If you thought my opinion piece on “How Current Legislative Changes Threaten Small Presses, Authors, and Innovation” (published yesterday on IBPA’s website) was insightful, please brace yourself for this: Amazon is once again reshaping the publishing landscape—and this time, the consequences hit indie authors right in the royalties.

Read the original IBPA article here.

Let me explain what this means and why simply being “published” is not a business strategy.

In an industry already strained by shifting sales, rising production costs, and platform monopolies, Amazon’s latest announcement to adjust royalty rates on print books—slashing them from 60% to 50% for books priced below $9.99—should serve as a wake-up call for every author who thinks simply publishing a book equals profit.

“Starting June 10, 2025, we are changing the royalty rate for books priced below certain list prices (for example, less than 9.99 USD) from 60% to 50%.” — Amazon KDP announcement.

Let me say this as clearly as possible: successful authors don’t rely on book sales alone. Profitable authors build platforms. And in 2025, if you don’t have a strategic plan beyond uploading your manuscript to Amazon (or any platform), you’re setting yourself up for disappointment, not prosperity.

Why This Change Matters—And What Authors Miss

For many authors, especially self-published ones, pricing their book under $9.99 was a strategic move to stay competitive. But this new royalty cut turns that strategy on its head. It’s not just a 10% reduction—it’s a signal. A signal that if you’re depending on Amazon’s ecosystem alone for income, you are building your author career on rented land.

“Through the first two months of 2025, total sales from reporting publishers were down 1.7%. Sales of adult fiction books fell 4.3% in the two-month period…” — Jim Milliot, Publishers Weekly.

If the publishers themselves are struggling, imagine the impact on individual authors with no brand, no business foundation, and no monetization plan beyond book royalties.

This is exactly why I published my opinion piece How Current Legislative Changes Threaten Small Presses, Authors, and Innovation, where I called out the dangerous overreliance on platforms like Amazon and the structural vulnerabilities that small publishers and self-published authors face. As I noted in that piece:

“Without innovation and diversified revenue models, many small presses—and by extension, their authors—will find themselves squeezed out of the market altogether.” 

The Reality: Being Published Is Not the Same as Being Profitable

You can be a “published author” with an Amazon listing, a few copies sold to family and friends, and a shelf copy collecting dust. But that’s not the same as being a profitable author with a revenue-generating ecosystem.

Profitable authors do the following:

• Treat their book like a business, not a bucket list item.
• Build a signature platform—speaking, coaching, digital products, and merchandise that align with their book’s core message.
• Leverage media, podcasts, and speaking engagements to reach their audience beyond the bookstore.
• Create offers and experiences around the book: from courses to mastermind groups to brand collaborations.

And they do this whether publishing through KDP, IngramSpark, a hybrid press, or even traditionally.

What Publishers Weekly Reveals (and What Authors Must Learn)

According to Publishers Weekly, even big publishing houses are navigating tough waters. Adult nonfiction sales dropped 5.6% in February 2025 alone. Paperbacks took the hardest hit, declining 15.1% in that category.

So what does that mean for self-published authors? Simple: books alone are not the moneymaker. The book is a gateway—a powerful one—but it must connect to a larger system.

“With sales of $68.3 million, e-books were the second largest format in adult fiction in the month, trailing only sales of trade paperbacks.” — Publishers Weekly.