Ever since Amazon launched its Kindle Singles program back in January, writers and organizations have been able to submit content for consideration. Amazon downplayed this though, offering only an email address and a suggestion that “serious writers, thinkers, scientists, business leaders, historians, politicians and publishers” submit. This week Amazon opened up a little and launched a submissions page that provides more details of its submission policy, and in the process turns the program into something resembling a disassembled magazine or journal.
For instance, the program’s editors will consider pitches for unwritten works as well as works-in-progress. You can also submit work that’s already published on the Kindle Store, but not if it’s been published anywhere else. As for royalties, “Kindle Singles must have list prices between $0.99 and $4.99, and authors can choose the 70% royalty option for their accepted titles, even when the list price is below $2.99. All other Terms and Conditions of Kindle Direct Publishing will also apply to content sold as a Kindle Single.”
Amazon also makes clear that it won’t support the same multi-platform approach that Ars Technica and other websites and news organizations have enjoyed with the program; your submission can’t have been published anywhere else (except the Kindle Store), and it can’t be freely available in its entirety on the web.
Via Kindle Post US
Ah, you hit on what in the long-term may be the Number One problem with Amazon for authors. That is it’s attempt to make itself the sole source for many books. Everything From One Source is very different from a book being available through only one publisher but multiple retail sources. When an author has problems with one publisher he can turn to another. All can get your book into stores. When an inordinate share of the manuscript-to-a-reader’s-mailbox lies in the hands of a single agent-publisher-wholesaler-retailer (Amazon’s developing business model) rolled into one, there’s nowhere else to turn if you need to live off a book’s sales. It’s ‘their way or the highway.” Terms like “can’t have been published anywhere else (except the Kindle Store)” should chill the blood of any sensible-minded author.