I've heard my mother and my aunt say this many times. And I guess, if I followed my initial inclination, that's probably what I'd end up doing. Unhappy with the current behavior of the technocrats--Amazon, Google, and their ilk--I wondered what effect my holding up the publishing of my indie-produced books and novellas would have on Amazon. The answer will probably surprise you. Or maybe it won't.
One agent postulated via a tweet that books made up only a small percentage of Amazon sales. I set out to find out if that was true, and immediately hit a stone wall. Amazon is pretty stingy with their information, and this is one of the things I couldn't find out, using the typical search engines to look into the situation. I did find lots of other information about Amazon, and if you're interested, you probably will, as well.
It appears that Amazon has available about a million books for purchase. Mine represent an infinitesimal number of all those, and it probably wouldn't bankrupt the company if I withdrew from sales all the novels and novellas that I control. Besides, as has been pointed out, it's sort of nice to get that royalty check from them--even if it's smaller than I'd like.
What do you think? Whether published by a house of whatever size or self-published and sold on Amazon, even if you're a pre-published author or simply a reader, do you believe there's anything we can do to react to the actions of the tech giants? I'd be happy to hear.