Amazon Takes Kindle Self Publishing Global

Let's say that you have just written a novel, or completed your own anthology of short stories or a collection of poems. The traditional route to publication is to send your manuscript either to a publisher or an agent and if you're lucky, you'll be accepted. If the publisher accepts you, you go through an editing process before your work gets printed. If the agent accepts you, he can act as the first reader/editor, and then he'll do his best to get your work to the most appropriate publisher.

In this age of self-publishing, the writer can go straight to a print-on-demand site, bypassing the agent and the publisher. In essence, the writer becomes his own agent and publisher. Many of these print-on-demand sites can, for a fee, accept your work, put it in their database, and have it printed on a per-order basis. Voila! Instant physical book. I'm sure too that many of these publishers provide self-publishing of your work as an e-book.

Now, imagine that you had the reach, popularity, and efficiency of an Amazon.com behind you to help with your self-publishing. That's right, Amazon's going into the self-publishing business, at least digitally, from the way I understand it. With their Kindle quite the seller, one can't underestimate the effects of this move on other print-on-demand sites, on traditional publishers, on agents, and on writers. An excerpt from the article:

Amazon is expanding its Kindle self-publishing platform to allow authors and (supposed) rights holders to upload and sell e-books worldwide in English, German, and French.

The online vendor's global rollout of its Digital Text Platform arrives on the coattails of Amazon extending the reach of the Kinde DX e-reader beyond North America earlier this month.

Amazon's self-publishing platform allows those with publishing rights for a book or publication to sell the content on Amazon's Kindle Store. It was previously limited to the English language and to authors and publishers based in the United States.

Rights holders set their own prices and receive 35 per cent of sales.

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