As part of Isaac Thorne’s commitment to making Amazon less of a requirement for access to his content, the horror author has replaced Amazon.com previews of his book titles on this site with a new tool called 3D FlipBook. Previously, you could only see previews of Isaac’s books on this site through an iframe that delivered Amazon content and links.
“I’ve never relied exclusively on Amazon for selling my books,” Isaac says of the change. “Why should I rely exclusively on them for samples of my books?”
The retail giant remains the No. 1 seller of ebooks and, because it owns Audible, audiobooks in the United States. However, independent bookstores have in recent times experienced an uptick in support among consumers as public trust in corporate behemoths—and particularly Internet-based behemoths—erodes.
“A lot of indie authors rely on Amazon exclusivity to boost sales numbers,” Isaac continues, “because even now that’s where the majority of sales of indie books occurs. And I think that’s fine if your goal is to sell large volumes of books. Personally, I’ve never been comfortable relying on a single platform for everything. That’s why I print and distribute my physical books from more than one source. It’s why I’ll continue to distribute my ebooks from more than one source.”
In fact, in a precursor to expanding more beyond the Amazon umbrella, Isaac earlier this year moved almost all of his audiobooks into wide distribution. Only one remains Audible-exclusive now, and only because the contract for that title locks it there for another five years.
“Going forward, none of my audiobooks are going the Audible-exclusive route,” he adds. “Amazon is always going to be part of an indie author’s sales and marketing strategy, at least for the foreseeable future. But it’ll never be my only one.”
An example of the new 3D FlipBook technology that is now implemented on this site appears below:
