We’ve all been muddling through 2025 the best we can and looking for ways to control something in our lives—trying to identify something we can do so we don’t feel so helpless. I’m right there with you.

Recently there’s been talk about boycotting all products sold on Amazon. Jeff Bezos is a problematic billionaire, so it makes sense to want to hurt his bottom dollar—to withhold our purchasing power to try to affect change. But you might also have seen alarm from within the sapphic romance community, largely self-published authors, that the Amazon boycott is hurting them, not Bezos.

I thought it might be useful to pull back the curtain on self-publishing, Kindle Unlimited, and Amazon in general to help inform your choices, as well as elements of an effective consumer boycott from a historian’s perspective.

First: How to Tell If an Author Is Self-Published

Screenshot from Amazon paperback sales page for *Hoops & Heartstrings*

Check the publisher info on a book’s sale page on Amazon. If it says "Independently published," it’s self-published. If the publisher isn’t one you recognize, do a quick internet search—it could be that the author created an LLC.

Kindle Unlimited and Self-Published Authors

When I started self-publishing over a decade ago, I originally enrolled in Kindle Unlimited (KU) because I wanted to make my novels available to more readers. Coming from the read-for-free fanfic world, I didn’t want to gatekeep who could afford my books.

I don’t enroll in KU because it’s the best way to get an orange Best Seller sticker—I do it so the isolated queer kids living in rural America who don’t have a lot of money can find themselves represented in one of my books. It’s the same reason I keep the purchase price of my ebooks low ($4.99) even though the market indicates I could set my prices at $7.99 or $9.99.

I don’t rely on book royalties for my primary income, but so many of my self-published colleagues who are full-time authors do. And the simple fact is that most indie authors wouldn’t be able to do what we do without Amazon and Kindle Unlimited.

How Does KU Work for Authors?

This is an evergreen topic, and one I think every reader should know more about:

Authors get paid based on pages read (about $0.0045 per page). We only get paid for the first read-through, however. If a reader re-reads a book on KU, authors don’t get compensation for the second (or third or fourth) re-read.
An author who goes “wide” (i.e. makes their novels available at other online retail stores) cannot enroll in KU. In other words, to be enrolled in KU, an author must sell exclusively through Amazon.
Why would an author limit themselves to Amazon, you ask? The biggest incentive is royalty shares. By enrolling in KU and making books exclusive to Amazon, authors earn 70% royalties on their ebook sales versus 35%. So if my ebook is sold for $4.99, I make $3.49 instead of $1.75.
Amazon is the largest bookseller in the world. 85% of all book sales occur on Amazon. Selling directly from my website and/or moving to Kobo, Nook, Apple, etc., just isn’t profitable or viable. Until Congress recognizes Amazon’s monopoly for what it is, not even the Big Five publishers have the clout to stand up to them.

How Amazon Makes Money

And yet, Amazon is far more than an online bookstore. A large portion of its revenue comes from cloud computing (AWS), advertising, and third-party marketplace sellers.

Boycotting ebook purchases from Amazon or canceling your Kindle Unlimited subscription won’t impact their bottom line in a meaningful way. However, shifting non-book purchases to other retailers could have an effect.

Elements of a Successful Consumer Boycott

Consumer boycotts have a long history of success. We only need look to the Civil Rights Movement to see tangible examples. Sparked by Rosa Parks' arrest in 1955, the Montgomery Bus Boycott led to a Supreme Court ruling that segregation on public buses was unconstitutional. This was a particularly successful boycott since 75% of Montgomery’s bus ridership was Black and they avoided using the bus system for a year.

A consumer boycott is most effective when:

It’s well-organized and clearly defines its objectives.
It targets a specific product or service that significantly impacts a company’s profits.
It gains widespread public support and media coverage.
It’s sustained over a long period.

Here are some other examples:

From 1965-1970, led by labor leader Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers, Americans’ boycotts of California table grapes was so prolonged, it led to improved labor contracts for migrant grape pickers. In the 1990s, widespread backlash against Nike’s use of sweatshops forced the company to improve working conditions and implement better labor standards. And after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, consumers and environmental activists boycotted BP gas stations, forcing the company to spend billions on damage control and reputation management.

What do all of these companies have in common? Buses, table grapes, sports shoes, oil? They’re all a single product.

Amazon is a different kind of monster. When it comes to Amazon, books and KU subscriptions aren’t where they make their money. It would be like boycotting McDonald’s but only not buying their Chicken McNuggets.

You’ve ultimately got to do what’s best for you, but a consensus compromise I’m seeing online is to only use Amazon for Kindle Unlimited and/or ebook purchases while buying all other products elsewhere. If you want to hurt Amazon, reconsider where you buy household goods, electronics, and cloud services—not ebooks from independent authors.

For the naysayers who are critical of authors for “putting themselves in this position” (e.g. “It was irresponsible to put all your eggs in one Amazon-shaped basket”), would you say the same thing to someone who’s just been laid off from their job or was forced to take a pay cut/work less hours? “That’s on you—you shouldn’t have made yourself so beholden to one employer.” Chances are, no. For all intents and purposes, Amazon is the primary employer for many self-published authors—Amazon is their publisher. And if you don’t think writing full-time is an actual “job,” then we need to have another conversation.

It’s not my intent to bully or guilt anyone regarding their consumer habits; we all make our own decisions. But I’m an educator—that’s my job—and in this moment of so much confusion, dis/misinformation, and competing voices, it’s important more than ever that the choices we make be informed decisions, grounded in reality. The reality is that Amazon has an outsized influence on self-published authors and the entire book industry. For many independent writers, Amazon is not just a retailer but a lifeline. And while it’s fair to critique the monopolistic power of the company, it’s equally necessary to understand the repercussions of a boycott that disproportionately affects the most vulnerable participants in the ecosystem rather than its billionaire executives.

At the end of the day, ethical consumerism is about making conscious choices, not perfect ones. Acknowledging the complexities of the publishing industry and Amazon’s reach allows for a more nuanced approach to advocacy. If the goal is to start a revolution, let it be one that is informed, strategic, and mindful of those who would be most impacted by our actions.