Welcome to the Kick Kindle Movement
Hello everyone!
If you’re receiving this newsletter, it’s because you signed up to receive information about books from authors who are divesting from Amazon. That means that you’ll get information about new books and new to you authors that you can buy from, share, and read to help support authors trying to escape the Amazon ecosystem. Between Amazon’s iron-fist control over publishing, its overabundance of AI generated books, and its active role in supporting fascist government entities, there’s really never been a better time to seek out books elsewhere, and I’m happy to help facilitate that process for you all!
First, I want to explain how this newsletter will work. I don’t want to spam you with excessive emails, so I’ll only be sending quarterly updates featuring new authors or previously shared authors with new work to promote. The goal will be to spotlight authors putting in the work and to curate the selection of shared authors and books to make discovering new work through the newsletter as convenient and efficient as possible. I may also send the occasional email offering special sales, giveaways, or other time-sensitive features for the authors included in this list, but anything that isn’t time-sensitive will be reserved for the quarterlies. The goal here is quality of emails, not quantity, so you won’t hear from me too much.
If you’re an author (or you know an author) who has made your books unavailable on Amazon, you can fill out this form to have your books featured here. Right now, I’m only taking one response per author so I can round up your list. I’ll open up for submissions of new releases, special releases, and sales in the future so those can be included in future roundups as well.
I also need to be upfront about the fact that the authors of this list include a mix of authors who’ve fully divested (no edition of any of their books is available on Amazon) and authors who’ve partially divested (authors who’ve actively removed some titles and editions from Amazon but may still have select titles and editions available there). This is because authors don’t have full control of our distribution and rights management, so depending on our contracts, we can’t pull all our books just from Amazon. All authors on this list will be designated as either having fully divested or having partially divested, so if you’re actively looking to support only those who’ve fully divested, you can make that decision as well.
Finally, every author featured here has agreed that their work does not use AI in any capacity. I do my best to vet the books, covers, and author promo as well, but as it’s not possible for me to read every book on the list or know whether people are using AI behind the scenes, feel free to contact me if you find that an author shared to this list has deployed the use of AI in any way with whatever evidence you have corroborating the claim. I’ll remove any author found to violate this policy, and no future work from them will be taken into consideration regardless of if those future works are AI free.
With all of that out of the way, I’m pleased to share the first roundup of authors divesting from Amazon. I’ve looked through all of their links, and there’s some great stuff here, so please check it out and consider adding some to your TBR.
Niranjan
About: An author and editor, Niranjan’s biggest ambition is to have a character named Garth in every book they write. Niranjan writes books rooted in mythical worlds, and their stories are often a combination of magic and futuristic technology.
When they are not writing or editing, Niranjan can be found cooking or just lying on their couch watching or rewatching C Dramas and writing fanfiction.
Links: https://authorniranjan.in/books/
*Partially divested; print books still on Amazon
Vanessa Ricci-Thode
About: Vanessa is the first self-published author to win a Nebula Award. She’s a Halloween enthusiast and a bookish geek who loves dragons, astronomy, and travel. If she’s not hibernating, she can be found in her butterfly garden, achieving her final form as a garden witch. She lives in Waterloo (no, the other one) with her spouse, daughter and very good dogs. Her self-published books, including The Dragon Next Door and the complete Fireborn series, are available everywhere except Amazon, and her short story “Billionaire's Tears” appears in Escape Pod. To learn more, visit her website thodestool.ca or follow her on social media @VRicciThode
Links: thodestool.ca/books
Fully divested
visceralhit
About: Writes adult queer SciFi/Horror
Links: https://payhip.com/b/p9YWj
Fully divested
Lily Flower
About: LilyFlower is a writer of queer science fiction, horror, and fantasy stories. They often explore themes of autonomy, curiosity, and power in their work.
Links: https://payhip.com/LilyFlowerBooks
Fully divested
**Adults Only!
Die Booth
About: Writes speculative and horror novels, short fiction, and zines
Links: https://diebooth.wordpress.com/writing/
Fully divested
Roo Fiction
About: Roo Fiction is an independent storyteller publishing books, games, zines and anthologies under his own imprint, Friction Press.
His work strives to show people of all different shapes and sizes experiencing pleasure, filth and joy—sometimes all at the same time. In his stories you will find sex, horror, violence, love, unconventional relationships, and all kinds of people fighting tooth and nail for a scrap of peace.
Links: frictionpress.com
Fully divested
**Adults Only!
Daniel F. Bispo
About: Writes Fantasy, SciFi and Horror
Links: https://danfbispo.carrd.co/
Fully divested
Elise Carlson
About: Elise’s love of fantasy and ancient history combine in their Young Adult Fantasy Ruarnon Trilogy, which blends the political structures of Old Kingdom Egypt with Greco-Roman warfare.
Links: https://elisecarlson.com/ruarnon-trilogy/
*Partially divested; print books still on Amazon
And that completes our Spring roundup! I’ll be back with more authors this summer.
These newsletters will be archived so you can always come back to lists and find authors you may have missed. Also, please consider passing these links around in your circles so people know where they can find their next reads!
Finally, if you’d like to support me or just learn more about my books, you can check out my Patreon and join as a free (find the option in the “…” menu) or paid member.
More soon!
Emery