Let me ask you something. If one company controlled 80% of the storefront where you sold your work, set the rules for how your work was displayed, decided who saw it and who didn’t, and could change any of those conditions at any time without asking you — would you call that a partnership?
Because that is what KDP is.
Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing controls the overwhelming majority of the ebook market in the United States — roughly 80% of ebook sales, according to Author Earnings data and publishing industry analysis. Not a plurality. Not a healthy lead. A dominance so complete that for most indie authors “publishing” and “KDP” are functionally the same word. There is no real alternative at scale. The audiobook market has a similar problem — Audible (also owned by Amazon) controls approximately 65% of that market. The print-on-demand infrastructure a lot of indie authors use? Also Amazon, through KDP Print. The recommendation engine that decides whether a reader ever finds your book? Amazon’s. The review system that decides whether your book looks credible? Still Amazon.
This is what a monopoly looks like from the inside. And the thing about a monopoly is you do not feel the walls until you try to leave.
Here is what market domination actually means for an author on that platform. It means they set the royalty structure and you accept it. It means they set the price windows and you price accordingly. It means they can change the Kindle Unlimited payout rate — the amount you earn per page read — without your approval, with a blog post announcement, effective next month. It means if they decide tomorrow that a certain genre gets less algorithmic promotion, your visibility drops and you have no appeal process. It means their terms of service govern your work on their platform and those terms can and do change. You agreed to the current version. The next version will show up in your email with a notice that continued use constitutes acceptance.
None of this is hidden. It is all in the agreement you clicked through to publish your first book.
The thing I keep coming back to is this: indie publishing was supposed to be about independence. The whole movement was built on the idea that authors did not need to wait for a gatekeeper to validate their work. They could go direct to readers. They could control their own pricing, their own covers, their own timelines. That energy was real and it still is. But somewhere along the way “indie” came to mean “independent from traditional publishing” while remaining completely dependent on a single corporation that is larger and more powerful than any of the publishers they left behind.
You traded one gatekeeper for a landlord. The landlord does not edit your manuscripts or reject your queries. The landlord just owns the building and sets the rent and decides which apartments get the good light.
I am not saying leave. The market is what it is and I understand why authors are there. I am saying look at the building you are in clearly. Know who owns it. Know what the lease actually says. And maybe — just maybe — start thinking about whether there are other places to put your work. Not instead of KDP. Alongside it. Because a healthy business does not have one distribution channel. And a healthy publishing ecosystem does not have one store. We built The Shelf for exactly this reason. One more place for your book to live, where you keep every dollar it makes. editority.com, if you want to have a look.
Sources:
Author Earnings Report – Analysis of U.S. ebook market concentration and Amazon KDP’s market share (approximately 80% of ebook sales)
Publishing Industry Analysis – Market dominance data on Amazon’s control of ebook distribution
Audible Market Share – Audiobook platform market analysis showing approximately 65% market concentration
Amazon KDP Official Documentation:
– KDP Terms & Conditions – Royalty structures, exclusivity requirements, and platform terms
– KDP Help Center – Information on royalty rates, price point tiers, and payout structures
Amazon KDP Select Program – Official documentation on 90-day exclusivity requirement and renewal term