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Ellen Fishbein ~ ALTAMIRA.STUDIO

The book Amazon burned

Published 7 months ago • 1 min read

Anyone can print a book using Amazon’s self-publishing service.

Well, almost anyone.

A few months ago, I met one of the only people who’s been barred from publishing a book on Amazon: Jason Levin.

Not only did Amazon stop Jason from publishing a book on their platform; they stopped him from even collecting pre-orders.

Why?

Because of the title: Memes Make Millions.

Amazon figured if a book had “Memes” in the title, there might be memes inside.

Oh, no! 😱

Based purely on the title, Amazon assumed there’d be a copyright problem.

Amazon didn’t care if the author had permission to use the images (he did).

Amazon didn’t care if it was possible to re-create the appearance of memes without exactly copying them (it is).

Amazon didn’t care if the book could help millions of creative people get recognized for their talents (it might!).

Amazon didn’t care for details. They simply shut down Jason’s pre-order page, repeatedly. They didn’t even explain why until the third rejection.

So there was no clear path to getting Memes Make Millions in print, until…

Jason found an independent publisher: my company, Altamira Studio. 🙂

We have the freedom to print whatever we want.

We set up a pre-order page for Memes Make Millions, designed the book in a lawyer-compatible way, and printed it—including lots of memes.

And it’s awesome!!

The book Amazon burned is now available at Altamira Studio. 📖🔥

Thanks for reading!

- Ellen

P.S. Wanna show your support for indie publishing? "Like" this Tweet​ :)

Ellen Fishbein ~ ALTAMIRA.STUDIO

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