Amazon, one of the world’s largest book marketplaces, is getting flooded with pirated books. This is obviously sad for publishers, given that American publishers lose $300 million annually to piracy. This further causes a decline in authors’ income and, most importantly, disheartens them.
Matt Harrison – a computer scientist and author – shares one of his recent experiences related to the piracy of his books. Harrison says:
In March of 2022, I was made aware that some readers were upset with the formatting of my Kindle version. This surprised me because I didn’t have a Kindle version! Or at least I thought that was the case until I went to Amazon and found that a Kindle version had been uploaded! Right on my book page, there was now a Kindle version available.
Sadly, the forgery is prevalent across all formats and genres of books, ranging from e-books to paperback, fiction to nonfiction, and even textbooks.
Amazon has a long history of piracy and plagiarism. But now, the eCommerce giant has taken serious initiatives to combat the issues. For example, Amazon is removing titles from Kindle Unlimited because of e-book piracy issues. The platform is targeting e-book piracy websites and taking steps against the authors involved in piracy.
Now, take a closer look at Amazon’s exclusivity agreement and its ongoing initiatives. It feels like Amazon is more focused on enforcing its exclusivity agreement than on preventing piracy and plagiarism.
I believe Amazon needs to think from a different angle now. It’s true that Amazon is too big for authors to ignore, but they are equally important to the platform as well. So, the company needs to rethink its policies, target piracy sites, and provide more support to genuine authors.
Authors, on the other hand, could consider other platforms (in addition to Amazon) to future-proof themselves. And, as Harrison says, “Another way of phrasing this is own your platform.”
Navkiran Dhaliwal is a seasoned content writer with 10+ years of experience. When she's not writing, she can be found cooking up a storm or spending time with her dog, Rain.
