If you’ve read this blog before you’ll know I’m having problems with Amazon. Not with the Kindle itself, but Amazon won’t let me publish for it because I live outside the US (The original post is here).
Big companies seem very good at giving non-committal and completely pointless answers. Amazon is no exception. After enquiring as to why I could promote the Kindle or any other Amazon product as an associate (affiliate) but not publish for the Kindle I received this:
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” I apologize for any confusion but in order to publish your content with Digital Text Platform you will need a U.S. issued Social Security Number, Tax Identification Number or Employer Identification Number.
For future reference your concerns would be best addressed by the Digital Text Platform support team. You may reach them by writing to digitalpublications at amazon.
I hope you found this information useful. Our goal is to help you get the most out of your Kindle experience.”
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No, this information is not useful. It is designed to fob me off without answering the damn question.
Not surprisingly I have had nothing from the Digital Text Platform Team either.
So if you live outside the US and want to write for the Kindle you’re stuffed?
Not quite.
You can’t use Amazon and you can’t sell your ebooks at Amazon in the Kindle library.
But you can use the Mobipocket format - which is a free download (although Mac users would have to use it under a Windoze emulator).
Then you could sell the output from your own website or via Mobipocket themselves.
There is a proviso. Mobipocket format books with DRM don’t work. For those that don’t know, DRM is digital rights management - basically a way to protect copyright and stop people sharing their books with one another. If you choose not to have the DRM then you can publish the Mobipocket format for the Kindle.
Personally it’s not something I’d worry about. People have always shared books and always will. In fact I read somewhere that on average each book is read by four different people. It happens, don’t fret about it.
If I had a bit more time I’d set up a website and offer to convert other people’s text files into Mobipocket format and publish them for Kindle. There must be hundreds of authors around the world who are currently prevented from accessing what is potentially a very lucrative market.
If someone wants to take the idea further, do let me know.
A free download of the Mobipocket Reader and Mobipocket Creator Software can be found here. The issue of publishing with Mobipocket is a bit complex, publisher and retailer info can be found here.
I think the self-publishing / own website idea is definitely viable.
More information on the Amazon Kindle ebook here.
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