I watched a friend lose his entire income overnight when Amazon decided his book “violated community standards.” No appeal. No explanation. Just gone—along with three years of royalties and a thousand five-star reviews.
That’s when it hit me. Publishing platforms aren’t partners. They’re landlords. And like any good tenant, you better have an exit strategy before they decide to raise the rent or change the locks.
The Real Cost of Platform Dependency
Here’s what nobody tells you about self-publishing: Amazon, Apple Books, and the rest aren’t your friends. They’re infrastructure providers extracting rent from your creativity. Same as AWS charges for compute cycles, these platforms charge for distribution—except they’re also judge, jury, and executioner when it comes to your content.
I’ve seen this movie before. In IT, we call it vendor lock-in. You build your entire stack on one provider’s tools, then wake up one day to find they’ve changed the terms. Suddenly what was profitable becomes barely sustainable. What was sustainable becomes a money pit.
“The question isn’t whether Amazon will change the rules again. The question is whether you’ll be ready when they do.”
The real kicker? These platforms have trained authors to compete on price instead of value. Race to the bottom pricing. Permafree promotions. Kindle Unlimited payouts that barely cover coffee money. Meanwhile, the platform keeps 30-70% of every sale.
Sound familiar? It should. It’s the same extraction model every middleman uses: convince the producers they need the platform more than the platform needs them.
Building Your Own Distribution Kingdom
Smart authors in 2026 are doing what smart businesses have always done: diversifying revenue streams and owning their customer relationships. They’re not abandoning platforms entirely—that would be stupid. But they’re not building their entire empire on rented land either.
Direct sales are the foundation. Platforms like BookFunnel, Gumroad, and WooCommerce let you sell directly to readers. Yeah, you handle payment processing and delivery yourself. But guess what? You keep 95% instead of 30-50%. You own the customer data. You control the experience.
The authors winning this game treat platforms like paid advertising channels, not revenue sources. They use Amazon’s reach to find readers, then guide those readers to their own ecosystem. Newsletter signup incentives. Exclusive content for direct buyers. Community access.
It’s the same strategy every SaaS company uses: freemium acquisition, premium retention.
The Email List Empire Strategy
Remember when I said the real education came from places that didn’t care about credentials? Email lists are like that for authors. No algorithm decides who sees your messages. No platform can revoke your access. No terms of service can delete your subscribers overnight.
Building an email list isn’t just marketing—it’s insurance. When platform policies change, when royalty rates drop, when the next shiny algorithm decides your content isn’t “engaging” enough, you’ve still got direct access to people who actually want to buy your books.
The best part? Email converts better than any social media platform. Always has. Probably always will. Because when someone gives you their email address, they’re saying “yes, I want to hear from you.” That’s voluntary opt-in, not algorithmic force-feeding.
“Your email list is the only social media platform you actually own.”
But here’s where most authors screw it up: they treat their list like a billboard instead of a conversation. Weekly “BUY MY BOOK” broadcasts. No personality. No value beyond sales pitches.
The authors making six figures from their lists? They’re sharing stories, insights, behind-the-scenes content. They’re building relationships before they ask for money. They understand that attention is earned, not owed.
Multiple Revenue Streams, Single Source of Truth
The fishing industry taught me something publishing platforms don’t want you to know: diversification isn’t just smart, it’s survival. Bad weather, equipment failure, market crashes—single points of failure will kill you.
Authors building sustainable businesses in 2026 aren’t just selling books. They’re selling courses, coaching, speaking engagements, exclusive content, merchandise. The book becomes the business card, not the entire business.
Think about it: once you’ve written a book about project management, you could create a course, offer consulting, speak at conferences, write articles, start a podcast. One piece of intellectual property, multiple revenue streams.
But here’s the key: everything should point back to your owned platform. Your website. Your email list. Your direct sales funnel. Use the platforms for discovery, but own the relationship.
The Long Game of Creative Independence
Look, I’m not saying abandon Amazon tomorrow. That would be like deleting your social media accounts and expecting your business to thrive. Platforms have their place in a diversified strategy.
But if 100% of your author income depends on platforms you don’t control, you’re not running a business—you’re working for someone else’s business and calling yourself an entrepreneur.
The authors who will still be earning in 2030 are the ones building now. Direct sales infrastructure. Email lists. Multiple revenue streams. Customer relationships that survive algorithm changes and policy updates.
They’re treating their writing like what it actually is: intellectual property that can be packaged, distributed, and monetized in dozens of different ways. Not just digital sharecropping on someone else’s plantation.
Same rules for everyone, right? Except the platforms make the rules, change them whenever they want, and you get to live with the consequences.
Unless you build something they can’t touch.
So here’s the real question: Are you building a writing career that survives platform changes, or are you just hoping the landlord doesn’t raise the rent?
Scrivener.PRO 