Amazon Books vs Google Books

2023. Amazon is attacked by AI-generated books



Amazon's Kindle Unlimited platform recently encountered a troubling issue involving an influx of AI-generated books that contained nonsensical content. The Top 100 chart for Best Sellers in Teen & Young Adult Contemporary Romance eBooks was flooded with AI-generated books designed to manipulate rankings and generate more clicks. Vice reported that out of the top 100 books on the chart, only 19 appeared to be legitimate. Although Amazon appeared to have taken action against these books, this incident emphasizes the problem of individuals spamming the platform with AI-generated material to profit from it. On Monday, Caitlyn Lynch's tweet referred to the situation as AI bots disrupting Amazon. She also shared a screenshot of the Teen & Young Adult Contemporary Romance category's Best Sellers list, which clearly showed that the majority of books were AI-generated and created solely for the purpose of click farming.


2023. Amazon makes Kindle Rewards Beta program less rewarding



Kindle Rewards is an exclusive beta program offered to specially invited customers by Amazon. Upon enrollment, customers have the opportunity to accumulate points by purchasing Kindle Books and Print Books, which can later be redeemed as credits for additional book purchases. However, there have been recent adjustments to the program, resulting in reduced earning rates. Now, customers will only receive 3 Kindle Points for every dollar spent on Kindle books and 1 Kindle Point for every dollar spent on print books. This is a significant departure from the previous credit system, where customers earned 5 points for Kindle Books and 2 points for print books. Consequently, customers are now required to accumulate 300 points in order to receive a meager $3 book credit. As a result of these changes, many participants in the Kindle Rewards program are dissatisfied, particularly with the decrease in points earned per dollar spent.


2023. Amazon launches cheap ebook discovery program



Amazon has recently introduced a new notification system called Great on Kindle for non-fiction titles in specific markets. This program offers several compelling features such as cheaper Kindle book prices compared to print editions, high-quality images that allow zooming in for a closer look and Wikipedia integration (which is already available in most Kindle books). "Great on Kindle" is prominently placed below the book formats (Kindle, hardcover, paperback, audiobook and CD) and has its own landing page that lists all the eligible ebooks. The "Great on Kindle" program offers significant benefits for consumers who purchase Kindle editions. However, the enrollment process for authors is another key feature that sets this program apart.


2018. Google Launches Talk to Books



Google has just introduced a new service called Talk to Books. It offers a completely novel approach to discovering books by focusing on individual sentences rather than authors or topics. You can make a statement or pose a question and the tool locates sentences in books that address your input, without relying on keyword matching. Essentially, you're engaging with the books, receiving responses that can help you decide if you're interested in reading them.


2017. Amazon is renaming Kindle Books to Digital Books



Amazon is altering terminology: Kindle eBook and Kindle Edition will now be referred to as Digital Book or eBook. Dropping the word Kindle from e-books clarifies to users that an e-reader is not necessary to access e-books, as there are now various platforms Amazon uses for reading or having books read aloud. For instance, you can now have e-books read aloud to you using the Amazon Echo and Alexa.


2016. Amazon Prime Reading is now available on iPhone and iPad



Amazon Prime Reading is a new initiative allowing you to read an unlimited number of books from a rotating selection of titles, similar to a scaled-back version of Kindle Unlimited. The platform features approximately 1,000 e-books and magazines and you can now access them on the Kindle app for iPad and iPhone. All the e-books are fully compatible with Page Flip, Popular Highlights, X-Ray and Goodreads.


2016. Google Books will now make better suggestions on what to read next



Google Books seeks to provide stronger competition to Amazon’s Kindle app by enhancing its capabilities for discovering new reading material. The new feature, named “Discover,” is a fresh section within the Google Books app designed to guide users toward new content, offering both personalized recommendations and suggestions based on popular trends within the broader community. It will propose new reads based on your activity in Google Books. Additionally, it will automatically recommend books featured in articles or videos you view elsewhere in the app, such as in the newly introduced “Weekly Highlights” section.


2015. Google Books project ruled legal by U.S. appeals court



A decade-long legal struggle appears to be nearing its conclusion. A U.S. appeals court has ruled that Google's book scanning project, Google Books, does not breach copyright law, according to Reuters. This verdict follows a lawsuit filed by the Authors Guild and some independent writers against Google in 2005, alleging that the company's project would adversely affect their income. The Authors Guild claimed lost revenue and sued Google in 2005, with a lower court in New York siding with Google in 2013. Google argued that its initiative would enhance author income by introducing potential readers to works they might not have otherwise encountered. The 2013 ruling was confirmed by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York on Friday, determining that Google's publication of excerpts constituted Fair Use and served the public interest.


2015. Amazon launched crowd-publishing platform Write On



Amazon has a new crowd-publishing platform called Write On, which is a direct rival to Wattpad, the social network with self-publishing authors providing their content for free and collaborating with the community to incorporate feedback into their ongoing projects. The Amazon version launched last October as an invite-only beta, but now it’s a complete product available to everyone and the beta label is removed. The Amazon platform enables anyone to share anything they’re developing at any stage. They can offer entire works, chapters, outlines, general character sketches, or even just single snippets and solicit the community for feedback. You don’t have to write to participate, either – anyone who wants only to read has plenty of content to explore and sample, organized by genre and there’s a “shuffle” feature that directs you to a random work.


2014. Amazon.com continues price battle against big publishers



Over the past few months, Amazon has been waging a quiet struggle with Hachette (one of the largest publishers in the world) to secure more for "co-op" (that is, marketing funds publishers spend with retailers to ensure certain in-store or, in Amazon’s case, on-website marketing). Amazon was reportedly making it more difficult for readers to obtain the company’s titles. In addition to being slower to deliver Hachette products to customers, Amazon has also ceased discounting Hachette titles as much as before. Last week, Amazon removed preorder options for upcoming titles from publisher Hachette. Remember, back in 2010, Amazon stopped selling titles from another major publisher - Macmillan. But after public outcry, Amazon surrendered.


2013. Google Books survives the copyright fight



The eight-year-long legal dispute between the Authors Guild and Google Books has finally concluded. New York Circuit Judge Denny Chin stated that the book scanning constituted fair use because it was “highly transformative” and did not harm the market for the original works. “Google Books offers considerable public benefits,” Chin wrote, describing it as “an invaluable research tool” and noting that the scanning service has increased literary access for the visually impaired and helped preserve the text of old books from physical deterioration. Chin also dismissed the notion that Google's online book database was depriving authors of revenue, observing that the company does not sell the scans or provide complete copies of books. Instead, he concluded that Google Books helps readers discover new books and results in “new revenue for authors.” The Authors Guild now has the option to appeal the decision.


2013. Amazon offering descounted ebooks for purchased print books



Amazon introduced a new initiative called MatchBook, offering customers a reward for purchasing a digital version of any physical book previously bought on the site. If you've ever purchased a printed copy of a book from Amazon, you can now acquire the Kindle version at a significantly reduced price — from free to $2.99. This offer extends to books bought as far back as 1995, when Amazon first launched its online bookstore. Besides being a valuable new advantage for customers, this also presents an opportunity for publishers and authors to earn more from each book they release. The program is set to launch in October.


2013. Overstock vs Amazon competition will reduce ebook prices



At the end of July, US online retailer Overstock.com launched a price war against Amazon, offering (for a week) 360,000 books at least 10% below Amazon’s prices. Following this, Amazon matched Overstock’s lower prices incrementally. Yesterday, Overstock announced it would extend its “10% below Amazon” price promotion for all books in its online store, so the price war will continue into a second week. While these are print books, the ebook market will likely be impacted as well.