Amazon has announced they are abandoning the Kindle for Periodicals or the Kindle Newsstand, which will completely shutter on September 2023. Digital editions for magazines and newspapers are going to be shuttered. Amazon is trying to convince publishers to submit their newspapers and magazines to Prime Reading or Kindle Unlimited, but it remains to be seen if this will happen.
Amazon has just sent an email to customers who currently subscribe to the Kindle editions of magazines. It stated, “Thank you for being a valued Amazon Kindle Newsstand subscriber. We are writing to inform you that we have decided to stop selling Kindle magazines and newspaper subscriptions on Amazon.” It then lists all active subscriptions to confirm the email is legit.
In an email to publishers, Amazon stated. “As part of our annual operating planning review process, we always look at each of our businesses and what we believe we should change. Following an assessment of our magazine and newspaper subscription offerings via Newsstand, we have decided to discontinue the individual subscription programs for both print and Kindle, including Kindle single issues. We don’t take these decisions lightly. We are winding down this program in a phased manner and will work with you throughout the wind-down process to help ensure the best experience possible for our mutual customers.”
One of the significant advantages of magazines and newspapers on the Kindle is that they were optimized for the Kindle. They read like ebooks, where you can increase the text size or change the font type. Some pictures were in black and white to separate all of the text. This was the significant advantage of a Kindle.
The closure of the Amazon Newsstand will hit hard all genre magazines like Clarkesworld, Uncanny Valley, Asimov’s or Fantasy & Science Fiction. They have many subscribers on Kindle, and it is the only viable option for many international subscribers. Kindle Unlimited is not available worldwide and only in select countries.
Some magazines and newspapers will decide it is not worth including their content in Amazon’s Unlimited program. Users will have to subscribe to each digital magazine separately and either read it in the web browser or install apps on their smartphone or tablet instead of an eye-friendly Kindle e-reader that is easy on the eyes. Major news publications like The New York Times, Economist, or Wired do not have Send to Kindle functionality. This will result in users manually registering accounts for everything and attaching their credit cards. Kindle Newsstand was a great way to keep all subscriptions in the same place.
Luckily, there are a few other unlimited programs for magazines and newspapers. But they aren’t designed to be read on the Kindle or any other e-reader. Press Reader has 7,000 of the most popular magazines and newspapers worldwide. The newspapers are available in Replica editions, so you get the whole experience, including local ads. Zinio is an unlimited magazine subscription service that has 5,000 publications. Scribd and Magster are also suitable alternatives.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
