You’re probably acquainted by now with the new developments on the publishing world. If you are an author with intention to have multiples channels of distribution for your ebook be not fooled, Amazon KDP and Apple iBooks Author want exclusivity for your final draft! I guess we all had t coming but we didn’t expect it so soon!

You don’t have to analyse it much to get the full picture – both companies are investing millions of dollars to create platforms that allow authors to offer their material all over the place, but this will have to pay in the end! What else would they even consider the investment? Just think for a moment. Also don’t be fooled with Apple’s humble iBooks plans, I bet there is much more coming our way! I most certainly believe their next big move will be aimed at popular ebook genres and in direct competition with Amazon.

So, in the end when you have decided which one of the two giant platforms you will be tied to publish and market your ebook(s), you will unwittingly sign the death knell for independent publishing and along with it, platforms such as Smashwords.

Smashwords is a great publishing platform if you want to start publishing your own books in electronic format. Also, this platform allows you to distribute your books through various online ebook vendors. Direct sales using Smashwords has always been low as it couldn’t support a one-click delivery method, however, the great thing about this platform was the fact that you could easily use other vendors such as iBooks, B&N, Sony, Diesel and more. The death sentence was finally set to Smashwords as Amazon was not going to allow this tool as their ebooks supplier. Perhaps, Smashwords were never on Amazon’s corporate agenda, also from an Amazon’s point of view, by eliminating such platforms would only set them as the main game player in the ebook industry.

So at this stage, the only competitor that can potentially stop Amazon’s monopolistic vision is Apple – And what a Saviour you might add! The way things are heading, all one can hope for is a duopoly. But what do you think?

Are you an author or aspiring to be an author? What are your main concerns in regards to the book industry?