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Lately, Amazon has been on a bit of a shutdown spree, quietly pulling the plug on some of its underperforming services. The latest casualties? Kindle Vella-Amazon’s attempt to take on Wattpad-and Freevee, its free streaming platform. Oh, and Kindle Flashcards, a tool meant to help with vocabulary building, is also getting the axe.
With all these cutbacks, it makes you wonder: is Amazon Book Clubs next to go?
Amazon Book Clubs launched in late 2020 as a bit of an experiment. The plan was easy – let readers join groups based on the genres they like, such as mystery, romance, or sci-fi. These clubs could be open to everyone or just for a few people. Each club showed a banner with its theme and a top book suggestion, which linked directly to Amazon. This sounds good, doesn’t it? But now, a few years later, the future of these clubs is not clear.
Setting up a book club on Amazon is actually pretty easy. You head to the Amazon Book Clubs page, create a club, choose privacy settings, and set the focus. As an admin, you get control over the reading list, past selections, and members. But here’s the thing-Amazon never really hyped this feature. No big marketing push, no flashy press release. In fact, a lot of people don’t even know it exists. And if Amazon isn’t making noise about it, how are book lovers supposed to find it?
That lack of promotion is kind of puzzling. Usually, Amazon pulls in bestselling authors to boost its book-related ventures, but that hasn’t happened here. Without major backing or a clear way to make money-whether through book sales, affiliate links, or membership perks-Amazon Book Clubs might just be another service that fades into obscurity.
So, what happens next? No one really knows. Given Amazon’s track record, there’s a good chance Book Clubs could quietly disappear, joining the ever-growing list of abandoned projects. But for now, it’s still hanging on-just barely.
