Last week, Amazon made it possible for people to read blogs on their Kindles. As Literary Saloon reports, many litbloggers signed up for this. Most blogs cost $1-2, but Amazon only gives 30 percent of that to the blog author. Immediately one flaw became apparent–you could register any blog, one you didn’t control, according to Techcrunch. Supposedly this has been fixed by now.
I’m on record as not being a fan of Amazon. I’m the killjoy always whining about supporting local businesses and the evils of the chains and Amazon. I’m not going to apologize for this. I’m not signing up for this either not just because I don’t post as often as others. I feel like I would be selling out if I signed up for the Kindle service as an independent bookseller. I understand the value of getting folks to read your blogs on e-readers, but I can’t support the Kindle, a gadget made by the company who is putting my people out of business. So there.
{Update} Check out Kat Meyer’s lengthier post about bloggers and the Kindle. She spells out some of the reasons against signing up.
Bookdwarf 
I just don’t understand the appeal of paying a buck or two for something I could get for free on any reasonable, unlocked network device. If you buy into the Kindle you’re buying into a walled garden that you have to pay to stay in all the time. I’m sure it’s a lovely piece of technology, but I don’t get the value proposition.
LikeLike
Yeah! Fight the power!
LikeLike
Hi Kat, came here via Ed’s Rants and I agree with all of you regarding this issue (and am watching Kindle Blogs like a tiger in case someone steals my stuff, hah!).
However I did see something about independent publishing on the Kindle that might interest you at The Millions earlier this week,
http://www.themillions.com/2009/05/finding-indie-opportunity-on-kindle.html
It’s quite a story.
Haven’t read this blog before, I will subscribe in our free reading world and ride alongside for a while.
Cheers,
Genevieve
LikeLike
While I’m not sure I agree with your point on big chains (pros and cons here and there, but I won’t get into them now… still, I respect your opinion), it’s true that the Kindle blog thing is fairly ridiculous. If I wanted to get paid for writing, I can find other ways of doing it. I don’t need to charge people for something that’s already free elsewhere…
LikeLike
I’m a new Kindle 2 owner and I did not own a Kindle I was very interested in the original Kindle, but had decided to wait for improvements based on customer feedback after it was released, especially the accidental page turning issue. Since it looked like they made the improvements I was waiting for (one of the others was a bit more free space on the case to hold it) I took the plunge and got the new one.
LikeLike