For self-published authors who wanted to get their work in front of Amazon’s massive traffic, putting their work on the Kindle platform seemed like a no-brainer.
At the beginning of 2009, almost anyone with a U.S. bank account and an article or book in digital format could publish to Kindle—including the bad, the good, and the ugly. The Kindle was like a lawless frontier boomtown – - anything goes.
All through the spring months of 2009, I encouraged entrepreneurs and small business owners to write a great article or book and get it on Kindle; after all, having your work on Amazon IS a credibility builder in any business. Sadly, some of those people did publish, but the quality of their work was . . . . shall I say . . . . crap.
In the end, Amazon brought a sheriff to town and the wide open field of “publish anything” came to an end.
Today, if you want to publish on Kindle, you still can, but before your work is actually accepted into the Amazon fold, it now goes through a quality-monitoring process. When you push the PUBLISH button, a message pops up telling you that in order to give customers a quality experience, your work is now being reviewed, and Amazon will let you know within 48-72 hours if it will really be published. Now, I’m guessing all the unedited, poorly written & grammatically incorrect junk goes into the tank. Busted!
I’ve seen comments from other authors that this monitoring process is taking weeks (guess Amazon’s sheriff is up to his tin star in documents), but I’ve been fortunate to see my articles published in about three days.
In retrospect, I kinda hate to see the lawlesss town shut down – there’s something exciting about the wild frontier. But, my assumption is Amazon was getting so many returns on Kindle articles and books that they had to get some laws in place.
So, was 2009 a boom or a bust for self-published Kindle authors? For me, I’ll say boom because I published 16 articles (mostly on history-related topics) and most are selling well.
But for the James Gang “writers” I’d say it was a bust; guess they’ll have to look for an easier bank to knock over.
*Note: This post is part of a group writing project sponsored by Daily Blog Tips
I returned three documents to Amazon because they were exactly as you mentioned – just junk someone threw up in hopes of what? making a few bucks, getting new clients? I understand why Amazon put an end to the anything goes publishing model.
If your writing got rejected, was there any way to know? Do they notify you? Or is it like job applications–they only get back at you if they want to see you again?
It took me a while to order this gadget because I am a true book lover; the feel, the smell….so I thought that I wouldn’t be able to give that up. WRONG!! I LOVE my Kindle 2!! I used to buy the newest releases with the intent on reading them in my spare time, during the summer, etc… Yet, it turned out that when I did find myself with a few spare moments, I never had the book I wanted to read with me! I have a lot of books now that LOOK pretty on display in my home! The Kindle 2 makes buying and reading books so easy and pleasurable! I disagree with other reviews touting the fragility of this item. I also have an iPhone and a Macbook at home. Neither of those items came with covers, so I knew to purchase covers simultaneously for them, and they are just as fragile, duh! I purchased a cover for my Kindle 2 in the same transaction of buying my Kindle. This is just common sense people. iPhones get scratched, so do laptops if not cared for properly. If you really see this as a Kindle “fault”, then maybe you should stick to good old fashioned real books, which by the way don’t get scratched but can be damaged via page tears and spillage, only you probably paid more for those!
I am looking to create a blog web host.
I have never tried Amazon publisher but its good to know some companies offer green hosting.
Dedicated web hosting and a good publisher should help.