By Keri Rae Barnum

For years Amazon has been known for their self-publishing platforms, Create Space and Kindle Direct Publishing. When Create Space first broke into the publishing scene, indie authors were elated, and Amazon was celebrated as the friend of indie authors everywhere. However, times have changed, and we are no longer sure we can trust Amazon as an unbiased platform for authors.

In 2000 Amazon created their first self-publishing platform, Create Space from the seeds of Book Surge. Under this name they grew and practically became synonymous with the words “Indie Publishing.” Authors that once had to fight agents and publishing houses for a voice in the book industry suddenly had the ability to publish their own titles on a platform that catered to indie authors, publishers, and small press.

Amazon knew a good thing when they saw it and cultivated this arm of their business. As eBooks expanded, so did Amazon’s publishing platform and in November 2007, KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) was launched. While Amazon has since merged Create Space and KDP into one company, KDP was originally a platform that catered specifically to eBooks. Requiring the use of specifically formatted files and pairing with their own (Kindle) devices, Amazon aggressively went after the eBook market, carving out a nice chunk for themselves. Always looking to go bigger, Amazon Publishing began in 2009 and, in the last ten years, has grown to include 16 publishing imprints specializing in everything from children’s and teen books (Two Lions and Skyscape) to romance (Montlake Romance).

Today, Amazon Publishing is listed as one of the top publishers in the United States, and we can all guess where they have garnered the majority of their sales. This begs the question: has Amazon crossed the ethics barrier by not only publishing books, but also boosting the success of their own titles with insider information and biased marketing practices on Amazon.com?

It may sound like a crazy theory, but we aren’t the only ones asking. In a recently published article, “The Wall Street Journal” addresses this very issue. Taking our cue from them, we decided to investigate our theory a bit more.

A search of the Amazon bestsellers pages revealed a list laden with books from Amazon’s own imprints. In fact, a gander at Amazon’s Romance Best Seller list showed no less than half of the top 8 books were published by one of Amazon’s imprints.

Take a look at the picture below taken on March 7, 2019. Note the titles circled in red as those published by one of Amazon’s imprints.

On the same day, we visited the Mystery, Thriller and Suspense Best Seller list. Again, four of the top 8 books were published by an Amazon imprint.

Seeing that at least half of the books on the Best Seller lists in the above categories were comprised of Amazon imprint books, we began to wonder. Are these books really that good? Or, is Amazon using insider knowledge to push their own books above the thousands of authors who trust and invest in Amazon’s self-publishing platforms and marketing tools?

As arguably one of the largest sales outlets in the world, Amazon has reams of data on buyer trends, as well as what marketing keywords and ads results in clicks and sales. Amazon says its marketing and retail programs don’t give its books an unfair advantage. However, we at New Shelves are questioning the honesty of that statement.

Have a look at the sponsored products listed on the sales page for #1 Best Seller Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owen.

Three of the titles that won ad space from Amazon Marketing are Amazon imprint books. By pitting their own titles against those not published by Amazon in sponsored (paid) Amazon ads, Amazon is effectively inflating the cost of advertising for those without insider knowledge. This system also works to push Amazon imprint books to the top of the proverbial pile.

Our friends over at ALLi (Alliance of Independent Authors) noted the rising cost of Amazon Ads last September. Now authors and publishers are lamenting that not only have marketing cost risen but impressions are way down. For those of you that don’t know, an impression is when your ad is on the screen (computer, tablet, phone, etc.) of an Amazon customer. This comes at the same time as reports of Amazon making deals with big publishers for ad space.

If a savvy marketer cannot even get their book seen by using Amazon Marketing with a healthy budget, how can they possibly hope to sell books?

We fear that Amazon’s greed has gotten the best of them and indie authors are slowly losing purchase on a once celebrated platform.