.

What will happen to independent authors and independent publishers when Amazon’s life span reaches its natural conclusion? Independent authors and publishers: what’s your Plan B if Amazon fails? If you don’t have a backup plan, it’s time to get one in place. You just never know when you might need it.

By Stacey J. Miller, Book Publicist
S. J. Miller Communications
[email protected]

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