Amazon’s place in the market is incomparable, and the same can be said for their influence in the e-book industry. From the Kindle’s introduction to the public in 2007, the e-reader continues to be wildly successful. Much of its success can be attributed to the technology itself, offering e-ink screens with high readability, as well as the devices’ competitive price-points. The Kindle has gone through many iterations including seven generations with their own variants and most recently, Amazon has introduced several versions of the Kindle Fire, a device that utilizes a full-color touch screen and also supports multi-media such as movies, music, and the ability to download apps.
Originally, the Kindle was only available to US users but has since expanded to over 100 countries after its international launch in 2010. By far, it is users who have benefited most from the Kindle, whereas its effect on publishers and authors has been more mixed. In an effort to get as wide a distribution of the device as possible, Amazon has routinely sold devices at cost, as was the case for the Fire HD. This also allowed Amazon to sell devices at ultra-competitive pricing. The Kindle also offers users several features and a Kindle app that allows users access to their libraries on several devices including PC, Mac, Android, and iPhone, and ultimately merged with Samsung’s e-readers. Other features include multiple device downloads for titles, user-created annotations, and textbook rentals for students.
They have, however, failed users in notable ways and incited controversy in 2009 by withdrawing Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell after discovering the publisher did not have the rights to the titles. Amazon remotely deleted the content angering users who had left annotated notes they could no longer access, and, in one particular instance, lead to a lawsuit with a high school student in which Amazon was forced to remit $150,000 in a settlement.
Publishers, Hachette in particular, have also come to blows against Amazon in response to the severely-discounted prices at which they have sold e-book versions of their titles. Publishers were finding it incredibly difficult to compete and felt the company was directly hindering their ability to sell print versions, especially hardcovers when Amazon was offering a digital version for $9.99. This lead to many publishers making agreements with Apple and resulted in a lawsuit over collusion and price fixing that ultimately found in favor of Amazon. In this instance, the publishers’ loss is the consumers gain, as they continued to be able to purchase e-books at low rates.
For authors, Amazon has been both helpful and harmful. It has allowed self-publishers access to niche audiences and millions of users, as well as a platform to distribute their work which would otherwise be passed over by major publishers. Instead, it allows authors direct access to countless potential readers. For others, however, the low pricing has proved detrimental to author’s royalty rates. In terms of publishing, it is relatively simple for independent authors to publish using Kindle Direct Publishing. However, Kindle uses its own proprietary format (AZW/KF8) and does not support epub, meaning authors who choose to publish their books through Kindle only have their books accessible to Kindle users.
Despite their controversies, Amazon continues to dominate the market and remains extremely successful. They reported 5 billion in sales in 2014 alone. In order to maintain their hold on the market, Amazon will need to continue releasing devices at affordable rates, which already appears to be their goal. The Fire 7 was released in September of 2015 at $49.99 making it the lowest priced tablet released to date. Coupled with the competitively low price of e-books and over 300 million active Amazon accounts, it is likely Amazon will continue to dominate in the e-book space.
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