This petition is designed to appeal to the organizers of BookBub, Written Word Media, Fussy Librarian and other paid newsletter services that require an Amazon link or ASIN to participate in their newsletter promos.

Some authors no longer want to drive business to Amazon. In fact, many authors have created their own direct stores and would much rather drive traffic to their stores instead of Amazon. Below are some of the most egregious issues with Amazon:

*Amazon has a restrictive exclusivity policy for their Kindle Unlimited (KU) subscription program, requiring an author's ebook to be exclusive to Amazon in order to be enrolled in the program. Furthermore, ONLY indie authors are relegated to this restriction. Traditionally published authors can have their ebooks in KU and on other retailers. This double standard is unfair and monopolistic.

*Amazon has a flood of AI written and AI narrated books, and many authors do not want their books to be listed with these books.

*Amazon has created AI enabled features that authors can NOT opt out of, forcing many authors to unenroll their ebooks from KU or delist their ebooks from Amazon completely.

To be fair, we realize many indie authors are enrolled in the Kindle Unlimited program, and we do NOT want to affect their business. We support our indie author friends in KU and want Amazon links/ASINs to still be allowed in these promos. We just don't want them to be required.

Instead, we ask that you allow the Amazon link/ASIN to be optional. In its place, we suggest that you allow the author to supply their direct store link, or to just leave the Amazon/ASIN option blank.

When we have asked this of your companies in the past, we have always received the same answer: "But readers love reading on their Kindles, and the majority of our subscribers are Amazon Kindle subscribers." Well, we have GREAT news for you. The vast majority of authors who have direct stores deliver their ebooks through BookFunnel, and BookFunnel ebooks can be delivered seamlessly to a reader's Kindle. Therefore, we consider this problem solved.

BookFunnel also handles customer service for any reader who downloads their book. So, we encourage you to put a disclaimer in each newsletter that your company is not responsible for delivery/loading issues to their Kindle. The author can then handle connecting the reader to BookFunnel if needed. You, as the paid newsletter service, are off the hook!

We have also gotten the feedback: "Some of our services do not require Amazon links." That's a good start, but we will not be satisfied until the Amazon/ASIN requirement is removed from ALL of the services you offer.

Lastly, we understand that paid newsletter services are affliates for Amazon and receive affiliate revenue for driving traffic to Amazon that they won't receive if they allow an author's direct store link instead of an Amazon link. Authors are business people, and we understand this concern. Therefore, we propose that you charge a premium to supply a direct store link instead of an Amazon link when an author signs up to use your service. Most authors are willing to pay extra to supply a link to their own store instead of a link to Amazon. This should make up for any lost affiliate revenue.

We look forward to seeing these changes implemented at BookBub, Written Word Media, Fussy Librarian and ALL paid newsletter sites. In the meantime, if you're seeing this petition and want to support indie authors, please sign up for the Buy Direct From Authors Substack and the Indie Audiobook Deals Substack. Those newsletter services do NOT require Amazon/Audible links, and they want to drive traffic to the sites that support indie authors in the way they choose for their business.

Thank you for supporting this petition!