For publishers and authors outside the Netherlands it may come as a surprise to learn that Amazon finally launched in the Netherlands this past week. A surprise because Amazon launched its Kindle Netherlands store way back in November 2014.
But until last Tuesday Dutch consumers could only buy ebooks and Prime Video from Amazon NL, and needed to use other Amazon stores to get other goods.
The Kindle NL launch, which incidentally was the last Kindle store launch by Amazon, was only ever half-hearted, leaving Bol.com in partnership with Kobo to dominate the Dutch ebook landscape.
But now Dutch consumers, while not yet barred from using other Amazon sites, can head to Amazon for a full panoply of goods previously unavailable across 26 categories rather than just 2, and that will bring more eyeballs to the store that may then checkout the Kindle NL store.
Print books?
Sadly at this stage it appears the only print books being sold are through third-part sellers and the bestseller chart is dominated by English-language titles, while even in the Kindle store over half the top 50 bestselling ebooks are English-language.
That will reflect in part that the Dutch are very comfortable reading English-language books, but perhaps more a reflection of the lack of engagement between Dutch publishers and Amazon.
The Amazon NL launch comes as Amazon prepares a similar venture in Poland.
Amazon also has stores in Singapore, the UAE and Turkey where books and ebooks are not a feature.
Hey Mark, yes, we finally have a full Amazon store here in the Netherlands! From what I’ve seen on the new NL site print books published via KDP Print are slowly appearing. Most of mine have make it through so far. Also hardcovers that I published via Ingram Spark have appeared.
The problem lies indeed in the fact that many Dutch publishers (trade and indie alike) haven’t seen Amazon as a priority so far. Mostly because Bol.com has such a monopoly here.
I have on my Dutch self-publishing blog always tried to get the Dutch indies to publish on KDP as well, but only a handful seem to see the merrit in that. Hopefully that will change now