Readers! Billionaire-haters! Comrades! I have a request for you, from the bottom of my self-published indie author heart:
Please buy your books from places other than Amazon.
I am not saying do not buy books. I am definitely not saying pirate books (authors need to be paid in order to keep writing). I am just asking you to shift your purchasing to a non-Amazon platform. Any of the non-Amazon platforms.
We all know that Bezos is using his bajillions of dollars to make the world an actively worse place. We know he's sucking up to Trump because all billionaires are the same, and all they care about is their money. We know he's at least partially to blame for this second Trump presidency. I think the world would be a much better place if Amazon didn't exist.
I hate Amazon and Bezos as much as it's possible to do, but I literally can't survive as a self-published author without selling on Amazon. I earned $1094.26 in royalties (through Draft2Digital) in January, and $863.46 of that was from Amazon sales. Even with the criminally low royalties I get from Audible because I choose to sell elsewhere instead of locking myself into their monopoly, I get between $200-300 a month in royalties from them as opposed to $75-150 a month from Author's Republic, which publishes my audiobooks to everywhere else on the internet.
I hate depending on Amazon, but I can't quit Amazon unless readers do.
My plea to readers is this: Get off Amazon. Get off Kindle. See if you can buy books directly from the independent authors you like (like through my shop on my website!). If you depend on Kindle Unlimited or Audible subscriptions to keep up with your voracious reading habits, try your local library instead. You can get so many books and audiobooks through Libby!
If I was getting 80% of my sales through avenues other than Amazon, it would be easy to take the financial hit and drop them. Currently it's the other way around, and unfortunately I do still need money to live.
I know for many people doing a complete Amazon boycott is not possible. I still occasionally use Amazon for stuff like printer toner, or camp chairs for a concert on short notice, or other housewares I would be happy to buy in an actual store except that in-person shopping has been so degraded by Amazon that's no longer an option. I'm not perfect, and I'm operating within a system that is stacked against me.
But books aren't any of those things. They're not two-day free delivery on groceries and pantry staples for a disabled person who can't safely leave the house. They're not a houseware that you'd have to drive a full hour to buy in person from the one shop that still has it available. There are so, so many other options available in the world for book purchasing, even if you don't have access to a cool local bookstore.
Even if you can't get to a Barnes & Noble.
Even if you don't have a good local library.
(I, for one, love Bookshop.org, but just look at the Books2Read link for Red, the Wolf, and the Woods! There are 14 non-Amazon retailers, plus I sell direct! Bookshop has just launched ebook sales to support local bookstores, too!)
Please, consider changing your book shopping habits! Ask your friends to change their book shopping habits! It's a small thing, but it's a small thing that means a big improvement for authors, and for the world.
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