In The News – Articles Of Interest For Authors
In a disturbing bit of news, it seems that Amazon has shut down the accounts of a few eBook sites and individual authors without warning or explanation. Some speculate that is because those sites are in competition with the new Goodreads features, others that this was part of a crackdown on link mining. at the Digital Reader tells us what he knows about the situation.
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Amazon Lowers the Boom on Discount eBook Sites
When Amazon-owned Goodreads launched its discount ebook service last month, I wondered whether Amazon would find reasons to prune back its competition.
The first to lose its affiliate status with Amazon was Fussy Librarian, which went under the axe the week before Goodreads announced. At the time it looked like that was an isolated incident, but now it has been followed by two more sites, Pixel of Ink and eReaderIQ.
Fussy Librarian continues to operate, but the fate of the other sites is less certain.
Pixel of Ink announced today that they have shut down. They didn’t give a specific reason, but did say that “due to changes in the eBook world and in our life, it is time for us to move on, and Pixel of Ink must now end”.
I’m still following up with PoI, so I can’t tell you the specific reason for its closure, but I do know that it wasn’t the only casualty. eReaderIQ has made a similar, albeit more detailed announcement today. They’ve posted a notice on their homepage to the effect that:
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