Quote:
Originally Posted by Justin Nemo
As I said way back in the deep dark depths of this thread, Amazon and Smashwords deem themselves as Epublishers now. You may think of them as only distributors, but do distributors put the kind of controls on a persons work as we've seen on other threads here?
So if these companies are publishers or epublishers and you use them, are you truly an indie author?
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Actually, Amazon is both a publisher and a distributor. If you upload your novel directly to Amazon through their KDP or KDP select program, they're a distributor.
Amazon Publishing is restricted to
these lines and works in the same way as traditional publishers. Amazon acquires the rights to publish your manuscript and takes on all the roles of a traditional publisher - editing, cover design, etc.
So unless your book is being released on Amazon through one of the publishing imprints on their Amazon Publishing page, you're an indie author making use of their bookstore as a distributor.
Smashwords ... they're distributors. They don't undertake any of the traditional roles of a publisher, so it would be a bit of a stretch to call them that - whether or not they self-identify that way.