How One Author Undermined Amazon's Monopoly

Having sold over 40 million copies, Brandon Sanderson is one of the bestselling fantasy authors alive. More than that, he is one of the most prolific. Since the publication of Elantris in 2005, he has written 32 novels (among them the epic-fantasy series Mistborn and the Stormlight Archives), as well as a substantial number of shorter works. So, although it may have been surprising, it should not have come as a shock when Sanderson revealed that, throughout 2020-21, he had written five secret novels.

The first he started writing only for his wife. He would write a few pages, let her read them, and then continue. The last he wrote for his son. That one he did not include in his Kickstarter, but the other four he did, and in one month in 2023, he crowdfunded a record-breaking $42 million to provide fans with the self-published novels and their associated merchandise.

It seems curious that he should self-publish, given that he already has a publisher. Yet it seems less so when we discover the extent to which publishing companies are subservient to Amazon. Although one might not picture the multi-trillion-dollar conglomerate as a ‘bookseller’, it is in fact the biggest in the world, controlling 50 per cent of the print book market, 63.4 per cent of the audiobook market, and around 90 per cent of the eBook market. Amazon has a monopoly over books, and as such it can (and has) extorted publishers and authors, and can (and has) leveraged unfair business practices to eliminate competition.

One way it does this is by sidelining publishers’ books to depress sales and pressure them into unjust deals. According to The Nation, in a 2014 dispute with Hachette, “Amazon marginalized the publisher on the site for eight months,” leading to an eighteen per cent drop in US sales in the year’s third quarter. In 2010, they did the same to Macmillan, Brandon Sanderson’s publisher, removing their books altogether over a dispute about eBook pricing.

It was at that point that Sanderson told The Guardian, “I realised I don’t work for the fans anymore, I work for Amazon, so I tried to get out from under its thumb.”

And that’s exactly what he did. Self-publishing his book through his company, Dragonsteel Entertainment, allowed the author to sell directly to customers rather than relying on distribution companies like Amazon. Thus, he deprived them of millions of dollars. A drop in the ocean, yes, but apparently not insignificant, since the author managed to leverage his market power to make Audible, an Amazon subsidiary, alter their royalty scheme in a way more amenable to authors.

You see, audiobooks are important to Sanderson as he has a dyslexic son for whom they are the primary mode of consumption. Therefore, when fans asked if the secret novels would be made available as such, he was amenable: the books would be available as audio files on Spotify and Speechify — but not on Audible. “[T]hey treat authors very poorly,” he blogged. “Particularly indie authors. The deal Audible demands of them is unconscionable.”

Indeed it is; for Audible takes a whopping 60 per cent of royalties from audiobooks — and that’s only if the author agrees to exclusivity with the platform. If they don’t, they take 75 per cent. Thanks to Sanderson, however, this has now changed; although the details of the new royalty scheme are vague, and the author himself writes that “there is still work to do,” the deal was sufficient to make him put his secret novels on the platform.

Yet we must remind ourselves that Amazon did not do this out of kindness; they did it because Brandon Sanderson is one of the bestselling fantasy authors in the world, and his boycotting of their platform potentially cost them tens of millions of dollars. They are not a kind company — but they are not all-powerful, either. And what Sanderson’s achievement demonstrates is how successful artists of all kinds can leverage their influence to negotiate better deals for their newer and less successful compatriots.

It took one author to make Amazon yield. Imagine if others did the same. 

Image from Wikimedia Commons