Visitors could browse the categories and read the first 5,000 words of any novel, then nominate up to three books at a time for publication by Kindle Press.
Kindle Worlds was established on May 22, 2013 to provide a commercial venue for fan fiction creations of specific licensed media properties.
[12] In early 2008, Amazon began to allow sites such as Ars Technica and TechCrunch to add their blogs to the Kindle platform, and in May 2009, the program was opened to all.
Kindle Vella was a serial publication platform, introduced in 2021 as a competitor to Wattpad and Radish, and discontinued in February 2025.
[21] Publishers Weekly argued that Kindle Vella's partiality to smartphone interfaces and short clips of stories would attract younger readers to genre fiction.
[22] Android Central, in contrast, criticized Vella for its lack of appeal to authors, owing largely to its "token system" and its connection with Amazon as a parent company.
Supporting creators directly has also been an idea that has been gaining a lot of traction over the past few years, popularized by Patreon and Substack, and even extended into other content areas by sites like OnlyFans.
Large media companies like Apple and Spotify are also trying to get a piece of this action, with new creator tools and monetization options in their podcast platforms.
Given this growing trend and the fact that our attention is as short and divided as ever, it certainly makes sense that Amazon wants to find additional ways to attract and retain readers to its dominant Kindle platform.
This option provides authors with an opportunity to reach a wider audience, cater to readers who prefer hardbound editions, and potentially enhance the perceived value of their books.
[24] The revenue sharing condition and the inability to opt out of the lendability feature, that was abused in the former Lendink service, have caused some controversy.
[29][30] It has also been pointed out that Kindle Direct's authors and account-holders have no ability to completely delete retired files reverted to "draft" status from Kindle Direct's databases, a similar practice that CreateSpace followed, whereby a book can be unpublished for further new printing, but will indefinitely be stored on one or more of Amazon's digital servers, even if this version is considered inferior (outdated, typos and grammatical errors, formatting problems, wrong author name or deadname, etc.)
"[31] This is confirmed by Kindle Direct Publishing itself, which not only has the account-holder click a digital box confirming agreement with its Terms & Conditions, which mentions the indefinite storage of any uploaded files on its servers, but also on Kindle Direct Publishing's Frequently Asked Questions section, where it states, "You can delete books in "Draft" status from your Bookshelf.
Additionally, there is no legal protection or exceptions for minors or mentally ill and disabled individuals who happen to sign the Terms & Conditions agreement.
He pointed out that a number of other real Kindle titles promoting bleach cures and other misinformation were already prevalent on Amazon.
[35] Authors like Nora Roberts and Stephen King have had their work plagiarized and copied by users on Kindle Direct Publishing.
[36] Amazon, in turn, has defended its minimalist approach to quality control with the argument that self-publishing companies regularly run plagiarism checks on books being uploaded, typically against other content that they already have access to.
McLeod detailed his plans for these attacks, including using the actual names of some of the victims, in a series of novels called Sanction that he self-published to Amazon through Kindle Direct Publishing.