An Author's Perspective: What Amazon Boycotts Mean for Writers
I totally get why so many of you are boycotting Amazon these days. Trust me, I'm right there with you feeling frustrated about the company rolling back their diversity, equity and inclusion policies, bothered by reports of worker treatment issues, concerned about the environmental impact of their delivery infrastructure, and disturbed by how they're basically taking over everything....
Unintended consequences
But here's something I wanted to share with you that you might not have considered: boycotting Amazon, has the unintended consequence of hurting indie authors like me who rely on the platform for sales. It's kind of a catch-22. The majority of indie authors, like me, make most of their income through Amazon. When boycotts cause our sales to drop, Amazon's algorithms show our books to fewer people, the fewer people see them, the harder it is for our books to be discovered… and it becomes a downward spiral really fast.
Independent authors are working hard to give you non-Amazon options.
Trying to get away from being dependent on Amazon is why I decided to go with a wide distribution model for my books. It’s taken some time and a fair bit of effort to set my books up so they are available across all the major retail platforms (Apple, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google…. Etc.). But it’s been worthwhile effort because it’s important to me that my readers can get my books the way they want.
In addition, I set up my own Shopify store at colejacobsbookstore.com – so I could sell my ebooks directly to readers like you! There are good financial reasons for authors to take this approach. For example, when you buy an ebook directly from my store, I earn about 90% of what you pay compared to 70% on Amazon. Maybe that doesn’t sound like a big difference - but it adds up and helps to offset the cost of the website infrastructure I need to have to support the store.
I'm also looking into ways to offer my print books directly. Print-on-demand companies like BookVault, Lulu and IngramSpark make it possible for readers to order print books through the author’s website and have the book produced and shipped directly from the printer to them. I haven’t been selling my print books this way yet, but as these services expand into more regions (thanks to readers willingness to order direct from authors), the cost of producing and shipping will benefit from economies of scale and make it easier for authors like me to distribute and less expensive for our loyal readers to avoid giving Amazon and others part of the profits.
How can you support your favourite authors?
If you want to support your favorite authors while still sticking to your Amazon boycott, signing up for author newsletters (click here to sign up for mine) is the best way to hear about direct buying options. If you see a book you want on a major retailer, before you buy, go to the author’s website and see if they have alternative sources you can go to. Many authors (me included) have UBLs (universal book links) which is a webpage that gives a list of all the different places you can get their books. For example – this is the UBL for my novel Next Time the second book in the Maddie and Nate series.
If you do end up using Amazon sometimes (and let's be real, it's hard to avoid completely), maybe save those purchases for indie books, and buy other stuff elsewhere. If you can – access Amazon through the authors website or UBLs to reach their books on Amazon. The reason why that matters is because often the author will get an additional few cents per book as an Amazon affiliate when you use a link that the author provides.
Although I’m not currently doing any of these things, another way you can show your favourite authors some love is through their Patreon pages, tip jars on their websites or by signing on to their Kickstarter campaigns to support their next release.
I respectfully suggest these small tweaks to how you shop with the hope that you can help you stand by your values while still supporting authors you care about. Win-win! And no matter where you buy, leaving reviews and sharing my books on social media is HUGE for helping me stay visible.