Buyer be aware of how Amazon operates with readers.
It’s easy to forget, or even be entirely ignorant of, the fact that the great online marketplace that is Amazon began as an online bookseller in 1995. But even though it has spread its trades into a multitude of other supplies and demands, its roots live on in more than just its Kindle (originally released in 2007) and have intertwined with the entire book market.
Authors have always been influenced by the demands of their publishers. In the 19th century, publishers paid authors by installment to create serial novels that required both length and suspense. Paperbacks took off as a book format in the wake of WWII, making reading far more accessible and affordable, and have influenced several genres since, especially what might be considered by some more “selective” readers to be “pulp fiction” (cheap in quality regarding both figurative and literary material). And with the rise of the Internet, this opened the door for publishers and authors to publish their stories and books in all formats, and changed the way in which booksellers could operate.
It’s important to remember that the book market is a market, and that although Amazon as a platform has encouraged a certain type of mindset, the business of writing and publishing is a matter of producer, seller, and customer. Publishers need to be able to sell the books they acquire, which heavily influences what manuscripts they choose, and a good chunk of selling books is getting the word out there by promoting new releases and finding out what books readers are buying.
Amazon is still a prominent book retailer, not to mention a platform for self-publishing authors to get their words out to readers through online sales and Kindle. Amazon has also introduced new ways that books are now categorized and subcategorized. Readers who have made past purchases of certain types of books receive more recommendations in those similar categories: historical novels around a certain time might be one, books regarding the art of major media production, etc. New releases (in print or in general) are displayed broadly to help in access and gauge general interest. The best deals on books, deals available only through Amazon, both gauges interest and encourages Amazon as a specific supplier, while the Kindle Unlimited offers similar encouragement and a consistent readership through subscription.
The popular website Goodreads is operated by a subsidiary of Amazon, acquired in 2013. Through this website, users can—among other things—track which books they’re reading/have read, their progress in reading, and rate/review books. There are end-of-year awards for “Readers’ Favorite” for categories such as general fiction and nonfiction, romance, debut novel, audiobook, and more. For a bookseller like Amazon, it’s a great way to collect more data from readers than might be achieved through their own website outright, and to keep track of the movements of the publishing industry. Those who do their best to avoid Amazon might not know about the website’s connections or might not see the value for Amazon as a bookseller in its connections.
As Amazon has vastly expanded its reach as a marketplace, and as people have perhaps moved on from the specific thrill of Amazon as a bookseller—not to mention, made efforts to avoid using Amazon—the fraction of income that Amazon draws from bookselling has increasingly shrunk compared to its strongest point in the past. However, its might in the book business has not shrunk proportionally, especially due to the strength of Amazon’s power in e-books. Kindle Unlimited offers literature as a service through e-book subscription, and it pays authors based on how much of their work a user reads rather than how many readers download the work. Again—data gathering is a huge part of turning revenue.
Authors self-publishing through Amazon often are publishing in, whether they’re conscious of it or not, tend to have their work categorized into different popular fiction genres. Romance contains several subgenres on its own, such as the paranormal romance (Twilight being a traditionally published example that significantly revived public interest), the “billionaire” romance (often a certain amount of wish fulfillment present, even beyond the “finding love” part), and even smaller and more specific categorizations for love-lusting audiences with very specific, even “zany”, predilections.
Even literary fiction has certain types of “subgenres”, consisting within the maximalist and minimalist story categories, such as the family saga and coming-of-age story. Again, easy to market by comparison to preexisting works, although an actual “official” listing of genre on a website designed specifically for selling books might not list literary subcategories. However, websites such as Goodreads do offer their users the ability to create lists of their own for various “favorites” (or disliked books) and categorize books into other areas to better understand the mindset of readers.
In an(other) era of monopolies such as Amazon, shopping is political, and as a result, many consumers are trying to find alternatives to Amazon for their needs, books included. No matter where they might look, though, its influence on the book world is felt through a certain online commoditization of books as well as the active efforts of publishers to avoid falling prey to that commoditization.
When readers consume books, and (the good) books consume them, certain book markets threaten to consume both.
By Grace Dietz
Grace is an Editorial Assistant at Technica Editorial
References & Resources:
Is Amazon Changing the Novel? By Parul Sehgal
Who Owns Goodreads? By Clare Barnett
Brienza, C. Mark McGurl: Everything and Less: The Novel in the Age of Amazon. Pub Res Q 38, 441–442 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12109-022-09877-2
For Those Seeking Alternatives to Amazon:
